Frank Merriwell's Champions: or, All in the Game. Standish Burt L.
done, he scooped up some of the water in his cap and began to bathe her hands in it, and to sprinkle it in her face.
But Nell Thornton was so slow to return to consciousness that Bruce was about to rip up the sleeve of her dress to ascertain the nature of the wound from which the blood still trickled, when she stirred uneasily.
Thus encouraged, he renewed his efforts, and a little later had the pleasure of seeing her eyes flutter open.
She stared in a puzzled way up into his face, then tried to get on her feet.
“Let me help you,” Bruce begged, slipping an arm beneath her head.
“Whar – whar am I?” she demanded, putting up a hand protestingly.
“You are hurt, and you fell in the path up there, a little while ago,” Bruce explained. “I brought you down here by the brook.”
She looked at her hand, saw the blood, and made another effort to get on her feet.
She succeeded this time, standing panting and wild-eyed on the rocks.
“I’m not hurt ter speak on!” she asserted. “I ’low ez how I must hev got dizzy-like an’ fell, but I ain’t hurt ter speak on.”
She seemed about to start on down the path, but checked herself, with the feeling that perhaps something in the way of an acknowledgment was due this handsome stranger, and continued:
“I’m ’bleeged to you. ’Twas a acks’dent, the way it happened. I war behint the tree, an’ they didn’t see me tell I stepped out, an’ then the arrer war a-comin’, an’ it war too late to be holped.”
“Then one of the arrows struck you, as I feared!” growled Browning. “Do you think you are much hurt? Perhaps you had better make an examination. The wound seems to be bleeding pretty freely.”
She drew the sleeve down, as if to hide the telltale color.
“Plenty time fur that when I git home, which, ef I ever git thar, I’d better be humpin’ myself along, too!”
Again she moved as if to start down the path, but was checked by Browning’s words:
“You are in no condition to go alone, Miss – Miss – ”
“My name’s Nell Thornton,” she said, coloring slightly, “ef that is what you mean. But these hyar mounting people don’t waste no breath a-sayin’ of miss an’ mister.”
Still, Browning could see that she was pleased.
“Miss Thornton,” he said, holding the cap, from which the water still dripped, “permit me to introduce myself. My name is Bruce Browning, and I belong with Frank Merriwell’s party, which arrived in Glendale only the day before yesterday. We have become members of the Lake Lily Athletic Club since, and it may be that the arrow which struck you was shot by one of my friends, for they are taking part in the archery shoot up on the hill.”
It was a very long speech for Bruce Browning, as he himself realized, but it slipped off his tongue very easily, under the circumstances.
“So I more than ever feel that it is my duty to assist you,” he continued, “and to see that you reach home without further accident.”
“I dunno what dad’ll say ’bout that,” she observed, shyly. “He allus declar’s ez he ain’t got no use fur citified people, with thar store clo’es, an’ sich. So I reckon it’d be an uncommon good piece o’ hoss sense ef you’d track back up the hill.”
“No, I can’t leave you that way,” declared Browning, who, looking into her white face, saw that she was so weak she was again on the point of falling. “You are in no condition to go on alone, Miss Thornton. I can’t permit it.”
Then he squeezed the water out of his cap, got himself into his coat, and prepared to assist her down the hill and to her home.
Bob Thornton’s cabin, the home of Nell Thornton, did not differ materially in its general aspect from other cabins Bruce Browning had seen in the mountains, except that it was larger. A bar of light from the descending sun fell through a wooded notch in the hills and lit up the small panes of its one window with a ruddy fire. A morning-glory, with closed petals, clambered up the rough stick-and-mud chimney, as if trying to hide its unsightliness, and a gourd vine swung its green, pear-shaped bulbs over the door.
Nell Thornton had seemed to gain strength as the journey continued, and had not often needed Bruce’s helping hand, even where the way was rough. Now she stopped in the doorway, as if she did not desire him to go further.
“I’m ’bleeged to ye!” she said, apparently at a loss for words with which to express her thanks. “My arm ain’t hurtin’ so much ez it did, an’ dad’s a master hand ter fix up a wound like that. I don’t doubt it’ll be all right by ter-morrer. I’m sorry you los’ so much time a-troublin’ with me.”
“Don’t mention it,” begged Bruce. “I’m glad to have been of assistance.”
Then he lifted his cap, and moved grumblingly away.
“Good-by!” she called, timidly.
Bruce turned and faced her.
“Good-by!” he said, again lifting his cap.
He saw her vanish into the cabin, and once more sought the blind path that led from the cabin up the mountain.
“It will be darker than a stack of black cats before I get back to the cottages,” he growled. “What in thunder makes anybody want to live in such an out-of-the-way place as this?”
He had almost forgotten the chill which he feared was coming, but now he again drew the coat collar about his throat, and began to shiver, as he plodded on.
“That everlasting Arkansas malaria will be the death of me yet!” he groaned. “I feel just as if a lot of icicles were chasing up and down my spine. I wonder which one of the fellows it was shot that arrow?”
The sun dropped out of sight, and the shadows gathered quickly in the hollows of the hills. The exertion of climbing warmed Bruce, bringing the perspiration out on his face and body. He pushed back the collar of the coat, and mopped his face. Then went on again, slipping, sliding, grumbling.
“I thought this path ascended all the time,” he growled, peering into the thickening gloom. “I don’t remember this slope, but of course we crossed it in coming down. These hills and hollows look bewilderingly alike in this light.”
Half an hour later, he came to a dead stop, with the unpleasant feeling that he had wandered from the right path and was lost.
“Here’s a pretty kettle of fish!” he groaned. “I’ll take on another cartload of malaria if I have to lie out in these woods to-night. Well, it’s no use to turn back. I couldn’t find Thornton’s cabin if I tried.”
When he had stumbled on for another provoking half hour, with the darkness increasing, he came to another halt. A gleam of light, from a lamp or candle, reached him through the trees.
“I can inquire my way there, if nothing else,” he reflected, “and perhaps if it seems impossible for me to get home, I can find a bed for the night.”
Though still in a grumbling humor, he went on again with a decided feeling of relief, which changed to one of surprise and bewilderment when he was near enough the light to make out the manner of house from which it issued.
He had returned to Bob Thornton’s cabin!
CHAPTER V – HAMMOND’S PLOT
“I don’t see how I could have done that,” Bruce Browning growled, unpleasantly mystified. “I don’t suppose Nell will be very glad to see me, and probably she will think I came back purposely. But her ‘dad,’ as she calls him, will have to show me the way out of this place, or give me shelter.”
He walked toward the door, the soft carpet of grass and leaves muffling the sound of his footsteps. But at the corner of the cabin he was brought to as sudden a stop as if struck in the face.
“His