A girl reared in the solitude, taught the weird, wild fancies of a madman, accepting insanity for infallible wisdom! How should a man deal with such as she must be? If Midas died—then what?
“Would she go with me back to the world?” he wondered. “Or is the rest of her life to be that of a wild, hunted thing? Even if I can find her, which is extremely doubtful, can I convince her that the strongest beliefs of her whole life are wrong?”
In truth he found that his perplexities were but growing. But with his jaw set he vowed to himself that if he did find her he’d take her out with him if he had to bind her with a rope, like the wild thing she was. Suddenly there came to him through the stillness a long-drawn cry of pure terror. It came from far off, back of the cabin toward the mountainside.
Rifle in hand Sheldon ran out of the house and plunged into the forest.
CHAPTER XI. THE GOLDEN EMPEROR’S FLIGHT.
The hope which stood high in John Sheldon’s breast was short lived. There was that one cry, undoubtedly Paula’s, then only the silence broken by Sheldon’s crashing through the bushes. Now and then when he stopped to listen he heard only his own heavy breathing.
But he pushed on, deeper into the woods. Her voice had floated to him clearly; she could not be very far away, and he knew the general direction. But when he came at last to the foot of the mountain where there were long lines of low cliffs he had found nothing. And, although he did not give up as the hours passed and the sun turned toward the west, his search went unrewarded.
He went back and forth along the base of the cliffs, fearing that she had fallen, that that scream had been whipped from her as she plunged over a precipice. He breathed more easily when he could be assured that this was not the case. After a while he even called out to her, crying “Paula! Where are you? I won’t hurt you.” But there was no answer.
Why had she cried out like that? One suspicion came early and naturally. Perhaps to draw him away from the cabin so that she or the madman could slip back to it. He had retraced his steps when the thought came to him, running. But as before there was no sign that another than himself had recently visited the house.
Late in the afternoon great black thunder clouds began to gather upon the mountain tops. They billowed up with the wind-driven swiftness of a summer storm, piling higher and higher until the sky was blotted out.