Madge Morton's Trust

by Amy D. V. Chalmers

The man and the woman stared at the girl as though they had seen an apparition. She was so deathly pale it was not strange that they thought at first that she was not alive.

Both the man and the woman kept close to the ground, so as not to inhale the odor of the coal gas. The old gypsy took Eleanor's limp, white hand. "She is alive," she whispered to the man.

The man nodded. He realized at once that the woods were being searched, not for him, but for this lost girl. He could not imagine how the girl had wandered into this dreadful place of concealment. But she was certainly innocent of any wrong or suspicion of him. Yet, if she stayed in the coal mine with them all day, she might die.

There has hardly ever been born into this world any human creature who is wholly wicked. The man in the mine with Eleanor was not a cruel fellow. He had one strange, wicked theory, that the world owed him a living and he would rather steal than work for it.

Unexpectedly Eleanor opened her eyes. She did not cry out with terror. She was no longer delirious. She smiled at the man and at the old woman in a puzzled, friendly fashion. "It is so dark and dreadful in here! Won't you take, me out?" she pleaded.

Fortunately Eleanor had fallen near enough to the entrance of the mine to get the fresh air from the outside. She struggled to sit up, but the pain in her shoulder again overcame her.

"How did you get in here?" the man asked Eleanor suspiciously.

"I don't know," she answered, beginning to cry gently. "Please take me out."

The man realized that whatever was to be done for Eleanor must be done at once. Every minute that passed made it the more dangerous for him to return to the forest. Later on, when the woods were full of people, he would not dare leave the mine. He knew that even now he was risking his own freedom if he carried the girl out from the safe shelter that concealed them.

The man lifted Eleanor in his arms as gently as he could. She cried out when he first touched her; then she set her teeth and bore stoically the pain of being moved.