Page:Frank Packard - The Miracle Man.djvu/221

 "Well?" inquired Helena, breaking the silence that followed.

"There is no—gasoline," said Thornton heavily.

Neither spoke for a moment. There was no sound but the steady drip from the leaves. Then Helena forced a laugh.

"Isn't it ridiculous!" she said. "That is what one is always making fun of others for. I—I don't think it's going to stop raining—do you? And we're miles and miles from anywhere. What do people do when they're caught like this?"

Thornton did not answer at once. Bitterly reproachful with himself, he stood there coatless in the rain. If it had been a breakdown, an accident that was unavoidable, a little of the sting might have gone out of the situation—but gasoline! This—from rank, blatant, glaring, inexcusable idiocy. Not on his part perhaps—but that did not lessen his responsibility. They were miles, as she had said, from anywhere—four miles at least in either direction from the main road, and as many more probably after that from any farm-house—he remembered that for half an hour before they had turned into the "short cut" they had seen no sign of habitation—and what lay in the other direction, ahead, would in all probability be the same—they were up in the timber regions, in the heart of them—she couldn't walk miles in the rain with the roads in a vile condition, and growing viler every minute as the rain sank in and the mud grew