take that shoe off. Then we’ll get you over yonder and you can bathe it in the stream. Try and get your gaiter off, too, won’t you?”

His peremptory accents startled her a little, but she sat up obediently while he supported her shoulders, and wincing again as she moved, at last undid her legging. Gallatin then drew his hasp-knife and carefully slit the laces of her shoe from top to bottom, succeeding in getting it safely off.

“Your ankle is swelling,” he said. “You must bathe it at once.”

She looked around helplessly.

“Where?”

“At the stream. I’m going to carry you there.”

“You couldn’t. Is it far?”

“No. Only a hundred yards or so. Come along.”

He bent over to silence her protests and lifted her by the armpits. Then while she supported herself for a moment upright, lifted her in his arms and made his way up the slope.

Marvelous is the recuperative power of the muscular system! Ten minutes ago Gallatin had been, to all intents and purposes of practical utility, at the point of exhaustion. Now, without heart-breaking effort, he found it possible to carry a burden of one hundred and thirty pounds a considerable distance through rough timber without mishap! His muscles ached no more than they had done before, and the only thing he could think of just[9] then was that she was absurdly slender to weigh so much. One of her arms encircled his shoulders and the fingers of one small brown hand clutched tightly at the collar of his shirt. Her eyes peered before her into the brush, and her face was almost hidden by the tangled mass of her hair. But into the pale cheek which was just visible, a gentle color was rising which matched the rosy glow that was spreading over the heavens.

[9]

“I’m afraid I—I’m awfully heavy,” she said, as he made his way around the fallen giant over which a short while ago they had both clambered. “Don’t you think I had better get down for a moment?”

“Oh, no,” he panted. “Not at all. It—it isn’t far now. I’m afraid you’d hurt your foot. Does it—does it pain you so much now?”

“N-o, I think 

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