How he ever got the almost helpless girl over into that hazel-brush thicket he never exactly knew, but as they approached the house, guided by a candle set in the window, she grew more and more feeble, until Albert was obliged to carry her in and lay her down in a swoon of utter exhaustion.
The inhabitant of the cabin ran to a little cupboard, made of a packing-box, and brought out a whisky-flask, and essayed to put it to her lips, but as he saw her lying there, white and beautiful in her helplessness, he started back and said, with a rude reverence, "Stranger, gin her some of this 'ere--I never could tech sech a creetur!" And Albert gave her some of the spirits and watched her revive.

He warmed her hands and chafed her feet before the fire which the backwoodsman had made.

As she came back to consciousness, Charlton happened to think that he had no dry clothes for her.

He would have gone immediately back to the buggy, where there was a portmanteau carefully stowed under the seat, but that the Inhabitant had gone out and he was left alone with Katy, and he feared that she would faint again if he should leave her.

Presently the tall, lank, longhaired man came in.
"Mister," he said, "I made kinder sorter free with your things.