In response to her bewildered, troubled look of inquiry, he said, cheerfully, and in natural tones, “Don’t worry, Madge, or be frightened.”

“What has happened, Graydon?”

“I’ll tell you what I know, and you must supply the rest.  We were proceeding along that ledge above us, and trying to find a safe place to climb down.”

A slow deep color began to take the place of her pallor, showing that her own memory was supplying all that had occurred.

“You know I fell, Madge.  Thank God, I did not carry you down with me!”

“Any other man would,” she said, almost brusquely.  “You threw my hand back around a tree.”

“Did I?” exclaimed Graydon, very innocently and gladly.  “Well, everything became very confused after that.  I must have been unconscious.  I do remember grasping at the branches as I passed through these low trees above us—­”

“You must have caught one of them, Graydon,” she said, eagerly, turning toward him again, “for a large limb had broken off and was lying upon you.”

“Was it so?  Perhaps I owe it a good turn, for it may have so broken my fall as to have saved my life.  Well, in some way, you, true, brave little girl, you must have reached me, and, finding that you could not restore me, and imagining I was dead or dying, you fainted yourself from the nervous shock of it all.  When I recovered the use of my senses I found evidence that you had been trying to revive me.  Now, Madge, we must both be brave and sensible.  We must regain the full possession of our wits as soon as possible.  Can you be very brave and sensible (to use your favorite word) if I tell you something?”

“Yes, Graydon,” she said.  “I can do anything, now that I know you are going to live.”

“I am very much alive, and shall be thoroughly conscious of the fact for some time to come.  You must keep perfectly cool and rational, for what has happened is a very serious affair under the circumstances.”  Her scarlet face was turned from him again.  “Madge,” he concluded, in quiet tones, “I’ve broken my leg.”

“Is that all?” she said, with a look of intense relief.

“Isn’t that enough?  I’m helpless.”

“I’m not,” and she sprang to her feet “Why, Graydon, it might have been a hundred-fold worse.  I thought it was immeasurably worse,” she said, suppressing a sob.  “You might have been killed.  See how far you fell!  I feared you might have received some terrible internal injury—­”

“I have; but that’s a chronic affair, as you know,” he interrupted, laughing.

[Illustration:  “SO YOU IMAGINE I SHALL SOON BE MAKING LOVE TO ANOTHER GIRL.”]

His mirth and allusion did more to restore her than all else, for he appeared the same friend that she thought she had lost.

“Now that it is so evident that you will survive all your injuries,” she resumed, with an answering laugh, “I am myself again.  You direct me what to do.”