Middletown transcript., 1921-02-26

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 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 mountain
trail. The telephone line to Bald
mountain, four miles of, 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 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 d walk twelve miles across the
mountains 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
gladdening heart that Richards, one
of the rangers. had been student at
a medical college and had taken a po-
sition with the forest service to re-
gain his health. She would cross the
ridge to the station, phone for doc
tor in the valleys. and would return
on horseback with Richards for such
first 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
dently consciousness was returning to
him. And then she thanked heaven
for the few simple lessons in first aid
that her father had taught her in the
days before carelessness had come
upon him. One of his lessons had
been that Of carrying an unconscious
human form-a method by which even
a woman may carry, for a short dis
tance, a heavy man. 1t was approxi-
mately the method used in carrying
wounded in No Mans Land: the body
thrown over the shoulders, one arm
through the fork of the legs to the
wounded mans hand. Her father was
not a particularly heavy man, and she
was an exceptionally strong young
woman. She knew at once that this
problem was solved.
The hardest part was lifting him to
her shoulders. Only by calling upon
her last ounce of strength, and tug
ging upward with her arms, was she
able to do it. But it was fairly easy,
in her desperation. to carry him down
the hill. What rest she got she took
by leaning against tree, the limp
body still across her shoulders.
1t was a distance Of one hundred
yards in all. No muscles but those
trained by the outdoors, no lungs ex-
cept those made strong by the noun
tain air, could have stood that test.
She laid him on his own bed, on the
lower floor. and set his broken limbs
the best she could. She covered him
up with thick, fleecy blankets, and set
a bottle Of whisky beside the bed.
Then she wrote a note to Dan and
fastened it upon one of the interior
doors.
She drew on her hob-nailed boots
needed sorely for the steep climb
and pocketed her pistol She thrust a
handful of jerked venison into the
pocket of her coat and lighted the Ian
tern. The forest night had fallen, soft
and vibrant and treinulous, over the
heads Of the dark trees when she
started out.
(TO BE CONTINUED