The gully was, I suppose, some forty or fifty feet deep, and per
haps as many wide, with a small stream flowing down its middle.
The sides of the ravine were overgrown with strong creeping
vines, and by these I determined to descend to the bottom. Sling
ing my gun over my shoulder, I lowered myself over the edge
and began to go down hand over hand. A shower of small stones,
loosened by my weight fell clattering down the face of the cliff.
And then—a woman’s piercing scream!
‘ ‘ I was so startled that I came near losing my hold upon the
vines and following the goose. Then, with a rapidity bordering
almost upon recklessness, I scrambled to the bottom. The sight
that met my gaze almost took my breath. There, face upturned,
lay a pretty young girl, from a deep bruise on whose temple issued
a thin stream of blood, which crept down over her pale cheek; I
understood it all. One of the loose stones had struck her and she
fainted. But a more perplexing question assailed me. How did
this young girl, with all the traces of good birth, as I could see
by her dress and features, come to be here ? Very evidently the
only way to know was to hear it from the unknown herself.
Taking a folding cup from my pocket I ran to the stream and
soon returned with it full of cold water.
‘ ‘ Then, with my handkerchief, I managed to bathe the wound
and bind it up. I had barely accomplished this novel task when
my fair companion showed signs of recovering consciousness. In
a moment more the dark eyelashes raised and a pair of deep brown
eyes looked startedly up at me.
‘ ‘ ‘ Where —where am I?’ she asked in a frightened voice.
‘ And who are you ?’
‘ ‘ But before I could answer she had begun again:
“ ‘ Oh, yes, I remember, I was walking here when a stone fell
from the cliff and struck me and I felt myself falling. I guess I
must have fainted.’ And she raised her hand to her forehead.
‘ Oh, you' have bandaged it, ’ she cried.
“ Then I told her all I knew of the accident; how I had heard
her scream and later on found her in a dead faint; and how I had
bound up the wound and brought her to consciousness. I con
cluded by asking her pardon for the injury I had unintentionally
inflicted. She forgave me entirely, accompanying it with the
prettiest of little smiles, and then asked:
“ ‘ How is it that you, evidently a city-bred person, are in such
an out-of-the-way place as this?’
The Free Lance,
[February,