ghtened her.

"Keep still, Sarah; you hit me. I don't want to fire till I see."

"Oh, it's coming, it's coming!" cried Sarah, starting back with a scream.
She clung, in her terror, to Gypsy's arm; jerked it; the trigger snapped,
and a loud explosion echoed and re-echoed and reverberated among the
trees.

It was followed by a sound the most horrible Gypsy had heard in all her
life.

It was a human cry. _It was Tom's voice._

CHAPTER X

THE END OF THE WEEK

Gypsy threw down the gun, and threw up her hands with a curious quick
motion, like one in suffocation, who was trying to find a voice; but she
did not utter a sound.

There was an instant's awful stillness. In that instant, it seemed to
Gypsy as if she had lived a great many years; in that instant, even
Sarah's frightened cries were frozen.

Then the bushes parted, and some one sprang through. Gypsy knew the face
all blackened and marred with powder--the face dearer to her than any on
earth but her mother's. So she had not killed him--thank God, thank God!

"Gypsy, child!" called the dear, familiar voice; "what ails you? You
haven't hurt me, but why in the name of all danger on this earth did you
touch----"

But Tom stopped short; for Gypsy tottered up to him with such a white,
weak look on her face, that he thought the rebound of the gun must have
injured her, and caught her in his arms.

"You're not going to faint! Where are you hurt?"

But Gypsy was not hurt, and Gypsy never fainted. She just put her arms
about his neck and hid her face close upon his shoulder, and cried as if
her heart would break.

It was a long time before she spoke,--only kissing him and clinging to him
through her sobs,--then, at last,--

"Oh, Tom, I thought I had killed you--I thought--and I loved you so--oh,
Tom!"

Tom choked a little, and sat down on the ground, holding her in his lap.

"Why, my little Gypsy!"

Just then footsteps came crashing through the underbrush, and Mr. Hallam
ran hurriedly up.

"Oh, you've found them! Where were they? What has happened to Gypsy?"

"Let me go," sobbed Gypsy; "I can't talk just now. I want to go away and
cry."

She broke away from Tom's arms, and into the tent, where she could be
alone.

"What has happened?" repeated Mr. Hallam. "We came home in less than an
hour, and couldn't find you. We have been to Mr. Fisher's, and hunted
everywhere. I was calling for you in the gorge when Tom found you."

Sarah was left to t