I waded that brook a dozen times as I sat there.
I remembered every detail; how still she lay in my arms; how white her face looked as the distant lightning flashes revealed it to me; how her hair brushed my cheek as I bent over her.

I was using a wad of cotton waste to polish the gun barrel, and I threw it into a corner, having the insane notion that, in some way, the association of ideas came from that bunch of waste.

It--the waste--was grimy and anything but fragrant, as different from the dark lock which the wind had blown against my face as anything well could be, but the hurry with which I discarded it proves my imbecility at that time.

Confound the girl! she was a nuisance.

I wanted to forget her and her family, and the sulphurous personage to whose care I had once consigned the head of the family apparently took a characteristic delight in arranging matters so that I could not.
The shot gun was, at last, so spotless that even a pretense of further cleaning was ridiculous.