With feet and hands she strove to loosen the tough, wiry vines.—[Page 119].
She had cried until she could cry no more, and the sturdy vines had cut and bruised her.
So firmly was she bound that she could not sink to the grass to rest, and she had only the hard, rocky ledge to lean against.
How still the woodland seemed! Sometimes a twig would snap, or a buzzing insect would pause, as if to look at her, but no one came to set her free.
She waited for a moment to regain her breath, and then again she fought and struggled with those tough, sturdy vines.
She tried to wrench them apart, to break, to tear them from her, but they only yielded enough to bend, and then snap back into the very place that she had pushed them from.
Not a vine broke, not a stem gave way, and she set her lips tightly for yet greater effort!