Bonny Jean, and A Severe Threat — page 49: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

42 BONNY JEAN. rounding country, and he saw, with intense agony, that the river was not far off; it was within range of his vision, and, had his feet been guided thither, he might have been on the road to the timber camp. Once there, he would find out all about Jean, and know the worst. At length one of the vigilantes stepped upon the barrel to adjust the noose about Philip's neck. As he did so, he hap- pened to glance toward the river. A change passed over his countenance ; he stopped in his work, and sprang to the ground. Touching Gabriel Black on the shoulder, he led him apart from the others. ‘‘My God!” he ejaculated, ina lowtone. ‘‘Look! See— out upon the river a flat is drifting down, and if it isn’t Jean Conway and her mother on board I’m a Frenchman—that’s all ! Captain, if you want your wife, she’s on there!” Black glanced in the direction indicated, and his keen eyes took in the situation at once. “Youre right, Dunnington,” he said, briefly; ‘‘and we must make haste —all of us, or it may be too late. This little busi- ness here can wait till our return.” He started off in the direction of the river, followed by the whole desperate crew, leaving their prisoner still bound, the noose about his neck. Hardly were they gone when Philip felt something touch the rope. Nobody was there; but, as he gazed, a hand, white, dimpled, and beautiful—evidently the hand of a woman— emerged from the pine thicket, and the sharp, keen blade of a knife cleft the rope that bound him. Ina moment he was free, and—never dreaming that Jean was near him—he sprang upon the back of his horse, and was out of sight in a moment. Eomicbooks (eo) =)