Gripping the hand-rail she descended slowly into
the darkness below, the excitement of the adventure causing her heart
to beat like a trip-hammer.
At the bottom she was in a gloom almost impenetrable, but her feet felt
a cinder path and against the slightly lighter sky her eyes managed to
distinguish the gaunt limbs of a tree not far distant, the only one
visible and doubtless the cottonwood referred to in the note.
Shrinking there in the black shadow of the building she realised
suddenly the terror of her position--the intense loneliness; the
silence seemed to smite her. There occurred to her mind the wild,
rough nature of the camp, the drunkenness of the night before; the wide
contrast between that other scene of debauchery and this solitude of
silence leaving her almost unnerved. She endeavoured to recall her
surroundings, how the land lay here at the rear of the hotel. She
could see only a few shapeless outlines of scattered buildings, not
enough to determine what they were like. She had passed along that way
toward the bridge that afternoon, yet now she could remember little,
except piles of discarded tin cans, a few scattered tents, and a cattle
corral on the summit of the ridge.
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