"Pretty hospitality, I must say," was her greeting, "letting strangers
sink or swim in your front yard."
"I--I beg your pardon," he stammered, by a supreme effort dragging
himself to his feet.
His legs wobbled under him, and with a suffocating sensation he began
sinking to the floor. He was aware of a feeble gratification as he saw
solicitude leap into her eyes; then blackness smote him, and at the
moment of smiting him his thought was that at last, and for the first
time in his life, he had fainted.
The ringing of the big bell aroused him. He opened his eyes and found
that he was on the couch indoors. A glance at the clock told him that it
was six, and from the direction the sun's rays streamed into the room he
knew that it was morning. At first he puzzled over something untoward he
was sure had happened. Then on the wall he saw a Stetson hat hanging,
and beneath it a full cartridge-belt and a long-barrelled 38 Colt's
revolver. The slender girth of the belt told its feminine story, and he
remembered the whale-boat of the day before and the gray eyes that
flashed beneath the level brows. She it must have been who had just rung
the bell. The cares of the plantation rushed upon him, and he sat up in
bed, clutching at the wall for support as the mosquito screen lurched
dizzily around him.
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