Page:Stringer - Lonely O'Malley.djvu/327

 and the gardener, and the—the whole lot o' you!"

"Better hang her, and right now!" growled Pud Jones.

At that Pauline Augusta broke out with renewed vigor. Her lusty cries went echoing from bank to bank, and soon brought wondering women to open doorways, and barking dogs to the water's edge, and open-mouthed children to the top of the river slope.

The Captain gazed up and down the river, for once nettled and undecided.

"I guess, men, we 'd better make for Rankin's Woods," he said, hesitatingly, looking with troubled eyes at the weeping figure of Pauline Augusta.

"O-o-o-h! O-o-o-oh! I wish I was home! I want to go home!" bawled the frightened child perversely.

"An' I wish you was home too!" said the Captain, devoutly.

For who ever heard of a captive carrying on in that silly way? There was n't a pirate story ever written that had any bawling in it! And Lonely tried to explain to her that on the payment of two thousand dollars in gold she