CRIMSON MOUNTAIN Read Free

it crisply. “They haven’t established public telephone service yet on this highway.”
    “Oh, of course not,” said Laurel with a timid, apologetic smile. “I ought to have known better, of course. You see, I thought this was a shortcut to Carrollton. I must have made a mistake somewhere. But at least I can walk down to the highway, can’t I? It can’t be so far away. Or is it?”
    There was an appeal in her voice and her eyes that made Phil Pilgrim ashamed.
    “Oh, I guess it won’t come to that,” he said gruffly. He would have to take her to the town of course, and that would make no end of delay for him. What a nuisance that would be! He half wished he had not come up to Crimson himself this afternoon, but then, what would the girl have done if he hadn’t? He wasn’t a youth who had practiced looking after himself and his own interests first. His mother had taught him courtesy and gentlemanliness before she left him in this world alone.
    Then suddenly, into the middle of his perplexity and the strained silence that his words had brought, came a rushing, stampeding sound of many hooves, pounding along the road around which young Pilgrim had just come. And then, appearing as suddenly as he had done, came cattle. They looked to Laurel like millions as their brown faces and wild, excited eyes surmounted by terrifying horns showed around the curve and pelted straight at her.
    She cried out in terror, and then she was speechless with horror as the frightened creatures came on, led by two angry bulls escaped from their keepers, who were now running wildly in pursuit and shouting to them but only adding to the confusion.
    It was not a large herd and would not have been unmanageable, perhaps, if it had not been for those two unexpected cars and the man and girl. But now the animals snorted and plunged ahead, climbing up and over one another, angrily dashing this way and that, clambering upon the running boards of the cars, and shying, startled, away. The girl stood paralyzed with fear, her brain refusing to act, every muscle frozen. An instant more and she felt she would be down beneath those awful trampling hooves, crushed and bleeding, and that would be the end!
    Then just as she felt that she was losing consciousness and knew it would be impossible either to run or withstand the onslaught that was coming, strong arms behind her caught her up, away above that horde. With what seemed like superhuman strength, she was lifted up the steep embankment, above where the two cars stood.
    Though barely higher than the struggling creatures, she no longer felt their hot breath on her face, and even the screaming of the cattle, the roaring of the bulls, seemed below her.
    And yet the creatures were still there, struggling past in one wild melee. She could dimly feel their crowding, pushing forms jostling now and again, when one of them struggled up the bank. But they could not reach her, for the young man held her close in his arms. Her face was down on his chest, and his back and shoulders were taking the brunt of the crowding animals, his body protecting her at their every turn.
    Gradually she came to herself and realized these things, feeling strangely safe there in the midst of all the confusion.
    It seemed an eternity while those puffing, snorting, frightened steers were floundering frantically past them. The young man held his place on that steep hillside, now and then sliding, shoved aside, and almost falling, yet holding his footing, with Laurel in his arms. In reality it was only a very short time, for the animals were not many, and the two men and three boys who were attending them were doing their best to get them back to the road and to corral the angry bulls.
    The attendants did not seem even to notice the man and the frightened girl on the bank above the cars. Or if they saw them, they had no time to look at them and wonder. They were just a part of the obstacles that had caused the confusion. Fool people who came