But her laugh died almost at its birth. Something moving down the hill among the trees caught her troubled eyes. Then, too, the sound of a whistle reached her. Some one was approaching from the direction of Charlie’s house, whistling a tune which somehow seemed familiar. She promptly warned herself it could not be Charlie. She never remembered to have heard Charlie whistling so blithe an air.
Now she distinctly heard the sound of heavy, rapid footsteps drawing nearer. The panic in her eyes deepened. They were staring intently at the surrounding bush, searching for a definite sight of the intruder. Nor had she to wait long. The path was just beyond the clearing, and she had fixed her gaze upon a narrow gap in the foliage. She felt almost safe in doing so, for the stranger must pass that way if he were on the path, and the gap was so narrow that it would probably escape his notice.
The whistling came nearer, so, too, the rapid footsteps. Then followed realization. A figure passed the gap. She saw it quite plainly. The big, broad-shouldered figure of a man with fair hair and blue eyes. It was Big Brother Bill. Instinctively she drew back, entirely forgetful of the fallen tree trunks. Then tragedy came upon her.
How it happened she didn’t know. She afterward felt she never wanted to know. Something seemed to hit her sharply at the back of the knees. She remembered that they bent under her. Then, in a second, she found herself sitting upon the ground with her feet sticking up in the air in a perfectly ridiculous manner, and, by some horribly mysterious means, with the support of a fallen sapling pine holding them there.
At the moment of impact she was too paralyzed with fear to move, then as a sharp exclamation in a man’s deep voice reached her, a wild terror seized upon her, and, with a violent effort she rolled herself clear of the log, scrambled to her feet, her dainty frock stained and torn with her tumble, and fled for dear life down the hill.
Faster and faster she ran, breaking her way through all obstructing foliage utterly regardless of the rents she was making in the soft material of her frock. She felt she dared not pause for anything with that man behind her. She felt that she hated him worse than anybody in the world. To think that he must have witnessed her discomfiture, and worse than all her two absurd feet sticking up in the air like—like signposts. It was too awful to contemplate.
She did not pause for breath until she reached the footbridge. Then a fresh panic set in. She had left the books behind. They were at the place where she had fallen.
Oh dear, oh dear! He would find them. He would find her name in them. He would take them back to Charlie, and her last hope would be gone. She would undoubtedly be recognized!
She wanted to burst into tears, then and there, but something inside her would not permit her such relief. Instead a whimsical humor came to her aid and she laughed.