r lost, for those boys would have no mercy on him if they captured
him.

But in the next moment he heard a fall and an oath, and the voice was
that of Halvor Reitan. He breathed a little more freely as he saw the
river run with its swelling current at his feet. Quite mechanically,
without clearly knowing what he did, he sprang into the boat, grabbed
a boat-hook, and with three strong strokes pushed himself out into the
deep water.

At that instant a dozen of his pursuers reached the river bank, and
he saw dimly their angry faces and threatening gestures, and heard the
stones drop into the stream about him. Fortunately the river was partly
dammed, in order to accumulate water for the many saw-mills under the
falls. It would therefore have been no very difficult feat to paddle
across, if his aching arms had had an atom of strength left in them. As
soon as he was beyond the reach of flying stones he seated himself in
the stern, took an oar, and after having bathed his throbbing forehead
in the cold water, managed, in fifteen minutes, to make the further
bank. Then he dragged himself wearily up the hill-side to Colonel Hook's
mansion, and when he had given his message to Viggo, fell into a dead
faint.

How could Viggo help being touched by such devotion? He had seen the
race through a fieldglass from his pigeon-cot, but had been unable to
make out its meaning, nor had he remotely dreamed that he was himself
the cause of the cruel chase. He called his mother, who soon perceived
that Marcus's coat was saturated with blood in the back, and undressing
him, she found that a stone, hurled by a sling, had struck him, slid a
few inches along the rib, and had lodged in the fleshy part of his left
side.

A doctor was now sent for; the stone was cut out without difficulty,
and Marcus was invited to remain as Viggo's guest until he recovered.
He felt so honored by this invitation that he secretly prayed he might
remain ill for a month; but the wound showed an abominable readiness to
heal, and before three days were past Marcus could not feign any ailment
which his face and eye did not belie.

He then, with a heavy heart, betook himself homeward, and installed
himself once more among his accustomed smells behind the store, and
pondered sadly on the caprice of the fate which had made Viggo a
high-nosed, handsome gentleman, and him--Marcus Henning--an under-grown,
homely, and unrefined drudge. But in spite of his failure to answer t