s, and out to the garden walk. When within a
few feet of the fence, she uttered a cry, the first she had given,--the
cry of a mother over her stricken babe, of a tigress over her mangled
cub; and in another moment she had leaped the fence, and knelt beside
Ridgeway, with his fainting head upon her breast.

"My boy, my poor, poor boy! who has done this?"

Who, indeed? His clothes were covered with dust; his waistcoat was torn
open; and his handkerchief, wet with the blood it could not stanch, fell
from a cruel stab beneath his shoulder.

"Ridgeway, my poor boy! tell me what has happened."

Ridgeway slowly opened his heavy blue-veined lids, and gazed upon her.
Presently a gleam of mischief came into his dark eyes, a smile stole
over his lips as he whispered slowly,--

"It--was--your kiss--did it, Jenny dear. I had forgotten--how
high-priced the article was here. Never mind, Jenny!"--he feebly raised
her hand to his white lips,--"it was--worth it," and fainted away.

Jenny started to her feet, and looked wildly around her. Then, with a
sudden resolution, she stooped over the insensible man, and with one
strong effort lifted him in her arms as if he had been a child. When her
father, a moment later, rubbed his eyes, and awoke from his sleep upon
the veranda, it was to see a goddess, erect and triumphant, striding
toward the house with the helpless body of a man lying across that
breast where man had never lain before,--a goddess, at whose imperious
mandate he arose, and cast open the doors before her. And then, when
she had laid her unconscious burden on the sofa, the goddess fled; and a
woman, helpless and trembling, stood before him,--a woman that cried out
that she had "killed him," that she was "wicked, wicked!" and that, even
saying so, staggered, and fell beside her late burden. And all that
Mr. McClosky could do was to feebly rub his beard, and say to himself
vaguely and incoherently, that "Jinny had fetched him."

CHAPTER II

Before noon the next day, it was generally believed throughout Four
Forks that Ridgeway Dent had been attacked and wounded at Chemisal Ridge
by a highwayman, who fled on the approach of the Wingdam coach. It is to
be presumed that this statement met with Ridgeway's approval, as he did
not contradict it, nor supplement it with any details. His wound was
severe, but not dangerous. After the first excitement had subsided,
there was, I think, a prevailing impression common to the provin