“Then take Happy Pete and don’t move until I get back. Just pray and pray and pray! That’s all.”
Happy Pete snuggled his head under Bobbie’s arm and they both sat very still. The boy scarcely dared to breathe, he was so anxious to please his Jinnie.
The farthest window in the inner room door seemed to be the best one to attack. If Morse surprised her, it would be easier to cover up her work. With a frantic prayer on her lips, she took off her shoe and gave the pane of glass one large, resounding blow. It cracked in two, splinters not only flying into the room, but tumbling into the gorge below. Then she hastily hammered away every particle of glass from the frame, and, shoving her shoulders through, looked out and down. The very air seemed filled with angels. They could and would save her and Bobbie even in the water—even if they were within the suction of the falls there, some distance below and 322 beyond. Then her eyes swept over the side of the building, and she discovered a stone ledge wide enough for a human being to crawl along. Would she dare try it with her loved ones? She distinctly remembered seeing a painter’s paraphernalia in the front, and they might be there still! The more she thought, the greater grew her hope, and with this growing hope came a larger faith. At least she’d find what was at the end of the building away off there to the east.
To-day, yes, now!... She couldn’t wait, for her uncle was coming to-night. It must be now, this minute. She went back to Bobbie.
“I’m going to try it, darling,” she told him, kissing his cheek. “Sit right here until I get back. Hang to Petey. He might follow me.”
Then cautiously she dragged her body through the hole in the window, and began to crawl along the stone ledge. The roar of the water on the rocks below made her dizzy. But over and over did she cry into God’s ever listening ear:
“He has given—he has given his angels—angels charge over thee.”
Jinnie reached the corner of the building, and looked out over the city. The ledge extended around the other side of the building, and she turned the corner and went slowly onward. At the south end she stopped still, glancing about.
Only one thing of any value was in the range of her vision. The two long ropes she had seen long before were still hanging from the roof and fastened securely to a large plank almost on the ground. It brought to Jinnie’s mind what Lafe had told her,—of Jimmie Malligan who had been killed, and of how he himself had lost his legs.
Could she, by means of the rope, save the three precious 323 things back in that awful room—Bobbie, Happy Pete, and her fiddle?