Mr. Lurie laughed. “Marian, you’ll feel better after you’ve eaten and rested a few minutes longer. You’ll get your second wind.”
“Second wind!” She moved uneasily to a different position. “I used that up long ago. What I need is a pair of bellows to keep my lungs going, to say nothing of a relay of fresh, untrodden feet!”
Judy too couldn’t help laughing. She sat down next to Marian and fed her pieces of orange. She put a sandwich in her hand and coaxed her to take a bite, then another, until it was finished.
“You’ll be all right, Marian. I have an idea. Father has some string in his knapsack. Fran can wind it around your sneaker to reinforce it so that it holds.”
“Please,” Marian pleaded, “all of you, go ahead and that includes Karl. I’ll sleep here peacefully with the birds and beasts—and mountains, and dream peacefully of a hotel room with a hot, steaming bath!”
“No,” Karl said firmly, “I’m not leaving you here alone.”
“It’s a darn shame,” Fran protested. “You’re the one, Karl, who wanted to see Maroon Peak most of all.” He turned dejectedly to Mr. Lurie. “What do you say, Professor?”
“I agree with Karl. We can’t leave Marian alone. There’s no actual danger. We don’t expect any landslide or sudden snow flurry.” He looked at the unclouded sky. “But,” he paused as he tried to hide his own disappointment, “maybe we should give up and all of us return together.”
Judy looked heart-broken. “Marian, I know you feel better now. Why don’t you let Fran fix your sneaker?” she urged. “I know it worked with a girl who went up Mt. Washington with me! We’ve gone three quarters of the way. To turn back now is to admit defeat! You’re spoiling everybody’s fun. Don’t you see!”
“No, I don’t see. But I don’t want to be a spoilsport either.” She dragged herself to a sitting position.
“Once I played in a golf tournament,” she went on. “At the end of eighteen holes the score was tied. I’d just gotten over the flu and I shouldn’t have played at all. I was all beat out but I played another nine holes before the match was finished. It didn’t kill me. All right, you win!”
Judy felt a new respect, almost an affection for this girl whom she had secretly called her “hated rival.”
Fran fixed the offending sneaker and then he announced in his best “guided-tour voice,” “Let everyone attend to his needs.” And with that command the boys and Mr. Lurie discreetly retired to a declivity and were quickly out of sight.