[Frontier Stories by Bret Harte]@TWC D-Link book
Frontier Stories

CHAPTER IV
5/22

"I've promised to hide you here, and I shall hide you as well from him as from anybody." Teresa did not reply, but suddenly dropping down upon the ground buried her face in her hands and began to sob convulsively.

Low turned impassively away, and putting aside the bark curtain climbed into the hollow tree.

In a few moments he reappeared, laden with provisions and a few simple cooking utensils, and touched her lightly on the shoulder.
She looked up timidly; the paroxysm had passed, but her lashes yet glittered.
"Come," he said, "come and get some breakfast.

I find you have eaten nothing since you have been here--twenty-four hours." "I didn't know it," she said, with a faint smile.

Then seeing his burden, and possessed by a new and strange desire for some menial employment, she said hurriedly, "Let me carry something--do, please," and even tried to disencumber him.
Half annoyed, Low at last yielded, and handing his rifle said, "There, then, take that; but be careful--it's loaded!" A cruel blush burnt the woman's face to the roots of her hair as she took the weapon hesitatingly in her hand.
"No!" she stammered, hurriedly lifting her shame-suffused eyes to his; "no! no!" He turned away with an impatience which showed her how completely gratuitous had been her agitation and its significance, and said, "Well, then give it back if you are afraid of it." But she as suddenly declined to return it; and shouldering it deftly, took her place by his side.


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