The Yale expositor., 1912-05-30

urdW instantly should circumstances
warrant, and he was careful so to con
ceal himself as to give no possible op.
| portunity for her to discover his
scrutiny.
With a beating heart and eager
eyes he searched the spot There lay
the bear and little distance away
prone on the grass, clothed but wheth-
er in her right mind or not he could
not tell lay the woman. For moment
as he bent a concentrated, eager gaze
upon her he thought she might have
tainted or that she might have died.
In any event he reflected that she had
strength and nerve and will to have
dressed herself before either of these
things happened. She lay motionless
under his gaze for so long that he
finally made up his mind that COM
mon humanity required him to go to
her assistance.
He rose to his feet on the instant
and saw the woman also lift herself
from the grass as IL moved by a SINH
lar impulse. In his intense preoccu-
patton he had forgot to observe the
signs OF the times. A sense of the
overcast sky came to him suddenly as
1t did to- her. but with difference.
He knew what was about to happen,
| his experience told him much more
/ as to the awful potenttalities OF the
| tempest than she could possibly imag-
inc She must be warned at once,
she must leave the canon and get up
! on the higher ground without delay.
His duty was plain and yet he did it
not. He cp2ld not. The pressure
upon him WAS not yet strong enough.
A half do1sn times as he watched
her deliberately sitting there eating,
he opened his mouth to cry to her,
get he could not bring himself to it.
A strange tirTidity oppressed him;
halted him, held him back, A MAE
cannot stay away five years from men
and women and be himself with them
in the twinkling of an eye. And when
to that instinctiye and acquired reiuc
tance against which he struggled i'm
vain, he added the assurance that
whatever his message he would be
unwelcome on account of what had
gone before; he could not force him
self to go to her or even to call tO
Her, not yet. lie would keep her ur-
der surveillance, however. ana if the
worst came he could intervene in time
to rescue her. He counted without
mis- cost. his usual judgment bewfl-
dered. So he followed her through
the trees and down the bank.
Now he was so engrossed in her |
and so agitated that his caution slept |
his experience was forgotten. The |
storm in his own breast was SO great |
that 1t overshaGowed the storm brew
ing above. Her way was easier than |
his and he had fallen some distance |
behind when suddenly there rushed |
upon him the fact that frightfui and |
occur above their heads. A lightning |
flash and thunder clap at last ar
rested his attention. Then, but not |
until then, he flung everything to the |
winds and amid the sullen and almost
continuous peals Of thunder he sent |
cry after cry toward her which were
lost in the tremendous diapason of |
sound that echoed and re-echoed |
through the riffs of the mountains.
Wait" he cried again and again.
Come up higher. Get out of the |
canon. You'll be drowned
But he had waited too long The
storm had developed too rapidly; she
was too far ahead of and beneath him.
She heard nothing hut the sound of a
voice, shrill, menacing, fraught with
terror for her, not word distinguish
able; scarcely to her disturbed soul
even n human voice, it seemed like
the wierd cry of some wild spirit of /
the storm. 1t sounded to her over
wrought nerves SO utterly inhuman
that she only ran the faster
The canon swerved and then dou-
bled back, but he knew it's direction. !
Losing sight of her for the moment hc |
plunged straight ahead through the |
trees, cutting Off the bend, leaping |
with superhuman agility and strength !
over rocks and logs until he reached |
point where the rift narrowed be-
tween two walls and ran deeply. There |
and then the heavens opened and the |
floods came and beat into the open |
nav of that vast crevice and filled it
in an instant
AS the deluge came roaring down,
bearing onward the sweepings and /
scourings of the mountains, he caught |
a glimpse OF her white desperate face |
rising. falling, now disappearing, now /
coming into view again, in the foamy |
midst of the torrent. He ran TO the |
cliff bank and throwing aside his gun |
he scrambled down the wall to GER !
tain shelf Of the rock over which the |
rising water broke thinly. Ordinarily |
IL was twenty feet above the creek |
bed. Bracing himself against Jagged !
projection he waited praying. The
canon was here so narrow that he |
could have leaped to the other side /
and yet It was too narrow for him TO |
reach her II the water did not sweep |
her toward his feet. IL was all done in
a second. Fortunately a projection on
the other side threw the force of the