“We’ll hope the fire won’t trouble the noose up there,” he said to her; “and, if it doesn’t, when the fire dies down we can climb up the rope and get out above. It seems impossible to descend into the cañon.”
“It seems to me I can never climb another yard,” Lena declared, so thoroughly fatigued that she was almost crying.
CHAPTER XXXII.
THE GIRL AND THE EMERALDS.
The fire roared on the pine levels overhead, and the girl and the scout whom she had rescued from the fire talked.
They had much to talk about beyond the fact that she had saved the scout, and the inevitable discussion as to how they were to get off the ledge where they now were.
“Lena,” he said finally, and his tone showed hesitation, “I suppose you are strong enough to hear unpleasant news?”
Her face, already pale, grew paler.
“My uncle?” she gasped. “Something has happened to him!”
The scout put his hand into an inner pocket and brought out a filled buckskin bag.
“He asked me to send, or get, this to you.”