The faintness which had come upon her endured only for a short while.
Recovering consciousness, she understood at a glance, not only the nature of the service rendered her, but also the character of the man who had rendered it.
“Oh, sir! I’m afraid that you have run a fearful risk. I can hardly tell you how grateful I am.”
“Wal, miss, it war rayther a toughish struggle while it lasted. But, bless ye, that’s nothin’ so long as it’s turned out all right. If you’d not been the plucky one you air, nothin’ I could ha’ done would have helped ye. It war your own grit as much as my muscle saved ye from fallin’ into that trap.”
“My horse. Where is he?”
“Yur right there, he’s gone, poor crittur. I’d ha’ liked to saved him, too, for the way he behaved. That dumb crittur had more sense in him than many a human; and it ’ud ha’ done me a sight o’ good to have pulled him thro’; but it wasn’t possible, nohow.”
“Tell me, sir, where did you come from? I did not see you.”
“Wal, I war clost by, and seed you ride right on to the danger. It war too late to holler, for that would only ha’ made things worse, an’ skeared you both; so I said nothin’, but jist dropped my rifle, and made track toarst ye. I spied the branch above you, an’ speeled up to it. The next war nothin’—only a spell o’ twisting an’ wrigglin’.”
He did not tell her that the muscles of his arms were fearfully swollen, and that it demanded all his power of endurance to prevent him groaning at the intense agony he suffered.
But the young lady, with a quickness of apprehension, seemed to understand this, too.