"Why not?" asked Philip, a little impatiently.
"Because—I—think—my leg is broken!"
"Grace!"
But she had fainted.
CHAPTER V.
OUT OF THE WOODS—INTO THE SHADOW.
Happily Grace was wrong. Her ankle was severely sprained, and she could not stand. Philip tore up his shirt, and, with bandages dipped in snow water, wrapped up the swollen limb. Then he knocked over a quail in the bushes and another duck, and clearing away the brush for a camping spot, built a fire, and tempted the young girl with a hot supper. The peril of starvation passed, their greatest danger was over—a few days longer of enforced rest and inactivity was the worst to be feared.
The air had grown singularly milder with the last few hours. At midnight a damp breeze stirred the pine needles above their heads, and an ominous muffled beating was heard upon the snow-packed vault. It was rain.
"It is the reveille of spring!" whispered Philip.