In Blue Creek Cañon

by Anna Chapin Ray

"Thank you, but I'm caught here, and can't seem to find a spot that will bear me. Don't trouble yourself; I shall get out in a moment. Oh, don't try to come here!" she added hastily, as he made a motion as if to go nearer her. "If you do, you will never get out."

The stranger paused doubtfully and looked at her again. There was a tone of good-breeding in her voice, and, as he came nearer, he saw that she was pretty, with a delicate, refined beauty which was not in keeping with her great bundle, her bedraggled appearance, and the hat cocked rakishly over one ear, above the drooping braids of yellow hair. At first sight, he had taken her for a pretty servant, out in search of a new place; but now he realized his mistake, and offered her a mental apology for his error.

"Perhaps I can tear a board or two off from that fence over there," he suggested, after a fresh survey of the field. "If you can stay there for a few minutes, I'll be back with some of them, and make a bridge."

In spite of herself, Louise laughed at the absurdity of her plight.

"Stay here!" she echoed; "I wish I could do anything else. But," she demurred, "I am afraid you will get into trouble, too."

But the stranger had already gone. A moment or two later, he was back again, with two long boards under his arm, as he picked his way along towards the young woman to whose rescue he had so valiantly devoted himself. Once back at his old station, he dropped one of the boards on the snow, pushed it towards her, tested its strength, and then walked the length of it, in order to place the other board in position. This second bridge brought him to her side.

"Now," he said gravely, as he bent forward and held out his hand, "let me take the bundle first."

Obeying him as implicitly as a child might have done, Louise handed him the great bundle the ragged corners of which bore unmistakable signs of her recent adventure, and he carefully conveyed it to a place of safety. Then he returned to the spot where she was standing in a sort of open pool, which was growing wider and deeper with her every motion.

"Please take hold of my hand," he said, with the same quiet courtesy which he might have shown in asking her for a waltz, though he pressed his lips firmly together, to keep back the smile which was trembling there. "Now, can you step up on the end of this board?"

For a moment Louise hesitated. The step was a long one, and, in her soaked condition, she had lost all her wonted elasticity of motion. However, something in the stranger's face made her feel that it was best for her to obey, with as few words as possible; so she mustered all her strength, made a violent effort, and scrambled up to the end of the board, striking it with a force which sent it swinging far to the left. For one instant she balanced herself upon her slippery foothold; then she fell backward with a suddenness that carried her rescuer with her, and they both plunged head foremost down into the gray pool below, just as Grant and Ned came out at the chapel door, to look for their missing sister.