THREE:The mystery was soon solved. The river was neither wide nor deep, and the men they saw waiting by the bank were porters who carried people across, and also carried merchandise. The stream was said to rise very rapidly, and owing to the nature of the bottom it was difficult to maintain a bridge there for any length of time. The porters took the party across very speedily; they carried the servants by what the boys called "pick-a-back," while Doctor Bronson and the boys were borne on chairs resting on poles, with six men to each chair. Some horses belonging to another party were led through the river at the same time, and evidently were not pleased with the bath they were receiving.It was just as Doctor Allingham had congratulated himself upon the fact that the bowling was broken, and that he had only to hit now and save the trouble of running, just as he was scanning the boundaries with one eye and with the other following Tanner's short, crooked arm raised high above the white sheet at the back of the opposite wicket, that he noticed the strange figure. Its abrupt appearance, at first sight like a scare-crow dumped suddenly on the horizon, caused him to lessen his grip upon the bat in his hand. His mind wandered for just that fatal moment, and his vision of the on-coming bowler was swept away and its place taken by that arresting figure of a man coming over the path at the top of the hill, a man whose attitude, on closer examination, seemed extraordinarily like another man in the act of bowling.
THREE:JAPANESE BOWL. JAPANESE BOWL.He found his razor, plunged it into cold waterhe had forgotten to ask Mrs. Flack for hot, and couldn't be bothered nowand lathered his face thoughtfully.
THREE:He made a motion of pain--"Don't say it!" and we read in each other's eyes the one conviction that from a surgeon's personal knowledge this man had written to warn Charlotte that Oliver was alive.But I was not needed; while I slept, who should come back and do my work in my stead but Ned Ferry. When I awoke it was with a bound of alarm to see clear day. The command was breaking camp. I rushed out of the tent with canteen, soap and comb, and ran into the arms of the mess-cook. We were alone. "Oh, yass, seh," he laughed as he poured the water into my hands, "th'ee days' rairtion. Seh? Lawd! dey done drawed and cook' befo' de fus' streak o' light. But you all right; here yo' habbersack, full up. Oh, I done fed yo' hoss. Here yo' jacket an' cap; and here yo' saddle an' bridle--Oh, you welcome; I dess tryin' to git shet of 'em so's I kin strak de tent."
THREE:
THREE:And that will be thrown away unless you raise twenty thousand more?