was stained with blood and dust. He caught the white and trembling
hands that were thrust out to him eagerly.

"It is YOU!" she gasped. "I prayed for some one to come, but I did not
dream it would be YOU. And then I heard YOUR voice--and I thought it
could be only a dream until you called a second time."

"But you are hurt," he exclaimed passionately. "You have met with some
accident!"

"No, no!" she said eagerly. "Not I--but a poor, poor man I found lying
on the edge of the cliff. I could not help him much, I did not care to
leave him. No one WOULD come! I have been with him alone, all the
morning! Come quick, he may be dying."

He passed his arm around her waist unconsciously; she permitted it as
unconsciously, as he half supported her figure while they hurried
forward.

"He had been crushed by something, and was just hanging over the ledge,
and could not move nor speak," she went on quickly. "I dragged him
away to a tree, it took me hours to move him, he was so heavy,--and I
got him some water from the stream and bathed his face, and blooded all
my sleeve."

"But what were you doing here?" he asked quickly.

A faint blush crossed the pallor of her delicate cheek. She looked
away quickly. "I--was going to find my brother at Bald Top," she
replied at last hurriedly. "But don't ask me now--only come quick, do."

"Is the wounded man conscious? Did you speak with him? Does he know
who you are?" asked Key uneasily.

"No! he only moaned a little and opened his eyes when I dragged him. I
don't think he even knew what had happened."

They hurried on again. The wood lightened suddenly. "Here!" she said
in a half whisper, and stepped timidly into the open light. Only a few
feet from the fatal ledge, against the roots of a buckeye, with HER
shawl thrown over him, lay the wounded man.

Key started back. It was Collinson!

His head and shoulders seemed uninjured; but as Key lifted the shawl,
he saw that the long, lank figure appeared to melt away below the waist
into a mass of shapeless and dirty rags. Key hurriedly replaced the
shawl, and, bending over him, listened to his hurried respiration and
the beating of his heart. Then he pressed a drinking-flask to his
lips. The spirit seemed to revive him; he slowly opened his eyes.
They fell upon Key with quick recognition. But the look changed; one
could see that he was trying to rise, but that no movement of the limbs
accompanied that effort of w