velocity. Beneath it, the highway sped like an endless white ribbon,
whirling back and away with smooth rapidity. No common road, this, but
one which the State authorities had very obligingly built especially for
the use of millionaires' motor cars, all through the region of
country-clubs, parks, bungalows and summer-resorts dotting the west
shore region of the Hudson. Let the farmer truck his produce through mud
and ruts, if he would. Let the country folk drive their ramshackle
buggies over rocks and stumps, if they so chose. Nothing of that sort
for millionaires! No, _they_ must have macadam and smooth, long curves,
easy grades and--where the road swung high above the gleaming
river--retaining walls to guard them from plunging into the palisaded
abyss below.

At just such a place it was, where the road made a sharper turn than any
the drunken chauffeur had reckoned on, that catastrophe leaped out to
shatter the rushing car.

Only a minute before, Kate--a little uneasy now, at the truly reckless
speeding of the driver, and at the daredevil way in which he was taking
curves without either sounding his siren or reducing speed--had touched
him on the shoulder, with a command: "Not _quite_ so fast, Herrick! Be
careful!"

His only answer had been a drunken laugh.

"Careful nothing!" he slobbered, to himself. "You wanted speed--an'
now--hc!--b'Jesus, you _get_--hc!--speed! _I_ ain't
'fraid--are--hc!--_you_?"

She had not heard the words, but had divined their meaning.

"Herrick!" she commanded sharply, leaning forward. "What's the matter
with you? Obey me, do you hear? Not so fast!"

A whiff of alcoholic breath suddenly told her the truth. For a second
she sat there, as though petrified, with fear now for the first time
clutching at her heart.

"Stop at once!" she cried, gripping the man by the collar of his livery.
"You--you're drunk, Herrick! I--I'll have you discharged, at once, when
we get home. Stop, do you hear me? You're not fit to drive. I'll take
the wheel myself!"

But Herrick, hopelessly under the influence of the poison, which had
now produced its full effect, paid no heed.

"Y'--can't dri' _thish_ car!" he muttered, in maudlin accents. "Too
big--too heavy for--hc!--woman! I--_I_ dri' it all right, drunk or
sober! Good chauffeur--good car--I know thish car! You won't fire
me--hc!--for takin' drink or two, huh? I drive you all ri'--drive you to
New York or to--hc!--Hell! Same thing, no difference, ha! ha!--I--"

A sudden blaze of rage crimsoned the girl's face. In all her life she
never had been thus spoken to. For a second she clenched her fist, as
though to strike down this sodden brute there in the seat before her--a
feat she would have been quite capable of. But second thought convinced
her of the peril of such an act. Ahead of them a long down-grade
stretched away, away, to a turn half-hidden under the arching greenery.
As the car struck this slope, it leaped into ever greater speed; and
now, under the erratic guidance of the lolling wretch at the wheel, it
began to sway in long, unsteady curves, first toward one ditch, then the
other.

Another woman would have screamed; might even have tried to jump out.
But Kate was not of the hysteric sort. More practical, she.

"I've got to climb over into the front seat," she realized in a flash,
"and shut off the current--cut the power off--stop the car!"

On the instant, she acted. But as she arose in the tonneau, Herrick,
sensing her purpose, turned toward her in the sudden rage of complete
intoxication.

"Naw--naw y' don't!" he shouted, his face perfectly purple with fury
and drink. "No woman--he!--runs this old boat while I'm aboard, see? Go
on, fire me! _I_ don't give--damn! But you don't run--car! Sit down! _I_
run car--New York or Hell--no matter which! _I_--"

Hurtling down the slope like a runaway comet, now wholly out of control,
the powerful gray car leaped madly at the turn.

Catherine, her heart sick at last with terror, caught a second's glimpse
of forest, on one hand; of a stone wall with tree-tops on some steep
abyss below, just grazing it, on the other. Through these trees she saw
a momentary flash of water, far beneath.

Then the leaping front wheels struck a cluster of loose pebbles, at the
bend.

Wrenched from the drunkard's grip, the steering wheel jerked sharply
round.

A skidding--a crash--a cry!

Over the roadway, vacant now, floated a tenuous cloud of dust and
gasoline-vapor, commingled.

In the retaining-wall at the left, a jagged gap appeared. Suddenly, far
below, toward the river, a crashing detonation shattered harsh echoes
from shore to shore.

Came a quick flash of light; then thick, black, greasy smoke arose, and,
wafting through the treetops, drifted away on the warm wind of that late
June afternoon.

A man, some quarter of a mile to southward, on the great highway, paused
suddenly at sound of this explosion.

For a moment he stood there listening acutely, a knotted stick in hand,
his flannel shirt, open at the throat, showing a brown and corded neck.
The heavy knapsack on his shoulders seemed no burden to that rugged
strength, as he stood, poised and eager, every sense centered in keen
attention.

"Trouble ahead, there, by the Eternal!" he suddenly exclaimed. His eye
had just caught sight of the first trailing wreaths of smoke, from up
the cliff. "An auto's gone to smash, down there, or I'm a plute!"

He needed no second thought to hurl him forward to the rescue. At a
smart pace he ran, halloo'ing loudly, to tell the victims--should they
still live--that help was at hand. At his right, extended the wall. At
his left, a grove of sugar-maples, sparsely set, climbed a long slope,
over the ridge of which the descending sun glowed warmly. Somewhat back
from the road, a rough shack which served as a sugar-house for the
spring sap-boiling, stood with gaping door, open to all the winds that
blew. These things he noted subconsciously, as he ran.

Then, all at once, as he rounded a sharp turn, he drew up with a cry.

"Down the cliff!" he exclaimed. "Knocked the wall clean out, and
plunged! Holy Mackinaw, what a smash!"

In a moment he had reached the scene of the catastrophe. His quick eye
took in, almost at a glance, the skidding mark of the wheels, the ragged
rent in the wall, the broken limbs of trees below.

"Some wreck!" he ejaculated, dropping his stick and throwing off his
knapsack. "_Hello, Hello, down there!_" he loudly hailed, scrambling
through the gap.

From below, no answer.

A silence, as of death, broken only by the echo of his own voice, was
all that greeted his wild cry.

[Illustration: He gathered her up as though she had been a child.]




CHAPTER XIV.

THE RESCUE.


Gabriel Armstrong leaped, rather than clambered, through the gap in the
wall, 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 wounds
upon their bark, and here and there pieces of metal--a gray mud-guard, a
car door, a wind-shield frame, with shattered plate glass still clinging
to it--lay scattered on the precipitous declivity. Beside these, hanging
to a branch, Gabriel saw a gaily-striped auto robe; and, further down, a
heavy, fringed shawl.

Again he shouted, holding to a tree-trunk at the very edge of a cliff of
limestone, and peering far down into the abyss where the car had taken
its final plunge. Still no answer. But, from below, the heavy smoke
still rose. And now, peering more keenly, Armstrong caught sight of the
wreck 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 it
seemed to him that, from under the jumbled wreckage of the blazing
machine, 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 to
bush, from shrub to tuft of grass, clinging wherever handhold or
foothold offered, digging his stout boots into every cleft and cranny of
the precipice.

The height could not have been less than a hundred and fifty feet. By
dint of wonderful strength and agility, and at the momentary risk of
falling, himself, to almost certain death, Gabriel descended in less
than ten minutes. The last quarter of the distance he practically fell,
sliding at a tremendous rate, with boulders and loose earth cascading
all 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 he
approached. "If it were, this whole cliff-side, and the woods beyond,
would be a roaring furnace. Some forest-fire, all right, if the woods
weren't wet and full of sap!"

Parting the brush, he made his way as close to the car as the intense
heat would let him. The gasoline-tank, he understood, had burst with the
shock, and, taking fire, had wrapped the car in an Inferno of
unquenchable flame. Now, the woodwork was entirely gone; and of the
wheels, as the long machine lay there on its back, only a few blazing
spokes were left. The steel chassis and the engine were red-hot, twisted
and broken as though a giant hammer had smitten them on some Vulcanic
anvil.

"There's a few thousand dollars gone to the devil!" thought he. But his
mind 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, in
the wreck. And again he shouted, as he worked his way to the other side
of the machine--to the side which, seen from the cliff above, had seemed
to show him that inert and mangled body.

All at once he stopped short, shielding his face with his hands, against
the blaze.

"Good God!" he exclaimed; and involuntarily took off his cap, there in
the presence of death.

That the man _was_ dead, admitted of no question. Pinned under the
heavy, glowing mass of metal, his body must already have been roasted to
a char. The head could not be seen; but part of one shoulder and one arm
protruded, with the coat burned off and the flesh horribly crackled;
while, nearer Gabriel, a leg showed, with a regulation chauffeur's
legging, also burned to a crisp.

"Nothing for me to do, here," said Gabriel aloud. "He's past all human
help, poor chap. I don't imagine there can be anybody else in this
wreck. I haven't seen anybody, and nobody has answered my shouts. What's
to be done next?"

He pondered a moment, then, looking at the license plate of the
machine--its enamel now half cracked off, but the numbers still
legible--drew out his note-book and pencil and made a memo of the
figures.

"Four-six-two-two, N.Y.," he read, again verifying his numbers. "That
will 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, for
any other victim--a search which brought no results--he set to work once
more to climb the cliff above him.

The fire, though still raging, was obviously dying down. In half an
hour, he knew, it would be dead. There was no use in trying to
extinguish it, for gasoline defies water, and no sand was to be had
along 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 left
him 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 at
the still-smoking ruin far below. And, as he stood there all at once he
thought 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 listened
intently. Was it a cry? Or had the breeze but swayed one tree limb
against 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 time
he knew it was a cry for help!

"Where are you?" shouted he, plunging forward along the steep side of
the cliff. "Where?"

No answer, save a groan.

"Coming! Coming!" he hailed loudly. Then, guided as it seemed by
instinct, 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 stammering
exclamation 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 a
sheer declivity.

He saw torn clothing, through the foliage; a white hand, out-stretched
and bleeding; a mass of golden-coppery hair that lay dishevelled on the
bed 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 at
her side.

"Not dead! Not dying! Thank God!" he exclaimed. One glance showed him
she would live. Though an ugly gash upon her forehead had bathed her
face in blood, and though he knew not but bones were broken, he
recognized the fact that she was now returning, fast, to consciousness.

Already she had opened her eyes--wild eyes, understanding nothing--and
was staring up at him in dazed, blank terror. Then one hand came up to
her face; and, even as he lifted her in both his powerful arms, she
began to sob hysterically.

He knew the value of that weeping, and made no attempt to stop it. The
overwrought nerves, he understood, must find some outlet. Asking no
question, speaking no word--for Gabriel was a man of action, not
speech--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 to
him her weight was nothing.

Sure-footed, now, and bursting through the brambles with fine energy, he
carried her to the gap in the wall, up through it, and so to the roadway
itself.

"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't
think 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 had
happened. Obviously, Gabriel saw, her reason had not yet fully returned.
His first aim must be to bathe her wound, find out what damage had been
done, and keeping her quiet, try to get help.

Swiftly he thought. Here he and the woman were, miles from any
settlement or house, nearly in the middle of a long stretch of road that
skirted the river through dense woods. At any time a motor might come
along; and then again, one might not arrive for hours. No dependence
could 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 had
passed through? Impossible! No man's strength could stand such a
tremendous task. And even had it been within Gabriel's means, he would
have chosen otherwise. For most of all the girl needed rest and quiet
and immediate care. To bear her all that distance in his arms might
produce serious, even fatal results.

"No!" he decided. "I must do what I can for her, here and now, and trust
to luck to send help in an auto, down this road!"

His next thought was that bandages and wraps would be needed for her cut
and to make her a bed. Instantly he remembered the shawl and the big
auto-robe that he had seen caught among the trees.

"I must have those at once!" he realized. "When the machine went over
the edge, they were thrown out, just as the girl was. A miracle she
wasn't carried down, with the car, and crushed or burned to death down
there by the river, with that poor devil of a chauffeur!"

Laying her down in the soft grass along the wall, he ran back to where
the wraps were, and, detaching them from the branches, quickly regained
the road once more.

"Now for the old sugar-house in the maple-grove," said he. "Poor
shelter, but the best to be had. Thank heaven it's fair weather, and
warm!"

The task was awkward, to carry both the girl and the bulky robes, but
Gabriel was equal to it She had by now regained some measure of
rationality; and though very pale and shaken, manifested her nerve and
courage by no longer weeping or asking questions.

Instead, she lay in his arms, eyes closed, with the blood stiffening on
her face; and let him bear her whither he would. She seemed to sense his
strength and mastery, his tender care and complete command of the
situation. And, like a hurt and tired child, outworn and suffering, she
yielded herself, unquestioningly, to his ministrations.

Thus Gabriel, the discharged, blacklisted, outcast rebel and
proletarian, bore in his arms of mercy and compassion the only daughter
of 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 and
enslavement.

Such was the meeting of this woman and this man. Thus, in his arms, he
carried her to the old sugar-house.

And far below, the mighty river gleamed, unheeding the tragedy that had
been enacted on its shores, unmindful of the threads of destiny even now
being spun by the swift shuttles of Fate.

In the branches, above Gabriel and Catherine, birdsong and golden
sunlight seemed to prophesy. But what this message might be, neither the
woman nor the man had any thought or dream.




CHAPTER XV.

AN HOUR AND A PARTING.


Arriving at the sugar-house, tired yet strong, Gabriel put the wounded
girl down, quickly raked together a few armfuls of dead leaves, in the
most sheltered corner of the ramshackle structure, and laid the heavy
auto-robe upon this improvised bed. Then he helped his patient to lie
down, there, and bade her wait till he got water to wash and dress her
cut.

"Don't worry about anything," he reassured her. "You're alive, and
that's the main thing, now. I'll see you through with this, whatever
happens. Just keep calm, and don't let anything distress you!"

She looked at him with big, anxious eyes--eyes where still the full
light of understanding had not yet returned.

"It--it all happened so suddenly!" she managed to articulate. "He was
drunk--the chauffeur. The car ran away. Where is it? Where is
Herrick--the man?"

"I don't know," Gabriel lied promptly and with force. Not for worlds
would he have excited her with the truth. "Never you mind about that.
Just lie still, now, till I come back!"

Already, among the rusty utensils that had served for the
"sugaring-off," the previous spring, he had routed out a tin pail. He
kicked a quantity of leaves in under the sheet-iron open stove, flung
some sticks atop of them, and started a little blaze. Warm water, he
reflected, would serve better than cold in removing that clotting blood
and dressing the hurt.

Then, saying no further word, but filled with admiration for the girl's
pluck, he seized the pail and started for water.

"Nerve?" he said to himself, as he ran down the road toward a little
brook he remembered having crossed, a few hundred yards to southward.
"Nerve, indeed! Not one complaint about her own injuries! Not a word of
lamentation! If this isn't a thoroughbred, whoever or whatever she is, I
never saw one!"

He returned, presently, with the pail nearly full of cold and sparkling
water. Ignoring rust, he made her drink as deeply as she would, and then
set a dipperful of water on the now hot sheet-iron.

Then, tearing a strip off the shawl, he made ready for his work as an
amateur physician.

"Tell me," said he, kneeling there beside her in the hut which was
already beginning to grow dusk, "except for this cut on your forehead,
do you feel any injury? Think you've got any broken bones? See if you
can move your legs and arms, all right."

She obeyed.

"Nothing broken, I guess," she answered. "What a miracle! Please leave
me, now. I can wash my own hurt. Go--go find Herrick! He needs you worse
than I do!"

"No he doesn't!" blurted Gabriel with such conviction that she
understood.

"You mean?" she queried, as he brought the dipper of now tepid water to
her side. "He--he's dead?"

He hesitated to answer.

"Dead! Yes, I understand!" she interpreted his silence. "You needn't
tell me. I know!"

He nodded.

"Yes," said he. "Your chauffeur has paid the penalty of trying to drive
a six-cylinder car with alcohol. Now, think no more of him! Here, let me
see how badly you're cut."

"Let me sit up, first," she begged. "I--I'm not hurt enough to be lying
here like--like an invalid!"

She tried to rise, but with a strong hand on her shoulder he forced her
back. She shuddered, with the horror of the chauffeur's death strong
upon her.

"Please lie still," he begged. "You've had a terrific shock, and have
lived through it by a miracle, indeed. You're wounded and still
bleeding. You _must_ be quiet!"

The tone in his voice admitted no argument. Submissive now to his
greater strength, this daughter of wealth and power lay back, closed her
tired eyes and let the revolutionist, the proletarian, minister to her.

Dipping the piece of shawl into the warm water, he deftly moistened the
dried blood on her brow and cheek, and washed it all away. He cleansed
her sullied hair, as well, and laid it back from the wound.

"Tell me if I hurt you, now," he bade, gently as a woman. "I've got to
wash the cut itself."

She answered nothing, but lay quite still. And so, hardly wincing, she
let him lave the jagged wound that stretched from her right temple up
into the first tendrils of the glorious red-gold hair.

"H'm!" thought Gabriel, as he now observed the cut with close
attention. "I'm afraid there'll have to be some stitches taken here!"
But of this he said nothing. All he told her was: "Nothing to worry
over. You'll be as good as new in a few days. As a miracle, it's _some_
miracle!"

Having completed the cleansing of the cut, he fetched his knapsack and
produced a clean handkerchief, which he folded and laid over the wound.
This pad he secured in place by a long bandage cut from the edge of the
shawl and tied securely round her shapely head.

"There," said he, surveying his improvisation with considerable
satisfaction. "Now you'll do, till we can undertake the next thing.
Sorry I haven't any brandy to give you, or anything of that sort. The
fact is, I don't use it, and have none with me. How do you feel, now?"

She opened her eyes and looked up at him with the ghost of a smile on
her pale lips.

"Oh, much, much better, thank you!" she answered. "I don't need any
brandy. I'm--awfully strong, really. In a little while I'll be all
right. Just give me a little more water, and--and tell me--who are you?"

"Who am I?" he queried, holding up her head while she drank from the tin
cup he had now taken from his knapsack. "I? Oh, just an out-of-work.
Nobody of any interest to you!"

A certain tinge of bitterness crept into his voice. In health, he knew,
a woman of this class would not suffer him even to touch her hand.

"_Don't_ ask me who I am, please. And I--I won't ask _your_ name. We're
of different worlds, I guess. But for the moment, Fate has levelled the
barriers. Just let it go at that. And now, if you can stay here, all
right; perhaps I can hike back to the next house, below here, and
telephone, and summon help."

"How far is it?" she asked, looking at him with wonder in her lovely
eyes--wonder, and new thoughts, and a strange kind of longing to know
more of this extraordinary man, so strong, so gentle, so unwilling to
divulge himself or ask her name.

"How far?" he repeated. "Oh, four or five miles. I can make it in no
time. And with luck, I can have an auto and a doctor here before dark.
Well, does that suit you?"

"Don't go, please," she answered. "I--I may be still a little weak and
foolish, but--somehow, I don't want to be left alone. I want to be kept
from remembering, from thinking of those last, awful moments when the
car was running away; when it struck the wall, at the turn; when I was
thrown out, and--and knew no more. Don't go just yet," the girl
entreated, covering her eyes with both hands, as though to shut out the
horrible vision of the catastrophe.

"All right," Gabriel answered. "Just as you please. Only, if I stay, you
must promise to stop thinking about the accident, and try to pull
together."

"I promise," she agreed, looking at him with strange eyes. "Oh dear,"
she added, with feminine inconsequentiality, "my hair's all down, and
Lord knows where the pins are!"

He smiled to himself as she managed, with the aid of such few hairpins
as remained, to coil the coppery meshes once more round her head and
even somewhat over the bandage, and secure them in place.

At sight of his face as he watched her, she too smiled wanly--the first
time he had seen a real smile on her mouth.

"I'm only a woman, after all," she apologized. "You don't understand.
You can't. But no matter. Tell me--why need you go, at all?"

"Why? For help, of course."

"There's sure to be a motor, or something, along this road, before very
long," she answered. "Put up some signal or other, to stop it. That will
save you a long, long walk, and save me from--remembering! I need you
here with me," she added earnestly. "Don't go--please!"

"All right, as you will," the man made reply. "I'll rig a danger-signal
on the road; and then all we can do will be to wait."

This plan he immediately put into effect, setting his knapsack in the
middle of the road and piling up brush and limbs of trees about it.

"There," he said to himself, as he surveyed the result, "no car will get
by _that_, without noticing it!"

Then he returned to the sugar-house, some hundred yards back from the
highway in the grove, now already beginning to grow dim with the shadows
of approaching nightfall. The glowing coals of the fire gleamed redly,
through the rough place. The girl, still lying on her bed of leaves and
auto-robes, with the mutilated shawl drawn over her, looked up at him
with an expression of trust and gratitude. For a second, only one,
something quick and vital gripped at the wanderer's heart--some vague,
intangible longing for a home and a woman, a longing old as our race,
deep-planted in the inmost citadel of every man's soul. But,
half-impatiently, he drove the thought away, dismissed it, and, smiling
down at her with cheerful eyes and white, even teeth, said reassuringly:

"Everything's all right now. The first machine that passes, will take
you to civilization."

"And you?" she asked. "What of you, then?"

"Me? Oh, I'll hike," he answered. "I'll plug along just as I was doing
when I found you."

"Where to?"

"Oh, north."

"What for?"

"Work. Please don't question me. I'd rather you wouldn't."

She pondered a moment.

"Are you--what they call a--workingman?" she presently resumed.

"Yes," said he. "Why?"

"And are you happy?"

"Yes. In a way. Or shall be, when I've done what I mean to do."

"But--forgive me--you're very poor?"

"Not at all! I have, at this present moment, more than eighteen dollars
in my pocket, and I have _these_!"

He showed her his two hands, big and sinewed, capable and strong.