She screamed wildly and jumped to one side. That carried her into
the swale, where the grasses reached almost to her waist, and her horror
of snakes returning, she made a flying leap for an old log lying beside
the line. She alighted squarely, but it was so damp and rotten that she
sank straight through it to her knees. She caught at the wire as she
went down, and missing, raked her wrist across a barb until she tore a
bleeding gash. Her fingers closed convulsively around the second strand.
She was too frightened to scream now. Her tongue stiffened. She clung
frantically to the sagging wire, and finally managed to grasp it with
the other hand. Then she could reach the top wire, and so she drew
herself up and found solid footing. She picked up the club that she
had dropped in order to extricate herself. Leaning heavily on it,
she managed to return to the trail, but she was trembling so that she
scarcely could walk. Going a few steps farther, she came to the stump of
the first tree that had been taken out.
She sat bolt upright and very still, trying to collect her thoughts and
reason away her terror.
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