The Christmas Miracle | Page 6

fire ter pledjure Bob, ez he war afeard Santy Claus would
scorch his feet comm' down the chimbley,--powerful lucky fur we uns;
the fire would hev burnt the house bodaciously."
Kennedy hardly stayed to hear. He was off in a moment, galloping at
frantic speed along the snowy trail scarcely traceable in the sad light of
the gray day; taking short cuts through the densities of the laurel; torn
by jagged rocks and tangles of thorny growths and broken branches of
great trees; plunging now and again into deep drifts above concealed
icy chasms, and rescuing with inexpressible difficulty the floundering,
struggling horse; reaching again the open sheeted roadway, bruised,
bleeding, exhausted, yet furiously plunging forward, rousing the
sparsely settled country-side with imperative insistence for help in this
matter of life or death!
Death, indeed, only,--for the enterprise was pronounced impossible by
those more experienced than Kennedy. Among the men now on the
bluff were several who had been employed in the silver mines of this
region, and they demonstrated conclusively that a rope could not be

worked clear of the obstructions of the face of the rugged and shattered
cliffs; that a human being, drawn from the cabin, strapped in a chair,
must needs be torn from it and flung into the abyss below, or beaten to
a frightful death against the jagged rocks in the transit.
"But not ef the chair war ter be steadied by a guy-rope from--say--from
that thar old pine tree over thar," Kennedy insisted, indicating the long
bole of a partially uprooted and inverted tree on the steeps. "The chair
would swing cl'ar of the bluff then."
"But, Jube, it is onpossible ter git a guy-rope over ter that tree,--more
than a man's life is wuth ter try it."
A moment ensued of absolute silence,--space, however, for a
hard-fought battle.
The aspect of that mad world below, with every condition of creation
reversed; a mistake in the adjustment of the winch and gear by the
excited, reluctant, disapproving men; an overstrain on the fibres of the
long-used rope; a slip on the treacherous ice; the dizzy whirl of the
senses that even a glance downward at those drear depths set astir in the
brain,--all were canvassed within his mental processes, all were duly
realized in their entirety ere he said with a spare dull voice and dry
lips,--
"Fix ter let me down ter that thar leanin' pine, boys,--I'll kerry a
guy-rope over thar."
At one side the crag beetled, and although it was impossible thence to
reach the cabin with a rope it would swing clear of obstructions here,
and might bring the rescuer within touch of the pine, where could be
fastened the guy-rope; the other end would be affixed to the chair
which could be lowered to the cabin only from the rugged face of the
cliff. Kennedy harbored no self-deception; he more than doubted the
outcome of the enterprise. He quaked and turned pale with dread as
with the great rope knotted about his arm-pits and around his waist he
was swung over the brink at the point where the crag jutted
forth,--lower and lower still; now nearing the slanting inverted pine,

caught amidst the débris of earth and rock; now failing to reach its
boughs; once more swinging back to a great distance, so did the length
of the rope increase the scope of the pendulum; now nearing the pine
again, and at last fairly lodged on the icy bole, knotting and coiling
about it the end of the guy-rope, on which he had come and on which
he must needs return.
It seemed, through the inexpert handling of the little group, a long time
before the stout arm-chair was secured to the cables, slowly lowered,
and landed at last on the outside of the hut. Many an anxious glance
was cast at the slate-gray sky. An inopportune flurry of snow, a flaw of
wind:--and even now all would be lost. Dusk too impended, and as the
rope began to coil on the windlass at the signal to hoist every eye was
strained to discern the identity of the first voyagers in this aerial
journey,--the two children, securely lashed to the chair. This was
well,--all felt that both parents might best wait, might risk the added
delay. The chair came swinging easily, swiftly, along the gradations of
the rise, the guy-rope holding it well from the chances of contact with
the jagged projections of the face of the cliff, and the first shout of
triumph rang sonorously from the summit.
When next the chair rested on the cabin beside the window, a thrill of
anxiety and anger went through Kennedy's heart to note, from his perch
on the leaning pine, a struggle between husband and wife as to who
should go