Page:J Allan Dunn--The Girl of Ghost Mountain.djvu/159

Rh scarlet and buttoned her coat closely, turning up the collar.

"Now I get up," she said. Both men gave her a hand and she rose stiffly. "I tell you at the cabin," she told them and started to run down the trail with them behind her. At the door she paused, facing them on the verandah, talking fast, dramatically.

"I don't know how they get through the gate," she said. "But they bane come this morning before it bane light. We are asleep, in the new bed that come with the furniture. We fix that last night, all the house. With the gate we do not lock this door, nor the one inside.

"They bane come an' we are asleep. I wake first an' hear them on the verandah. I yump from the bed an' they meet me at the bedroom door. Five they are. Five men. I bane try to get to gun, to a club. If I git to my axe I keel them all. But they are on top of me, they cling like wildcats. I throw them off, they come back. I knock one down an' there bane two more in his place. An' all the time my pretty is sitting up in the bed in her nightdress an' I call to her to stay still.

"They drag me into the big room an' we smash about. All the new pretty furniture that bane come. One, two men yump for the door an' Mary shut it in their face. She bane put something against it. I break away. I bane grab those two men an' I smash their head together. They drop. Then a rope come roun' my neck. I bane choke. But I smash that one who throw the rope. I break his