Blue Robin, the Girl Pioneer — Part 83

But the belated ones needed no urging, especially Nathalie, who dashed ahead without regard to time or place, with a haste that left no doubt as to her joy that her searching party had been a success. Overhanging branches and dried twigs that blocked her way were ruthlessly brushed aside, or run against, scratching and bruising her unmercifully as she discovered later, but it made no difference to the happy girl.

It seemed but a moment when she emerged into a clearing, and close at the heels of Kitty climbed down into a small ravine. It had evidently been at one time the road-bed of a brook, but was now filled with scraggy stones, dried underbrush, and fallen logs.

As Nathalie saw the little motionless figure cuddled in a heap against the rock, her heart leaped with misgiving. “Oh, is she dead?” she asked Helen, who stood guard by the side of the rock, every now and then brushing away a gnat or a fly that descended with a loud buzz on the smeared black face, which lay partly exposed to view as it rested on a mite of an arm.

“Oh, no,” assured Helen, “she is all right, only asleep. I suppose she wandered about for some time in the darkness and was tired out, poor little tot!”

The little one looked so pathetically small as she lay there, just a heap of bones, black skin, and woolly hair, with the tears still glistening on the black lashes, that Nathalie’s heart was stirred with pity.

Mrs. Morrow now came forward and quickly felt her pulse, crying as she did so, “Oh, you poor little black baby! Yes, she is all right!” she nodded assuringly, “but Helen, what is the matter with her leg?” Her sharp glance noted that it lay rather limply on the ground.

“I am not sure,” said Helen with bent brows as she touched it softly, “but I am afraid it is broken. That is why I waited for you and Nathalie, I did not like to move her for fear of hurting her.”

“But we shall have to,” returned Mrs. Morrow as she finished examining the injured limb, “for it is broken, and we must get her home as soon as possible, for it will have to be set.”

As Helen and Mrs. Morrow attempted to take hold of the child to lift her on the stretcher the girls had made, she opened her eyes wide into the strange faces bending over her. Then she closed them quickly, and as the little black face wrinkled in fear she let forth such a howl of absolute despair that the girls were all on the verge of joining with her in their keen sympathy.