“The lieutenant is about now and has examined the airplane. It is not damaged beyond repair, and he is at work on it. He hopes to be able to make another attempt to reach the Valley of Arcana in a few days, if the weather continues to clear. We will circle over the valley, when we locate it, and try to make a landing on the lake. It must be frozen over, and we think that the high winds that have been blowing ought to clear the ice of snow. If not, landing will be a serious matter; but we hope for the best.
“This is all, Charmian, and I hope fervently that God will direct this message into your hands. Your single stream of smoke tells me that you are alive, and I thank Him for that. If Andy is in the condition that I think he is, you will realize now that you can never marry him. Even though we are able to bring him back to his old buoyant self, marriage is out of the question for him. He has no right to bring children into the world, which may be cretins, as he is. Knowing him as I do, I feel sure that, when he realizes his condition, he will give you up to me if it kills him. Poor Andy! I know that this must be a bitter blow to you, and I am sorry. But you must be told the truth now, and Andy must know too. If he comes back before we reach you, tell him everything.
“God bless you and help you.
“Devotedly,
“Inman Shonto.”
For a long time after reading the message Charmian sat staring at the fire. Absent-mindedly she opened the packages—found tablets, coffee, sugar—all dry. Then she suddenly realized that she was growing cold again, and rose to put on such dry clothes as she could find. With these on, and the blanket again wrapped about her, she went out in a sort of stupor and built a second signal fire about a hundred feet from the first. She returned to the cave and seated herself again, drying her clothes before the blaze. She was stunned, stupid. She could not think. It was the cold, she told herself. Everything was all right now. Inman Shonto would come to her soon. She would hear a human voice again—his voice!
Her chin sank to her breast and she fell sound asleep sitting upright before the fire.
Days had passed—how many Charmian Reemy did not know—before she heard the hum of the airplane in the sky above the Valley of Arcana. Another storm had raged since she had received the doctor’s message, and the mystic snow banners had streamed above the sink from the surrounding peaks. She had realized that it was impossible for him to reach her under these conditions, and had bravely submitted to the inevitable. Daily she cooked and ate her simple food. How delightful was the coffee! Daily she gave the cretin his tablet—forced it between his swollen lips and washed it down his throat with water, often nearly choking him.
Gradually the miracle took place. Slowly but surely the film left the eyes of the sufferer, and day by day they brightened. The swelling left the protruding tongue. The sallowness departed from the skin. The flabbiness departed. The lips became dry and firm. The asthmatic wheeze was gone from his breathing. The bloated, baglike abdomen receded. The light of reason came back in his eyes, and he drew in his protruding tongue repeatedly, glancing shame-facedly at Charmian to see if she had observed.
He smiled at her. He began to mumble. Then words came, and finally simple, broken sentences expressing the sufferer’s wants.