“It is to be hoped that you have something extra tough in the way of a backbone, then, for I’m rather more than feather-weight,” said Mike grimly; but he sprang up without a moment’s delay, and, letting down the rope he carried, fastened it so that the others could climb up in that fashion.
When they were all up, there was still another section of the bridge to be mounted in the same fashion, and again Edgar offered himself as a human step-ladder, but this time he was good-humouredly pushed aside by one of the others, who said that it was share and share alike on that venture. Mike was the first up again; but this time, instead of stopping to fix the rope for the next man, he hurried along the open planking, walking with the fearlessness of a cat on a roof ridge to the place where Bertha knelt with her arms round Mrs. Walford.
“The Good Lord be praised that you are safe, wife!” he exclaimed, his voice breaking unsteadily now for the first time since the knowledge of his wife’s danger had come to him.
“Mike! Mike! is it really and truly you?” cried the poor woman, lifting her head and gazing at her husband with a yearning light in her eyes, as if even now she could scarcely believe the good news true, despite the evidence of eyes and ears.
“Yes, yes, I’m here right enough; but how you two got up here is more than I can think. Why, it is nothing short of a miracle. Were you flung out of the car when it fell, or what happened to you?”
“We were not in the car when it toppled over, or it is a widower that you would have been at this moment,” said Mrs. Walford, with a shudder. “I was flung out of the car in trying to shut the door, and I was caught on this platform as I fell; then Miss Doyne crawled out after me, and climbed down to help me up to the track again. But, bless you! I couldn’t do that; my head was not strong enough. Indeed, my senses would have left me altogether, and I should have flung myself down into the river long ago, if she had not stopped me.”
“Poor soul! you have had a bad scare, and no mistake. But the fall saved your life, and Miss Doyne (God bless her!) saved hers when she came to your help,” said Mike, bowing low to Bertha, as if she were a royal princess. Then he went on, and the grim note came back to his tone: “But you’ve got to buck up, wife, for we shall have to haul you up on to the track somehow, and it rests with you whether you will climb up on your own two feet, like a decent Christian woman, or whether we have got to tie you like a calf and swing you out, to be dragged up hand over hand by sheer strength of arm. The rope is fairly strong, I know, but then you are not a light weight. There are only seven of us and the young lady, and it will be a tight job and a risky one to get you up that way.”
“I can’t go up, I can’t! I feel just like a fly walking on a ceiling, and my head gets lighter than a feather,” moaned the poor woman, hiding her head against her husband’s shoulder and sobbing like a baby.
“Funny creatures women are,” said Mike, in a tone of rueful apology, as he looked across at Bertha. “To see my wife going on like this, you might think her an awful coward; but she ain’t, not a bit of it. Why, when we were living at Denver, just after we were married, a hut caught fire, and there was a baby inside. Its own father and mother stood shrieking outside, but my wife, she dashed right in and fetched the poor mite out, though the gown was burnt off her back, and she hadn’t a hair on her head for six months afterwards. Then, five years ago, when I first joined the police, and we was stationed wide of Edmonton, there was a poor fellow down with smallpox; she nursed him through it all, and saved his life, too, though grown men were scared to fits at the thought of going near him.”
“There, do be quiet, Mike. I wonder what you will be saying next?” cried Mrs. Walford, but with a thrill of so much gratification in her tone, that Mike looked across at Bertha, and was actually guilty of something approaching a wink, for which indiscretion he promptly apologized by coughing violently.