Bonny Jean, and A Severe Threat — page 73: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

66 BONNY JEAN. and the poor old father, accompanied by John Averill, set out at once to return with the stranger to his house, It was nearly night when they started, and traveling all night, they arrived at the cabin by sunrise. Springing from their horses, they followed their guide to the door. ‘‘Mariar” put in an appearance immediately. ‘“Ye’ve come arter the gal, I expect?” she began, in her shrill voice, smoothing down her blue check apron as she spoke. ‘‘Wal, I’m mighty sorry; reckon as how yell take it right hard, but you see that thar trip a-horseback was too much for her. She had ‘the fever’ on her when she got here, and—and—she didn’t live three days! We couldnt keep the body, ‘twas too warm, ye know, and so she’s out thar !” The woman pointed with her skinny hand to a low, nar- row mound under a great magnolia near by. Old Mr. Lee sank down beside it without a word. John Averill, white, and stern, and uncompromising, came and stood beside it. He had no tears or sobs. ‘‘ By this little grave,” he said, in a low, tense voice, and raising one hand heavenward as he spoke, ‘‘I repeat my oath of vengeance! So help me, Heaven, I will have the life of the fiend that is responsible for this deed !” There was a slight rustling in the bushes near, and John Averill sprang forward like one bereft of his senses, CHAPTER XIII POOR LADY! When Gabriel Black returned to his senses, after the blow which he had received while attempting to rob the widow and orphan, he was lying upon the grass, not far from the scene of his interrupted labor, and the pale, calm moon eoked down upon him. Gomicbooks.co