Cathalina looked around at the shadows, the dark trees and bushes, wondering if Betty were somewhere among them and thought of what Lilian had said in the afternoon about its all being so beautiful “when every thing was safe and happy.”
It looked very much as if this were Betty’s final adventure. She lay upon the ground, on one side, where she had rolled from the elevation about the trunk of a huge tree. Both arms were over her head, for she had tried to catch the branches as she was thrown. Tossed over the bushes, she had just escaped being hurled against the tree, but had struck her head on one of its large roots as she fell. Her face was pale, her hands and arms limp, her brown hair a tumbling mass about the dark collar and shoulders of her riding coat. For a long time she lay so, then gradually began to come to a very sick consciousness of her condition and surroundings. Her arms were stiff as she drew them down to hold an aching, dizzy head. She tried to raise herself on her elbow, but fell back again and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, they rested on a little ground squirrel that sat at attention on a projection of the root which had made the large lump on Betty’s head, as she later discovered by the stain there.
“Hello, little chap,” she said, whereat the chipmunk whisked out of sight behind the tree. Betty tried to think what had happened, and turned over on her back, her arm under the bruised head, looking now into the leafy branches of the big elm. A fat wood thrush flew upon one of the lower limbs and sang “Come to me,” most consolingly. Every dark spot upon his breast was in view, and he spread his wings, preened his feathers, turned this way and that, changed the key of his song, went from major to minor, and tinkled his little musical bell from time to time.
“Aren’t you a darling?” asked Betty, smiling a little crooked smile. “Oh, yes; I got thrown. It was Calico. I’m supposed to be ‘boning’ on Lit., and it’s little Betty who will have to get herself out of this mess. I can’t be so awfully far in this woods. But I imagine that Calico has found his way home. Maybe they will come after me. No broken bones anyway, unless my head,” and Betty smiled again her drawn smile. “Now I’m _going_ to sit up!” And sit up she did. She gathered up her loose hair, wet and stained, and finding still a hairpin or two, fastened it on top of her head, away from the aching lump. “My, it’s getting dark. I’ll have to hurry.”