The Illegal Marriage — page 28: what you’re looking at

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

20 THE ILLEGAL MARRIAGE. been forestalled in this and went out to his own horse. Down the hill, along the muddy bottom, across the bit of corduroy leading to the bridge, he slowly rode, checking his horse still more as he came to the bridge itself. “The creek must be rising,” he thought, as he noticed the little pools around the cypress roots; and, turning his horse to the right as he came to the stream, Stannard looked over to see how high the water had already risen. As he did so he started back with horror; for down there, some four feet below, his feet in the water, and his body lying across a cotton-wood log, was Doctor Trippe. It was the work of a moment to spring down from the bridge and raise the doctor’s head. His first impulse was to feel for the heart. He could detect no throb there. Raising the unconscious head a little more he rejoiced to feel a faint motion, and presently a dull, slow beating of the heart. Stan- nard could not repress a cry of joy. There was yet hope. For the. first time he now discovered a deep cut above the right temple. The clotted blood and matted -hair had formed a com- press over the wound; but a few drops of dark blood oozed out upon his breast. Stannard turned the helpless head, saw a long scratch or bruise along the cheek where it had grazed the log. Whether the deeper cut was caused by the fall, or was the cause of the fall, he could not even conjecture. Pulling the body from the water, Stannard wrapped his two coats about it, and rode back to Echaconnee for help. Eomicbooks.com