As I let down the meadow bars, Joey turned in his saddle and gave his clear boyish whistle. But no Jingles answered the call, and a moment later the lad rode away with a clouded face.
A few moments later, as I plied my ax at the rear of the cabin, the cold muzzle of the collie was thrust against my hand. I stooped to caress him, and as he leaped up to greet me, I smiled as my eyes caught the color and the sheen of a silken ribbon threaded through his collar. Well, I knew that bit of adornment—that azure fillet that Haidee had worn in her hair.
I touched the inanimate thing with tender fingers, and started suddenly to find a jeweled pendant hanging there, glowing like a dewdrop against the dog’s soft fur. I stood agape, feeling my face soften as my fingers stroked the bauble; and then I straightened up with a swift presentiment. It was in no playful mood that Haidee had placed that costly gewgaw about the collie’s neck.
I turned toward the stable, and then remembered that Joey had taken the horse. My only recourse was the canoe. I ran to the willows where the craft was secreted. I had it afloat in a twinkling, and was paddling away down the river, the collie barking furiously on the shore.
Poor pale, beautiful Haidee! She lay like a crumpled white rose in the bracken beside the spring. The white fir-tree that, in falling, had crushed the lean-to of the frail cabin had swept her beneath its branches as she bent for water at the spring. This was the story I read for myself as I bent above my prostrate girl. But it was many days before I learned the whole truth. How, close onto midnight, she had heard a man hallooing from the lake shore; how she had stolen out from the cabin in the storm, fearing an intrusion from some drunken reveler from the village tavern; how, after the tree had fallen and pinned her fast with its cruel branches, she had lain unconscious until with the first streak of light she had felt the touch of the collie’s muzzle against her face; how she had roused, and, her hands being free, had torn the ribbon from her hair and bound it about the collie’s neck, and, as an afterthought, attached the pendant from her throat, thinking the ribbon alone might not occasion surprise.
She told me all this, days afterward; but when I reached her side, she was incapable of speech, and only a flutter of her white lids denoted that she was conscious.
I had a bad half hour alone there in the bracken, watching her face grow grayer and grayer as I worked to dislodge the branches that were pinning her down. And, at last, as I lifted her in my arms, I saw the last particle of color drain from her lips, and realized that she had fainted. But I had her in my arms, and her heart was beating faintly. And, someway, hope leaped up and I felt courageous and strong, as I bore her to the river and placed her in the canoe.
Joey was kneeling among the willows with his arms clasping Jingles as I beached my canoe near the workshop.
“I knew something had happened to Bell Brandon,” he declared, in big-eyed misery. “I knew it! I knew it!” He took the crumpled bit of ribbon from the dog’s neck with hands that trembled, and came forward slowly. I was unprepared for the look of abject misery on his small face. “Oh, Mr. David,” he quavered, “don’t tell me she is dead!”
“No, no, lad,” I said hastily, “she has only fainted.”