“I say, Blake,” he said, “can’t you find me some kind of a crutch? It is only a few yards around to those trees.”
“Good Lord! you haven’t been fool enough to overstrain that ankle– Yes, you have. Dammit! why couldn’t you tell me before?”
“It did not feel so painful in the water.”
“I helped the best I could,” interposed Miss Leslie. “I think if you could get Mr. Winthrope a crutch–”
“Crutch!” growled Blake. “How long do you think it would take me to wade through the mud? And look at that cloud! We’re in for a squall. Here!”
He handed the girl the smaller string of cocoanuts, flung the other up the beach, and stooped for Winthrope to mount his back. He then started off along the beach at a sharp trot. Miss Leslie followed as best she could, the heavy cocoanuts swinging about with every step and bruising her tender body.
The wind was coming faster than Blake had calculated. Before they had run two hundred paces, they heard the roar of rain-lashed water, and the squall struck them with a force that almost overthrew the girl. With the wind came torrents of rain that drove through their thickest garments and drenched them to the skin within the first half-minute.
Blake slackened his pace to a walk, and plodded sullenly along beneath the driving down-pour. He kept to the lower edge of the beach, where the sand was firmest, for the force of the falling deluge beat down the waves and held in check the breakers which the wind sought to roll up the beach.
The rain storm was at its height when they reached the foot of the cliffs. The gray rock towered above them, thirty or forty feet high. Blake deposited Winthrope upon a wet ledge, and straightened up to scan the headland. Here and there ledges ran more than half-way up the rocky wall; in other places the crest was notched by deep clefts; but nowhere within sight did either offer a continuous path to the summit. Blake grunted with disgust.
“It’d take a fire ladder to get up this side,” he said. “We’ll have to try the other, if we can get around the point. I’m going on ahead. You can follow, after Pat has rested his ankle. Keep a sharp eye out for anything in the flint line–quartz or agate. That means fire. Another thing, when this rain blows over, don’t let your clothes dry on you. I’ve got my hands full enough, without having to nurse you through malarial fever. Don’t forget the cocoanuts, and if I don’t show up by noon, save me some.”