CHAPTER XIV.
THE RESCUE.
Gabriel Armstrong leaped, rather than clambered, through the gap in thewall, and, following the track of devastation through the trees,scrambled down the steep slope that led toward the Hudson.
The forest looked as though a car of Juggernaut had passed that way.Limbs and saplings lay in confusion, larger trees showed long woundsupon their bark, and here and there pieces of metal--a gray mud-guard, acar door, a wind-shield frame, with shattered plate glass still clingingto it--lay scattered on the precipitous declivity. Beside these, hangingto a branch, Gabriel saw a gaily-striped auto robe; and, further down, aheavy, fringed shawl.
Again he shouted, holding to a tree-trunk at the very edge of a cliff oflimestone, and peering far down into the abyss where the car had takenits final plunge. Still no answer. But, from below, the heavy smokestill rose. And now, peering more keenly, Armstrong caught sight of thewreck itself.
"There it is, and burning like the pit of Hell!" he exclaimed."And--what's that, under it? A man?"
He could not distinctly make out, so thick the foliage was. But itseemed to him that, from under the jumbled wreckage of the blazingmachine, something protruded, something that suggested a human form,horribly mangled.
"Here's where I go down this cliff, whatever happens!" decided Gabriel.And, acting on the instant, he began swinging himself down from tree tobush, from shrub to tuft of grass, clinging wherever handhold orfoothold offered, digging his stout boots into every cleft and cranny ofthe precipice.
The height could not have been less than a hundred and fifty feet. Bydint of wonderful strength and agility, and at the momentary risk offalling, himself, to almost certain death, Gabriel descended in lessthan ten minutes. The last quarter of the distance he practically fell,sliding at a tremendous rate, with boulders and loose earth cascadingall about him in a shower.
He landed close by the flaming ruin.
"Lucky this isn't in the autumn, in the dry season!" thought he, as heapproached. "If it were, this whole cliff-side, and the woods beyond,would be a roaring furnace. Some forest-fire, all right, if the woodsweren't wet and full of sap!"
Parting the brush, he made his way as close to the car as the intenseheat would let him. The gasoline-tank, he understood, had burst with theshock, and, taking fire, had wrapped the car in an Inferno ofunquenchable flame. Now, the woodwork was entirely gone; and of thewheels, as the long machine lay there on its back, only a few blazingspokes were left. The steel chassis and the engine were red-hot, twistedand broken as though a giant hammer had smitten them on some Vulcanicanvil.
"There's a few thousand dollars gone to the devil!" thought he. But hismind did not dwell on this phase of the disaster. Still he was hoping,against hope, that human life had not been dashed and roasted out, inthe wreck. And again he shouted, as he worked his way to the other sideof the machine--to the side which, seen from the cliff above, had seemedto show him that inert and mangled body.
All at once he stopped short, shielding his face with his hands, againstthe blaze.
"Good God!" he exclaimed; and involuntarily took off his cap, there inthe presence of death.
That the man _was_ dead, admitted of no question. Pinned under theheavy, glowing mass of metal, his body must already have been roasted toa char. The head could not be seen; but part of one shoulder and one armprotruded, with the coat burned off and the flesh horribly crackled;while, nearer Gabriel, a leg showed, with a regulation chauffeur'slegging, also burned to a crisp.
"Nothing for me to do, here," said Gabriel aloud. "He's past all humanhelp, poor chap. I don't imagine there can be anybody else in thiswreck. I haven't seen anybody, and nobody has answered my shouts. What'sto be done next?"
He pondered a moment, then, looking at the license plate of themachine--its enamel now half cracked off, but the numbers stilllegible--drew out his note-book and pencil and made a memo of thefigures.
"Four-six-two-two, N.Y.," he read, again verifying his numbers. "Thatwill identify things. And now--the quicker I get back on the road again,and reach a telephone at West Point, the better."
Accordingly, after a brief search through the bushes near at hand, forany other victim--a search which brought no results--he set to work oncemore to climb the cliff above him.
The fire, though still raging, was obviously dying down. In half anhour, he knew, it would be dead. There was no use in trying toextinguish it, for gasoline defies water, and no sand was to be hadalong that rocky river shore.
"Let her burn herself out," judged Gabriel. "She can't do any harm, now.The road for mine!"
He found the upward path infinitely more difficult than the downward,and was forced to make a long detour and do some hard climbing that lefthim spent and sweating, before he again approached the gap in the wall.Pausing here to breathe, a minute or two, he once more peered down atthe still-smoking ruin far below. And, as he stood there all at once hethought he heard a sound not very far away to his right.
A sound--a groan, a half-inchoate murmur--a cry!
Instantly his every sense grew keen. Holding his breath he listenedintently. Was it a cry? Or had the breeze but swayed one tree limbagainst another; or did some boatman's hail, from far across the river,but drift upward to him on the cliff?
"Hello! _Hello_!" he shouted again. "Anybody there?"
Once more he listened; and now, once more, he heard the sound--this timehe knew it was a cry for help!
"Where are you?" shouted he, plunging forward along the steep side ofthe cliff. "Where?"
No answer, save a groan.
"Coming! Coming!" he hailed loudly. Then, guided as it seemed byinstinct, almost as much as by the vague direction of the moaning call,he ploughed his way through brush and briar, on rescue bent.
All at once he stopped short in his tracks, wild-eyed, a stammeringexclamation on his lips.
"A woman!" he cried.
True. There, lying as though violently flung, a woman was half-crouched,half-prone behind the roots of a huge maple that leaned out far above asheer declivity.
He saw torn clothing, through the foliage; a white hand, out-stretchedand bleeding; a mass of golden-coppery hair that lay dishevelled on thebed of moss and last autumn's leaves.
"A woman! Dying?" he thought, with a sudden stab of pity in his heart.
Then, forcing his way along, he reached her, and fell upon his knees ather side.
"Not dead! Not dying! Thank God!" he exclaimed. One glance showed himshe would live. Though an ugly gash upon her forehead had bathed herface in blood, and though he knew not but bones were broken, herecognized the fact that she was now returning, fast, to consciousness.
Already she had opened her eyes--wild eyes, understanding nothing--andwas staring up at him in dazed, blank terror. Then one hand came up toher face; and, even as he lifted her in both his powerful arms, shebegan to sob hysterically.
He knew the value of that weeping, and made no attempt to stop it. Theoverwrought nerves, he understood, must find some outlet. Asking noquestion, speaking no word--for Gabriel was a man of action, notspeech--he gathered her up as though she had been a child. A tall woman,she; almost as tall as he himself, and proportioned like a Venus. Yet tohim her weight was nothing.
Sure-footed, now, and bursting through the brambles with fine energy, hecarried her to the gap in the wall, up through it, and so to the roadwayitself.
"Where--where am I?" the woman cried incoherently. "O--what--where--?"
"You're all right!" he exclaimed. "Just a little accident, that's all.Don't worry! I'll take care of you. Just keep quiet, now, and don'tthink of anything. You'll be all right, in no time!"
But she still wept and cried out to know where she might be and what hadhappened. Obviously, Gabriel saw, her reason had not yet fully returned.His first aim must be to bathe her wound, find out what damage had beendone, and keeping her quiet, try to get help.
Swiftly he thought. Here he and the woman were, miles from anysettlement or hou
se, nearly in the middle of a long stretch of road thatskirted the river through dense woods. At any time a motor might comealong; and then again, one might not arrive for hours. No dependencecould be put on this. There was no telephone for a long distance back;and even had one been near he would not have ventured to leave the girl.
Could he carry her back to Fort Clinton, the last settlement he hadpassed through? Impossible! No man's strength could stand such atremendous task. And even had it been within Gabriel's means, he wouldhave chosen otherwise. For most of all the girl needed rest and quietand immediate care. To bear her all that distance in his arms mightproduce serious, even fatal results.
"No!" he decided. "I must do what I can for her, here and now, and trustto luck to send help in an auto, down this road!"
His next thought was that bandages and wraps would be needed for her cutand to make her a bed. Instantly he remembered the shawl and the bigauto-robe that he had seen caught among the trees.
"I must have those at once!" he realized. "When the machine went overthe edge, they were thrown out, just as the girl was. A miracle shewasn't carried down, with the car, and crushed or burned to death downthere by the river, with that poor devil of a chauffeur!"
Laying her down in the soft grass along the wall, he ran back to wherethe wraps were, and, detaching them from the branches, quickly regainedthe road once more.
"Now for the old sugar-house in the maple-grove," said he. "Poorshelter, but the best to be had. Thank heaven it's fair weather, andwarm!"
The task was awkward, to carry both the girl and the bulky robes, butGabriel was equal to it She had by now regained some measure ofrationality; and though very pale and shaken, manifested her nerve andcourage by no longer weeping or asking questions.
Instead, she lay in his arms, eyes closed, with the blood stiffening onher face; and let him bear her whither he would. She seemed to sense hisstrength and mastery, his tender care and complete command of thesituation. And, like a hurt and tired child, outworn and suffering, sheyielded herself, unquestioningly, to his ministrations.
Thus Gabriel, the discharged, blacklisted, outcast rebel andproletarian, bore in his arms of mercy and compassion the only daughterof old Isaac Flint, his enemy, Flint the would-be master of the world.
Thus he bore the woman who had been betrothed to "Tiger" Waldron,unscrupulous and cruel partner in that scheme of dominance andenslavement.
Such was the meeting of this woman and this man. Thus, in his arms, hecarried her to the old sugar-house.
And far below, the mighty river gleamed, unheeding the tragedy that hadbeen enacted on its shores, unmindful of the threads of destiny even nowbeing spun by the swift shuttles of Fate.
In the branches, above Gabriel and Catherine, birdsong and goldensunlight seemed to prophesy. But what this message might be, neither thewoman nor the man had any thought or dream.