The six rushed on her tumultously.

They seized her hands or struggled for a fragment of her skirt to hold while they poured out their tale.

Pop had fished up a man--he'd been throwed in the river! Pop didn't know if he was dead or not--he was all cut and bloody.
"I declare, I've a mind to skin you if you don't keep still! Miss Constance," Polly addressed her eldest child, "I'm surprised at you! You might be a heathen savage for all you got on your back--get into some duds this instant!" Cavendish was on his knees again beside Yancy, and Polly, by a determined effort, rid herself of the children.

"Why, he's a grand-looking man, ain't he ?" she cried.

"La, what a pity!" "You can feel his heart beat, and he's bleeding some," said Cavendish.
"Let me see--just barely flutters, don't it?
Henry, go mind the sweep and see we don't get aground! Keppel, you start a fire and warm some water! Connie, you tear up my other petticoat for bandages now, stir around, all of you!" And then began a period of breathless activity.
They first lifted Yancy into the circle of illumination cast by the fire Keppel had started on the hearth of flat stones before the shanties.
Then, with Constance to hold a pan of warm water, Mrs.Cavendish deftly bathed the gaping wound in Yancy's shoulder where Murrell had driven his knife.