"Kingsley, Florence Morse - At the End Of His Rope" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kingsley Florence Morse)

die of slow starvation— and I am so hungry! But suppose I leave the spool here,
the unsuspecting old gentleman will wind up to it, and then he will have nothing
to go by— not even point B!"
A vision of her oven revered grandparent wandering gaunt and famished through
interminable wastes of desolate forest filled her with a lively anguish.
"No, I must not leave him to perish— it would be murder!" she said with a
shudder. "I will find him and tell him what I have done."
II
John Gearing glanced hastily over the closely written pages of his note-book by
the waning light, snapped the cover of his tin specimen case with a
well-satisfied air, and rose to his feet.
"It must be getting along toward sunset," he reflected, with a cursory glance at
his watch. "Capital day's work, though; I shouldn't like to have missed that
scarlet-headed arachnid. As for the coleopteron, I doubt if it has been
generally recognized as a genuine crotylid— which it unquestionably is."
He paused to drop a full spool into his pocket and disengage an empty one from
the limb of a mighty spruce which stood among its fellows weeping odorous tears
of purest gum. The bug-hunter eyed it thoughtfully, a cheerful vision of the
camp frying-pan, replete with sizzling slices of fragrant bacon, to be succeeded
by a long procession of substantial slapjacks, rising alluringly before him.
"Jove!" he muttered, "I forgot to eat my lunch!"
The reflections of the hungry scientist as he strode rapidly onward winding up
his second spool were both comfortable and complacent. "A more useful device to
save valuable time than this simple system of spools was never devised," he
decided. "At this moment I am— approximately— one and one-half miles from
supper; with no doubtful trail to follow, no delays to puzzle over direction, no
uncertainty whatever as to the exact point at which I shall—" He stopped short;
his keen ear had caught the sound of crackling branches.
"A deer!" he muttered; "and coming right this way!"
Arachnida, coleoptera, spools, and even supper were forgotten on the instant;
and the bug-hunter, alert and silent, stood grasping his rifle, his eyes fixed
on the low-growing tangle of evergreens from which the suspicious sounds had
proceeded. A moment later and he was staring with undisguised amazement at the
small figure which limped rapidly toward him.
"You are not Professor Gearing— I am so glad!" were the astonishing words with
which the apparition introduced itself. It pushed back a scarlet tam-o'-shanter
from a tangle of brown curls, and continued: "I don't know who you are, but I am
Katherine Terrill and I am lost in these dreadful woods. Do take me home!" With
that the figure sank back against a tree with a sound suspiciously like a sob.
"I— I do not understand," stammered the astounded bug-hunter lamely. "I can take
you home, certainly; but I must acknowledge that I am John Gearing."
The wearer of the scarlet tam started up with a hysterical laugh. "Professor
Gearing is an old man!" she cried, "and you— you are quite— quite young! I took
his spool out of the camp, and I can't find the way back!"
"The spool— eh! You don't mean—"
"Yes, I do. I took it and wound it up to point B— I mean the second spool,"
faltered the mischief-maker, her cheeks dyed with penitent blushes. "I— I was
stopping at the camp, you see, for a few moments with a friend, and I saw the
spool. I can't tell you why I did it." This last with a vain clutch after her
vanished dignity. "It— it just occurred to me that it might be—"