Page:MacLeod Raine - The Sheriff's Son.djvu/237

 Then, suddenly as it had swept over Roy, the brain-storm passed. The mists cleared from his eyes. He looked down at the leg of the stool in his hand, which was all that remained of it. He looked up—and saw Beulah Rutherford in the street astride a horse.

She spoke to her brother, who had drawn a revolver from his pocket. "You don't need that now, Ned. He's through."

Her contemptuous voice stung Roy. "Why did n't they leave me alone, then?" he said sullenly in justification.

The girl did not answer him. She slipped from the horse and ran into the arcade with the light grace that came of perfect health and the freedom of the hills. The eyes of the young man followed this slim, long-limbed Diana as she knelt beside Charlton and lifted his bloody head into her arms. He noticed that her eyes burned and that her virginal bosom rose and fell in agitation.

None the less she gave first aid with a business-like economy of motion. "Bring water, Ned,—and a doctor," she snapped crisply, her handkerchief pressed against the wound.

To see what havoc he had wrought amazed Roy. The arcade looked as if a cyclone had