Fiancées -- Fiction; Missing persons -- Juvenile fiction; Young women -- Juvenile fiction
For answer, Jean raised shaking hands to his mouth. Again the call of
the Elf's Horn shrilled above the murmuring rain, and again, this time
clearer and louder, came the answer.
"_Le bon Dieu_ hav' hear!" came the hunter's reverent exclamation.
Stopping only to make the sign of the cross, the old man plunged down
the perilous steep, David Nesbit at his heels. How they had come safely
into the valley, neither was afterward able to explain, nor did they
stop to remark it, once they had descended. Both men were intent only on
reaching the spot from whence had emanated that blessed call.
"There's only one person up here who could answer that call, Jean."
David's tones were vibrant with emotion. "It's Tom Gray! I know it, and
he's in that hut."
Stumbling desperately on in the greater darkness of the valley, they
reached the hut at last.
"Tom!" shouted David at the top of his lungs. "Tom Gray! Are you there?"
"Yes," sounded the unbelievable reply from within the hut. "Is that you,
David! I was sure of it when I heard the Elf's Horn and answered the
call. I knew you'd come for me some day."
"Yes, old fellow; it's David," rang out the triumphant cry. "Thank God,
you are alive! Jean is with me."
"_Le bon Dieu_ hav' hear," was Jean's muttered repetition, as the two
men made a concerted dash upon the shack, in a wild effort to locate the
door. Finding it by the aid of their flashlights, they made a determined
onslaught upon it, but it stubbornly resisted their importuning hands.
"Hello, Jean! It's too good to be true. I might have known I could count
on you, though," came the welcome salutation from within. More anxiously
Tom Gray added: "You'll have to break the door down, if you can. It's
locked from the outside. _He_ carries the key. Hurry or he may come
back." Tom's voice quivered with dread.
David groaned. His mind on this unexpected obstacle, which now
confronted them, he did not stop to consider who the mysterious "he" in
the problem might be. Tom's very tones indicated the hovering near of
some great danger. "Isn't there a window in the cabin? Can't you climb
out of it?" he shouted desperately. Inwardly he marveled that stalwart
Tom Gray should be caught in such a trap.
"There are two windows, or rather holes in the cabin, but they are too
high up. I can't reach them. My leg was broken and it's not strong
enough yet to risk such a climb." This response was made in despairing
tones.
At the mention of windows, Jean had begun to circle the cabin. Turning
his flashlight on the strong-timbered walls of the hut, he soon made out
one of those windows. "M'sieu' David," he called, "come. You will lif'
me an' I will clim' in this hole. Then we 'urry an' get M'sieu' Tom out,
mebbe." Jean's "mebbe" indicated uncertainty. The situation did not look
hopeful and there was evidently no time for questions regarding the how,
when and why of the affair.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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