“Keep going. We’re almost across.”
And presently they were, safe on the slanting sandstone shelf.
He returned for Mandy.
“I cayn’t nevah git acrost on that there rickety rack,” she moaned. “I’d bust dem poles spang in two.”
Hollister was not sure himself that they would hold her weight, but he knew that before many minutes the house was going to break up. He coaxed and urged her to the attempt, and after she began the crossing he clung to the end of the bridge with all his weight.
How Mandy got across none of them ever knew. She stopped twice to announce that she could not do it, but after more exhortation continued edging along. To the very moment when Betty reached a hand to her, she insisted that she was going to be drownded.
Not three minutes after Tug had crossed to the rock shelf, the shell of the house shivered and collapsed. It went out with a rush, and presently was nothing but a lot of floating planks.
Betty watched it go, with trembling lips. “If you hadn’t come,” she murmured.
His soul went out to her in swift response. “I had to come. It wasn’t chance. That’s how it was meant to be. Why not? Why wouldn’t I be near enough to come when you needed me?”
She caught his hand. “You dear boy,” she breathed.