A GOOD TURN

“There isn’t time to do this,” Westy said.

“Well, we’ll do it whether there’s time or not,” I shot back at him. “Hustle, all of you, get your clothes off. There’s time until he disappears. Two of you fellows follow the hill north and go down at the nearest place you can get down. There isn’t any bee-line now. No, don’t you go, Pee-wee—Dorry and Will go. Here, take my scarf, you’ve got your own, too—never mind looking at the tree,” I said. “Here, take this shirt, too. You know how to stop blood flowing, don’t you? Put a stick under the bandage and wind it round. Hurry up, he’s slipping. We can’t get this blamed thing ready in time. Do what you can for him down there. Hurry....”

It was funny, but as soon as they started I just couldn’t help looking over there to the ridge at that big tree that had guided us all day. Kind of, I wondered if it knew the trouble we were in—and that after all we wouldn’t get there. But I only thought of it for about a second.

Down there on the ledge Warde was almost half over. He couldn’t use his hands to hold on with now, but he just squeezed the bushes between his feet. He was slipping over slowly.

“Hang on,” I shouted; “we’re hustling, we’ll throw you a line.”

“Look, look!” one of the fellows who had just started away shouted. “Oh, look!”

I just clapped my hands over my eyes for a moment; I couldn’t look. I just couldn’t. I knew what it meant. My hand was trembling and my heart was just choking me. “Did you—did you hear him—land?” I asked.

“Over there—east,” some one said.

I looked in the direction we had come from, and as sure as I’m writing this, there was some one running pell-mell right toward us. I saw right away it was a girl. You know how a girl runs, especially when she runs fast. She was holding her head way back and laughing, and her hair was all flying loose. There was something big and kind of gray colored around her neck—very big and clumsy. I stood just about a second, then I made a sprint for her. I never ran so fast in my life. We came toward each other just flying. Her cheeks were all flushed and her hair was all over her face and she was panting and laughing all at once.

She said, “I—I—I—I’ve—got—your—rope—so there. I—I—ran all—the way—with it. You—you said—I—I—I——”

“Don’t talk, give me the rope!” I said.

“Maybe—I—I—fooled you about—about the house—my own—house—but I can do things too—run—see? Here. They caught—the bandit—here——”

I ran pell-mell back to the edge with the rope. “Did he—did he go over?” I called.

“Hurry!” they shouted.

Gee, I wish you could have been there to see all that. There were the scouts of my patrol, all half dressed, jumping up and down and yelling, “Hurry, hurry!” There was Dora Dane Daring coming along behind me and all the scouts cheering her. I can hardly tell you just how everything happened. Westy grabbed the rope from me and by the time I looked over the edge, all panting and trembling, there it was right over the edge of the slanting shelf.

But Warde Hollister wasn’t there!

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