The raucous breathing of the revellers was loud on the stairs; then the door was tried; there was some muttering; then the door was burst open and in rushed two, or perhaps three, figures.

Rolf could barely see in the gloom, but he knew that his uncle was one of them.

The attack they made with whip and stick on that roll of rags in the bed would have broken his bones and left him shapeless, had he been in its place.

The men were laughing and took it all as a joke, but Rolf had seen enough; he slipped to the ground and hurried away, realizing perfectly well now that this was "good-bye." Which way?
How naturally his steps turned northward toward Redding, the only other place he knew.

But he had not gone a mile before he stopped.
The yapping of a coon dog came to him from the near woods that lay to the westward along Asamuk.