"Madge," he said, "in finding an outlook toward the hotel or valley,
don't go far away, if possible. It makes me awfully nervous to think
of you climbing alone."
She found a projecting rock beneath them within calling distance, and
on an extemporized pole she fastened the napkins. At his suggestion
she waved them only downward and upward, at the same time sending out
her powerful voice from time to time in a cry for help.
He, left alone, sometimes groaned from an unusually severe twinge of
pain, and again laughed softly to himself over the situation. He knew
that the question of their being sought and found was only one of
time, and he would have been willing to have had all his bones broken
should this have been needful to secure the knowledge which now
thrilled his very soul with gladness. The past grew perfectly clear,
and the pearl of a woman who had given herself to him so long ago
gained a more priceless value with every moment's thought, "Ah,
sweet Madge! I'm the blessed idiot you loved and toiled for at Santa
Barbara! I shouldn't have believed that such a thing could happen in
this humdrum world."
Nor would it seem that the attention of even a fraction of that great
world could be obtained.
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