While Lyon Berners spoke, he assisted his wife to alight from her saddle, and guided her to the entrance of the thicket.
“This path has not been trodden for a score of years, I can well believe. Just go far enough to be out of sight of any chance spy, and there remain until I return. I shall not be absent over half an hour,” said Mr. Berners, as he took leave of Sybil.
She sank wearily down upon a fragment of a rock, and prepared to await his return.
He mounted his own horse, and led hers, and so went his way down the stream to the fording place.
He successfully accomplished the difficult task of taking both horses over the river to the opposite bank, where he turned them loose.
Next with a strong pocket jack-knife he cut a leaping pole from a sapling near, and went still farther up the stream to the rapids, where, by a skilful use of his pole and dexterous leaping from rock to rock, he was enabled to recross the river almost dry-shod.
He rejoined Sybil, whom he found just where he had left her.
She was sitting on a piece of rock, with her head bowed upon her hands.
“Have I been gone long? Were you anxious or lonely, dearest?” he inquired, as he gave her his hand to assist her in rising.
“Oh, no! I take no note of time! But oh! Lyon, when shall I wake?” she exclaimed in wild despair.