[Gordon Keith by Thomas Nelson Page]@TWC D-Link bookGordon Keith CHAPTER XIV 44/46
She declared that she was going down into the woods herself to find Keith.
She was sure he had been killed. The men protested against this, and Jake Dennison and another man started to the rescue, whilst a grizzled, weather-beaten fellow caught and held her. "Why, my darlint, I couldn't let you go down there.
Why, you'd ruin your new bonnet," he said. The young woman snatched the bonnet from her head and slung it in his face. "You coward! Do you think I care for a bonnet when the best man in Gumbolt may be dying down in them woods ?" With a cuff on the ear as the man burst out laughing and put his hand on her to soothe her, she turned and darted over the bank into the woods. Fortunately for the rest of her apparel, which must have suffered as much as the dishevelled bonnet,--which the grizzled miner had picked up and now held in his hand as carefully as if it were one of the birds which ornamented it,--some one was heard climbing up through the bushes toward the road a little distance ahead. The men stepped forward and waited, each one with his hand in the neighborhood of his belt, whilst the women instinctively fell to the rear.
The next moment Keith appeared over the edge of the road.
As he stepped into the light it was seen that his face was bleeding and that his left arm hung limp at his side. The men called to Terpy to come back: that Keith was there.
<<Back Index Next>> D-Link book Top TWC mobile books
|