"It can't be," began Mrs. Maitland in great anguish for the girl she had grown to love.
"Ef she seed the storm an' realized what it was, an' had sense enough to climb up the cañon wall," answered the other, "she won't be no worse off 'n we are; ef not—"
Mrs. Maitland had only to look down into the seething caldron to understand the possibility of that "if."
"Oh," she cried, "let us pray for her that she sought the hills."
"I've been a doin' it," said the old man gruffly.
He had a deep vein of piety in him, but like other rich ores it had to be mined for in the depths before it was apparent.
By slow degrees the water subsided, and after a long while the rain ceased, a heavy mist lay on the mountains and the night approached without any further appearance of the veiled sun. Toward evening Robert Maitland with the three men and the three children joined the wretched trio above the camp. Maitland, wild with excitement and apprehension, had pressed on ahead of the rest. It was a glad faced man indeed who ran the last few steps of the rough way and clasped his wife in his arms, but as he did so he noticed that one was missing.
"Where is Enid?" he cried, releasing his wife.
"She went down the cañon early this mornin' intendin' to stay all day," slowly and reluctantly answered old Kirkby, "an'—"
He paused there, it wasn't necessary for him to say anything more.