“Here! Down below. I—I’m coming up.” There was a suggestion of suppressed pain in Florence’s voice. “Wait, you wait there.”
Greta had never found waiting easy. To wait now, with a hundred green eyes focussed upon her was all but impossible. And yet, what more was to be done? Florence, having fallen down the hillside in the dark, had taken the flashlight with her. And the darkness all about was intense. Without willing it, again and again she fixed her eyes on those small glowing orbs of green. “If I only knew!” she whispered, and again, “If I only did!”
She heard her companion’s panting breath as she struggled up the uncertain slope. “Must be half way up,” she whispered finally.
There came the sound of tumbling rocks. “She—she slipped!” Catching her breath, she waited. Yes, yes, she was climbing again.
And then as she was about to despair, a bulk loomed beside her, a strong arm encircled her.
“Greta,” a voice whispered, “I’ve sprained my ankle; not too badly. The flashlight is broken. We must try to find our way back.”
Two hours of groping and stumbling, with many a fall; two hours of fighting vines and brambles, then the dull glow of their burned out campfire greeted their tired eyes.
“Home!” Florence breathed. “Home!” And to this girl at that hour the humble six-foot-square tent, which they had set up that evening, was just that—nothing less.
It was Florence who could not sleep that night. The throbbing pain in the sprained ankle defied repose. The strange events of that day and those that had gone before had at last broken through her staunch reserve and entered her inner consciousness.
“Sleep!” she exclaimed at last in a hoarse whisper. “Who can sleep?”