Williams news., 1921-07-15

It was only a whisper, at first. Yet | she was coming nearer; and her own l voice sounded louder. Here, Snow bird" he called again. She heard him then: he could tell by the startled tone of her reply. The next instant she was at his side. her tears drop ping on his face.
 With a tremendous effort of will he
 recalled his speeding faculties. "I don't think I'm badly hurt" he told her very quietly. "A few ribs broken and a leg. But we'll have to winter
 here on the Divide, Snowbird mine'
 "What does it matter, if you live7''
 she cried. She crawled along the pine
 needles beside him, and tore his shirt
 from his breast. He was rapidly sink
 ing into uneonsciousness. The thing
 she dreaded most-that his back might
 be broken-was evidently not true.
 There were, as he said, broken ribs
 and evidently one severe fracture of
 the leg bone. Whether he had sus-
 tained internal injuries that would
 end his life before the morning. she
 had no way of knowing.
 At this point, the problem of saving
 her fathers life fell wholly into her
 hands, His broken body could not be-
 carried over the mountain road to
 physicians in the valleys. They must
 be transported to the ranch. It would
 take them a full day to make the trip.
 even if she could get word to them at once; and twenty-four hours without
 medical attention would probably cost
 her father his life. The nearest tele-
 phone was at the ranger station.
 twelve miles distant over a mountain
 trail. The telephone line to Bald
 mountain. four miles off, had been dis
 connected when the rains had ended the peril of the forest fire.
 It all depended upon her. Bill was driving cattle into the valleys, and he and his men had in use all the horses on the ranch with one exception. The remaining horse had been ridden by Dan to some distant marshes. and as Dan would shoot until sunset. that meant he would not return until ten o'clock. There was no road for a car to the ranger station. only a rough steep trail, and she remembered, with a sinking heart, that one of Bills mis- sions in the valley was to procure a new lighting system. By no conceiv- able possibility could she drive down that mountain road in the darkness. But she was somewhat relieved by the thought that in all probability she could walk twelve miles across the | to the ranger station in | much less time than she could drive, | by automobile, seventy miles down to | the ranches at the foothills about the | valley.
 Besides, she remembered with a heart that Richards. one of the rangers, had been a student at } medical college and had taken a po- sftion with the forest service to re- gain his health. She would cross the 'idge to the station, phone for doc! or in the valleys, and would return ,n horseback with Richards for such 1rst aid as he could give. The only problem that remained was that of getting her father into the house.
 He was stirring a little now. Evil lently consciousness was returning to jim. And then she thanked heave6 or the few simple lessons in first aid hat her father had taught her in the lays before careleSsness had come lpon him. One of his lessons had een that of carrying an unconscious uman form-a method by which even
 woman may carry, for a short dis | ance, a heavy man. It was approxf- nately the method used in carrying in No Mans Land: the body brown over the shoulders. one arm | trough the fork of the legs to the rounded mans hand. Her father was ot a particularly heavy man. and she l yas an exceptionally strong young , yoman. She knew at once that this roblem was solved c
 The hardest part was lifting him to I CT shoulders. Only by calling upon ' CT last ounce of strength. and tug ' ing upward with her arms, was she I h1o fn dn p11f irlx | l her desperation, to carry him down , ne hill. What rest she got she took ' y leaning against a tree, the limp ody still across her shoulders.
 It was a distance of one hundred ards in all. No muscles but those aimed by the outdoors, no lungs ex- :. ept those made strong by the moun- lin air, could have stood that test. he laid him on his own bed on the Il 'wer floor, and set his broken limbs s le best she could. She covered him s p with thick, fleecy blankets, and set a
 bottle of whisky beside the bed. O hen she wrote a note to Dan and S lstened 1t upon one of the interior d DOTS. O She drew on her hob-nafled boots -' eeded sorely for the steep climb Id pocketed her pistol. She thrust u andful Of jerked venison into the f, ,cket of her coat and lighted the Ian- lt Tn. The forest night had fallen soft c Id vibrant and tremulous, over the s