e
red-blinking eyes of the ferocious beast. Something Bruin did not like:
it might have been the youth's company and valiant bearing, but more
probably his observation of the fire had satisfied him that he was out
of his place. With another growl, that seemed to say, "All I ask is to
be let alone," he seceded,--turning his head still more, twisting his
body around, after it, and retreating up the gorge.

In an instant Penn was at the young girl's side: his hand clasped hers;
he drew her up over the rock.

Not a word was uttered. He was too agitated to speak; and she, after the
terror and the strain to which her nerves had been subjected so long,
felt all her strength give way. But as he lifted her in his arms, a
faint smile of happiness flitted over her white face, and her lips moved
with a whisper of gratitude he did not hear.

In spite of all the dangers behind them, and of the dangers still
before, both felt, in that moment, a shock of mutual bliss. Neither had
ever known till then how dear the other was.

Pepperill had by this time leaped down upon the bulge of the bank. There
he waited for them, shouting,--

"Hurry up! the bar'll meet the fire up thar, and be comin' down agin!"

Penn required no spur to his exertions: he knew too well the necessity
of getting speedily beyond the reach, not of the bear only, but also of
the fire, which threatened them now on three sides--below, above, and on
the farther bank of the gorge.

Clasping the burden more precious to him than life, resolved in his soul
to part with it only with life, he toiled heavily up the bank, down
which he had descended with such tremendous swiftness a few minutes
before.

But it was not in Virginia's nature to remain long a helpless
encumbrance. Seeing the labor and peril still before them, her will
returned, and with it her strength. She grasped a branch by which he was
trying in vain with one hand, holding her with the other, to draw them
both up a steep place. Her prompt action enabled him to seize the trunk
of a young tree: she assisted still, and slipping from his hands, clung
to it until he had reached the next tree above. He pulled her up after
him, and then pushed her on still farther, until Pepperill could reach
her from where he stood. A minute later the three were together on the
summit of the slope.

But now they had above them the ten feet of sheer perpendicularity down
which Dan had indiscreetly jumped, following Penn's lead.