“Yes.” And she began to climb down over the wagon wheel.
“Wait here. I’ll go in first. He might be–––” But though the rancher did not complete his sentence the words spoken carried their own grave implication.
He came out again presently. Mary gazed at his face to read from it the news it might carry, and it was with a breath of relief she perceived that the injured man was still alive, for her father himself appeared easier of mind. Neither would by choice have a dead man for a passenger on the ride home, even Ed Sorenson.
“He’s breathing, but is still unconscious,” Johnson declared. “Must have got a crack in the head along with the rest. Face is covered with dried blood. From the stuff inside the house he must have been fixing for quite a stay––blankets, grub, whiskey, candles, and so on. We’ll eat a bite ourselves before starting back; get the pail out of the wagon and bring some water and I’ll make a pot of coffee. There’s a fireplace and wood inside.”
“I’ll get the water, but I’ll stay out while you’re boiling it,” the girl said. “I don’t want to see him until I have to go in and help carry him out.”
She went off for the water, on her return setting the bucket by the door. Then curious to see the place of Ed Sorenson’s accident, she wandered back along the trail to the ledge. There she beheld the crumpled, fire-blackened remains of his automobile in a heap near the stone wall. Apparently the car had first struck a small boulder, which had flung Sorenson out on one side and forward, then leaping this hit the ledge full force.
At the instant he must have been off the road and headed wrong, she guessed. The rapid daybreak of the mountains had by now dispersed the last dimness and indeed the crags far above were bright with sunshine. She could plainly see the ruin that the machine was, fire having completed what the smash had left undamaged, 191 and the part of the rock that was smoked by the flames, and was able to smell yet the reek of burnt oil, varnish and rubber.
With the eyes of the curious she stared at the wreck, at the ledge, at the ground, absorbed with simple speculations and filled with a sense of awe. The machine must have made a big sound when it struck. It was a lot of money gone quickly, that car. Not enough of it left to make it worth hauling away. And so on and so on.
Then all at once her wandering regard detected something white in a crevice between two stones. At first she thought it the gleam of a bird or a chipmunk. The thing was some yards off from the spot where she stood, but the flutter persisted. So she approached it to learn its nature.