José — page 154: what you’re looking at

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

JOSE. 147 In various rooms situated in the side wing could be heard the bustling sound of the domestics. Mce- Allister’s voice could be heard issuing from the open door of one of the storehouses, and soon after he appeared crossing the yard. “T hope my Mexican has not grown impatient. I am unreasonably late to-day,” she casually observed in passing. “T guess he hasn’t calculated on an airing a day so unpleasant as this, ma’am,” the overseer replied, looking up at the sky. “We’ll have a storm to- night, or at all events to-morrow morning.” They had passed each other. Mary now entered the stable. With trembling hands she placed the saddle on her horse, carefully tightening the girth; bridled him, and as usual, permitted him to run behind her till she reached the open gateway. Arrived here, she swept a long, searching look over the foggy landscape, and detecting nowhere the presence of a human creature, she closed the gate, leaped into the saddle, and patting the side of the pony’s neck, she rode away at an easy pace. Ata distance of about a thousand steps from the fort, a narrow, heavily-wooded brook wound its course through the valley, deriving its water from the river nearly a mile beyond, and until this morning constituting the boundary line beyond which Mary had not ventured. But this day a short leap carried her across, and no sooner did the line of dwarfed trees intervene between her and the fort, when a few encouraging words from her lips caused the pony to speed onward with redoubled fleetness along the banks of the brook, and straight toward the river. It was a simple plan which she had formed. Eomichbooks (E(o)