That Girl of Johnson's — page 59: what you’re looking at

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

48 . TWAT GIRL OF JOHNSON’S. The others shook their heads in dissent of this view. They all were a little under the influence of the cider, for it was strong and the heat was oppressive. It was not likely Johnson was in the town, they said, for he had a wholesome horror of the law, as had all the mountain people in these settlements, and if the woman spoke truly he had good reason not to go there. The woman must know him; they had lived in the settlement all their lives; she evidently appreciated the law and wished to aid the right. Perhaps there was method in the girl’s lack of sense; she did not look like a fool; as Howe said, she could not be a fool with such eyes. They rode along the road at the foot of the mountain. The haze had lifted and was drifting overhead, making the sunlight brazen; the sluggish river was dirty and black from the soot and smoke of the town; it moaned like a living thing along its banks and over the rocks; it sobbed under the worn old bridge as though for the rain, for the want of which it was dying; the clamp of the horse-hoofs as the men rode over could not drown the sound of its moaning. The pipes above seemed bending in sympathy ; the jagged rocks murmured in reply. They rode along the foot of the mountain in search of the path of which the woman spoke. There was no road here as along the other mountain; a narrow line half hidden by long grass and tangled bushes straggled in and out capri- ciously, as though to puzzle its followers, now up the mountain side, again straying out into the valley meadows nearer the river’s moaning. Above, among the pines, the blue haze was tangled, hiding all beyond; the dread mys- tery of the mountain clung like a garment about it. The men rode on in silence; there was a solemnity around them that hushed all light words. The enormity of their undertaking dawned more and more upon them; to search for a man in that wilderness with the mountain’s heart for his hiding-place and its robe of haze for his shield was absurd. There were chasms and dangerous Gcom Cc 00 q (E(0)