cautiously to a little branch, she bent over him.

With infinite tenderness she attempted to straighten out one leg which
was doubled beneath him, but he moaned and sighed so that she desisted,
seeing from the limp way that it lay that it was broken. He had
evidently fallen on his back; and like a dagger zig-zagging its way
through her heart was the thought, "What if that, too, were broken?"

Oh, how should they get him up without injuring him further and cruelly
hurting him with the ropes. And he must be so cold. She shivered herself
in the damp, icy air of this ravine. She called up to Mrs. Nitschkan to
swing down to her her long cape, which she had discarded before
beginning her climb. The gypsy did so carefully, but just as she let the
end of it go a gust of wind swept it in slow circles down the ravine.

Mrs. Nitschkan uttered more or less profane exclamations of disgust; but
Pearl said nothing. After her first feeling of intense disappointment,
a new idea had come to her, and she hastened to act upon
it. As quickly as she could with her torn fingers she unfastened her
gown and slipped out of it, and then, unheeding Mrs. Nitschkan, who was
scolding her like a magpie, she threw it over Seagreave, tucking it
about him as best she could. The breath of the snow-damp air upon her
shoulders and arms was like a bath of ice water, but she scarcely
noticed it, for she heard Mrs. Nitschkan welcoming José.

[Illustration: "Holding cautiously to a little branch, she bent over
him."]

He and the gypsy immediately began swinging great coils of rope over the
cliff.