In an instant she was no longer passive. With all of that supple strength which he knew to lie in that beautiful body of hers, she had thrown herself against him, pushing at him. His weight was greater, so much greater than hers, that though taken unaware he was barely budged two paces.
But that was ample for the purpose of Paula. He heard a sharp crackling of dead branches and leaves, the ground gave way under his feet, and crashing through a flimsy covering of slender limbs and twigs he plunged downward, falling sheer.
He threw out his arm to save himself, his rifle was flung several feet away, Paula had jerked free, and with the breath jolted out of his body, he lay upon his back in a pit ten feet deep struggling to free himself of the branches which he had brought with him in his fall.
At last he stood up. He had strained an ankle in striking, he did not know for the moment whether or not he had broken his left arm. His hands and face were scratched, his body was sore, his face grew red to a towering rage.
Standing at the brink of the pit, stooping a little to look down at him, was Paula. He had never seen a look of greater, gladder triumph upon a human face.
“You are not very smart,” said Paula contemptuously, “to get caught in a trap like that. Bears are smarter!”
John Sheldon, for the first time on record, swore violently in the presence of a young woman. She did not appear in the least shocked; perhaps she was accustomed to occasional outbursts from her father. Rather, she looked delighted. In fact, she clapped her hands, and there came down to him, to swell his rage, her tinkling laughter.
“When I get out of this I’m going to spank you,” he growled, meaning every word of it. “Good and hard, too! Don’t you know you might have broken my neck?”
“You are not coming out,” dimpled Paula. “If you are very good I will feed you every day and bring you water.”
Sheldon answered her with an angry silence. There is no wrath like that which has in it something of self accusation; he might have expected something like this. Turning his back on her he sought the way out of the bear pit. Forthwith his anger, like a tube of quicksilver carried out into the hot sun, mounted to new heights while he did not.