Wake
up, McLane!"
"Joe!" said a voice, and Patty Cannon threw her arms around him.
"To burning fire with you!" bellowed the filial son. "Take your arms
away!"
"Let us make up, Joe! Everybody has run away from us. Huldy is gone,
too. McLane is dead."
"Dead? Dead where?"
"There"--she pointed to a feather-bed lying upon the floor, the outlines
of which seemed unusually pointed and stiff for feathers, though it was
sown up in its own blankets and quilts. Joe Johnson touched it with his
foot and bounded back.
"Hell-cat!" he cried, "is this one of your tricks?"
"I did it fur you, Josie. He brought it on hisself. There's his
portmanteau full of money to pay our travelling expenses. He's sewed up
beautiful, and in the bay you can drop him to the bottom."
Joe Johnson's face became almost livid pale, and, rushing upon Patty
Cannon with both hands raised, he struck her to the floor and put his
boot upon her.
"If I had time, I'd have your life," he hissed. "But it would lose the
uptucker a job. To-night I leave you forever. Margaretta, your daughter,
wishes never to see you again. Take this crib and the blood you still
must shed to keep your old heart warm, and take my curse to choke you on
the gallows!"
He rushed away and gave a low whistle at the window; Daw and Joe's
brother, Ebenezer, a lower set and more sinister being, bounded up the
stairs and loosened and drove before them the little band of captives.
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