Don't sit up there and be--"
"I'll sit right where I am," she cried defiantly.
Anderson Crow waved to the men under Crow's Cliff, and they began to
make their arduous way along the bank in the trail of the skiff. Part of
the armed posse hurried down and boarded the raft, while others followed
the chase by land.
"We'll beat them to Bracken's by a mile," cried Jack Barnes.
"If they don't shoot us," she responded. "Why, oh, why are they so
intent upon killing us?"
"They don't want you to be a widow and--break a--lot of hearts," he
said. "If they--hit me now you--won't be--dangerous as a--widow."
"Oh, you heartless thing! How can you jest about it? I'd--I'd go into
mourning, anyway, Jack," she concluded, on second thought. "We are just
as good as married, you see."
"It's nice--of you to say it, dear--but we're a long--way
from--Bracken's. Gee! That was close!"
A bullet splashed in the water not ten feet from the boat. "The cowards!
They're actually trying to kill us!" For the first time his face took
on a look of alarm and his eyes grew desperate. "I can't let them shoot
at you, Marjory, dear! What the dickens they want I don't know, but I'm
going to surrender." He had stopped rowing and was making ready to wave
his white handkerchief on high.
"Never!" she cried with blazing eyes. "Give me the oars!" She slid into
the other rowing seat and tried to snatch the oars from the rowlocks.
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