“Next minute I heerd another shot, and then another; and then sech horrid groans and screams, mixed up with growls and hisses from the painter, that I knew he wor hit hard, an’ like to die; and, ef I should say I wor sorry, it ’ud be a lie.  Then I heerd feet climbing and scrambling down the rocks; and next I heerd a v’ice calling, kind o’ frightened-like,—­

“‘Be you raound here, Harnah, or Seth?’

“‘Yes, we be,’ says I, waking up all uv a sudden; for I’d lay sort o’ stupid till then:  but now I wor wide enough awake, and soon made Sam understand where we was, and what was to be done.  He didn’t say much, but worked away like a good feller, till he got out, fust the mauled karkiss o’ the painter, with the flesh all hanging from it in strips; then me, covered with blood, and looking wuss than a dead man, I expect; and finally Harnah, jes’ coming to after her dead faint.

“We must git her out o’ this horrid den ’fore she knows whar she is, or it’ll skeer her to death,’ says I, as soon as I could speak.  ’But how’ll we do it?’

“’You look as if you b’longed here; so I reckon you’d better stop behind, and I’ll git Harnah out by myself,’ says Sam, laffin’ in a kind o’ hard way.

“I didn’t say nothing; but I thought I wouldn’t ’a took that time to laff at a feller, nor yet to show a spite agin him, if I’d been Sam, and he me.

“It’s more nor I could do to justly tell you how we ever got that gal up them rocks.  I expect it wor more the hand o’ God, so to speak, than us that did it.  Fust place, we tied our handkerchers raound her waist, fer a hold; and then Sam went ahead, pulling her after him, and I sort o’ helped behind, and clim’ along as well’s I could; and bimby we got up, and laid Harnah down to rest among the harebells.  When she got a little smarter, she told us how she thought she’d come and git ’em fer herself, and then pertend some one had given ’em to her, jest so’s to plague us, and see what we’d say.  Then, whilst she was a-picking of ’em, she heerd a painter cry right clost to her, and was so scared, she sot out to run, and, fust she knew, was over the edge of the clift, and rolling down the face on’t.  When she got to the bottom, her leg was broke, and she couldn’t stir; and up to the top o’ the rocks she see the painter’s head, with his green eyeballs a-glaring down at her, and his ears laid back, ready for a spring.  What with the pain, and what with the scare, I expect the poor gal fainted.  Anyways, the next thing she knowed was finding herself in the cave with the two painter-kittens playing round her, and the old one lying close to, moving his tail from side to side, and yawning till she could see all his white teeth and great red throat.  Ef she wor scart afore, she didn’t feel no better now, you’d better believe.  But Harnah was a stout-hearted gal, with all her delicate ways; and she never stirred, no made a sound, only lay still, and fixed her eyes as stiddy as she could on those uv the great brute