Page:O Henry Prize Stories of 1924.djvu/288

254 the mountains, what purgatory could equal that! Jem Brown cowered down, moaning as the thunderous drumming came directly over the cabin, increased to a deafening roar, culminated in a series of shot-like explosions—and ceased. In the sudden uncanny quiet he could hear his own voice raised in a feeble whimper like a frightened child’s. Of course it had been a dream, the feverish, half-consciousness of delirium but how real for the moment, how hideously real. “What?”

With terror the old man heard the sound of his first visitor, knocking; and saw the door swing back.

A strange figure in leather clothes and a begoggled helmet stood in the opening, stared into the dim cabin, breathed an exclamation of relief: “I was afraid that this place was deserted—and I’m miles off my course! I’ve been trying for two hours to find a bare space to come down in; it was just by the merest chance that I saw this clearing—and none too good a landing field at that! Can you tell me where I am? What’s the nearest town?” He stopped to look more closely at Jem Brown. “The light was so poor that I couldn’t see you before! Are you sick? You look ghastly!”

The old man could not answer.

The stranger stepped inside the cabin. “Isn’t there something I could do for you? Water? Where can I get you a drink?”

Feebly Jem Brown pointed to the bucket, and indicated the direction of the spring. The young man returned with the brimming pail.

His decisive voice was clear: “If you can give me some idea of where I am, and the general direction, I think we’d better be on our way. I’ll carry you out to the plane, and take you to a hospital. This is the last place for a sick man to be! Just now, by that spring, I saw a big bear and two cubs! You’d stand no chance—even if you were able to go for water!”

Jem Brown roused himself: “That’s Mollie—I found her four-five years ago; guess her mother’d been killed, ‘cause the wolves were yappin’ round the poor little cuss She comes back an’ hangs ’bout, every summer now, with her cubs. Mollie’d steal bacon’n bread but she wouldn’t touch me!”