Closer still. There were words carved
on it. She lay flat and managed to make them out painfully.
"Here lies Sarah Cannon. Lay to rest, and died alone, April
26, 1893."
Fanny had heard the story of Sarah Cannon, a stern spinster
who had achieved the climb to the Peak, and who had met with
mishap on the down trail. Her guide had left her to go for
help. When the relief party returned, hours later, they had
found her dead.
Fanny sprang up, filled with a furious energy. She felt
strangely light and clear-headed. She ran on, stopped, ran
again. Now she was making little short runs here and there.
It was snowing furiously, vindictively. It seemed to her
that she had been running for hours. It probably was
minutes. Suddenly she sank down, got to her feet again,
stumbled on perhaps a dozen paces, and sank down again. It
was as though her knees had turned liquid. She lay there,
with her eyes shut.
"I'm just resting," she told herself. "In a minute I'll go
on. In a minute. After I've rested."
"Hallo-o-o-o!" from somewhere on the other side of the snow
blanket.
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