Suddenly the thought occurred to her that in starting back they might have entered the wrong ravine. There must be many such shallow fissures on the mountain-side. She heard near at hand the trickling of a spring, and stopped aghast. They had passed no spring on the way out. She was too thoroughly country-bred not to have taken note of running water instinctively, as animals do.
"Lost!" she whispered to herself; lost in wild country, between midnight and dawn, with a wounded man on her hands and—no stockings on! The choking giggle she gave was more than half hysteria.
Then, without a word, Channing pitched forward on his face.
That steadied her. In a moment she had brought water in her cupped hands from that providential spring, had found his pocket-knife, ripped up his trousers-leg, and bandaged the wound as coolly as Jemima herself might have done it, though the sight of the blood nauseated her. She bathed his face with a wet handkerchief, but his eyelids merely fluttered once and were still again. In a panic she lifted his head to her bosom, trying to warm his cheeks; kissed him on the lips again and again, violently, begging him to wake and speak to her. It is a pity that the collector of impressions was unable to appreciate these man[oe]uvers.
"What shall I do? What shall I do?" she moaned.
He had bade her leave him and run for help—but did she dare? Even as she considered it, there was a rustling in the underbrush, and startlingly near at hand sounded the eerie cry that had frightened her earlier in the night. It did not frighten her now, oddly enough. She regretted the pistol she had left in the cabin. Her hand tightened on the pocket-knife, however, and she placed herself between Channing and the direction of the sound.
"Go away! Get out of this! Scat!" she said firmly, flourishing her lantern.
For a tense moment she waited; but the cry was not repeated. It had put out of the question, however, any thought of leaving Channing there defenseless. There were wild-cats in these mountains, she knew, rattlesnakes, too, possibly bears; and even the foxes that barked far away at intervals were not to be trusted with an unconscious human smelling of fresh blood.
There seemed nothing better to do than shout for help, on the chance of somebody hearing her in this wild and desolate place. Through the ravine rang the golden voice that might one day enthrall the world, pitched to fill a wider auditorium than it had ever filled before. From side to side it rolled and echoed in musical cadences: "Help! Come! Somebody please hear me! Help!"
Birds awoke with startled twittering, and various creatures of the underbrush, which had been attracted to the light of the lantern, fled away in terror. She sent her voice in the direction of the cabin they had mistaken for their own. Drunk or not, there were men there, and she needed them.