It was not yet dark when they came out on the veranda to meet the doctor, who had come to meet Ross, and Lee’s anxiety led her to say: “Can’t we go up to the cabin and wait for him there?”
“I was about to propose that,” replied Redfield. “Shall we walk?”
Lee was instant in her desire to be off, but Lize said: “I never was much on foot and now I’m hoof-bound. You go along, and I’ll sit on the porch here and watch.”
So Lee, the doctor, and Redfield went off together across the meadow toward the little cabin which had been built for the workmen while putting in the dam. It was hardly a mile away, and yet it stood at the mouth of a mighty gorge, out of which the water sprang white with speed.
But Lee had no mind for the scenery, though her eyes were lifted to the meadow’s wall, down which the ranger was expected to ride. It looked frightfully steep, and whenever she thought of him descending that trail, worn and perhaps ill, her heart ached with anxiety. But Redfield rambled on comfortably, explaining the situation to the doctor, who, being a most unimaginative person, appeared to take it all as a matter of course.
At the cabin itself Lee transferred her interest to the supper which had been prepared for the ranger, and she went about the room trying to make it a little more comfortable for him. It was a bare little place, hardly more than a camp (as was proper), and she devoutly prayed that he was not to be sick therein, for it stood in a cold and gloomy place, close under the shadow of a great wall of rock.
As it grew dark she lighted a lamp and placed it outside the window in order that its light might catch the ranger’s eye, and this indeed it did, for almost instantly a pistol-shot echoed from the hillside, far above, signalling his approach.
“There he is!” she exclaimed, in swift rebound to ecstasy. “Hear him shout?”
His voice could indeed be heard, though faintly, and so they waited while the darkness deepened and the voice of the stream rose like an exhalation, increasing in violence as the night fell.
At last they could hear the sound of his horse’s feet upon the rocks, and with girlish impulse Lee raised a musical cry—an invitation as well as a joyous signal.