José — page 162: what you’re looking at

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

JOSE. 155 the horse. As yet it had not begun to rain, which would have drenched her to the skin in a very short time, but a strange rustling was audible on the hill- tops around her; dry leaves and grass-blades began to rise and to whirl round ina circle, and slender columns of sand to dance about, borne aloft by sudden whiffs of wind—the precursors of a storm. If Mary had not known this, the sudden terror that seized her would have explained it to her. For the first time she doubled up her bridle and struck her horse, in hopes of accelerating his speed. The pony shook himself, then broke into a gallop, just as though he had at last begun to realize the nature of the situation. A dense gloom had during the past few minutes descended upon the landscape. The wind was stronger on the ridges about her, which cut off her view into the distance. Another flash and a second report, such as she had never heard in the East during the fiercest thunder-storm, followed, and the girl’s whole attention was once more engaged in restraining her frightened animal. At that junc- ture she felt the first heavy rain-drops on her hand, and like a veritable phantom suddenly presented itself the horrifying thought of a thunder-storm in a place devoid of even a tree to give her shelter, and which—if Mary should indeed, dark as it was, miss the settlement toward which she was making— would certainly prove to her a mazy labyrinth in which she might perish helplessly and unheard. There was a sudden turn in the road, branching off and leading to the summit of a near eminence. The young lady hurried her animal up the incline, and at her first glance into the open space beyond descried alow cabin that had been erected in an Eomichooks.co