United States or Zimbabwe ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
An overwhelming dizziness was creeping over him, the pain was splitting his head, and he swayed backward. He fought to recover himself, to hold himself up, but that returning sickness reached from his brain to the pit of his stomach, and with a groan he sank face downward on the cot. Brokaw was still talking, but he could no longer understand his words.
It was like striking at a monstrous thing without the sense of hurt, a fiend that had no brain that blows could sicken, a body that was not a body but an enormity that had strangely taken human form. Brokaw had struck him once only once in those two minutes, but blows were not what he feared now.
"To knock out my brains when I ain't looking," growled Brokaw. "I guess before long you'll be willing to tell where the Indian's shack is." He kicked his way through a drift of snow to the smoother surface of the stream. There was a breath of wind in their faces, and Billy bowed his head to it.
You've kept your word to th' law, an' I believe you'll keep your word with me. If I say the word that'll save us now will you go back to headquarters an' report me dead?" For a full half minute their eyes did not waver. Then Brokaw said: "No." Billy dropped his hand. It was Brokaw's hand that fell on his arm now. "I can't do that," he said. "In ten years I ain't run out the white flag once.
"Do you know," said Billy softly, "there's been somethin' runnin' in my head ever since we left the burning cabin. It's something my mother taught me: 'Do unto others as you'd have others do unto you. I'm a d fool, ain't I? But I'm goin' to try the experiment, Brokaw, an' see what comes of it. I could drop in a snowdrift an' let you go on to die. Then I could save myself.
That amazing lie seemed for a moment to daze Brokaw. David realized the audacity of it, and knew that Brokaw would remember too well what had happened to believe him. Its effect was what he was after, and if he had had a doubt as to the motive of the other's visit that doubt disappeared almost as quickly as he had spoken.
With a rattle of blocks and rings the sheet dropped like a huge white curtain, and Philip took a step forward, scarce restraining the exclamation that forced itself to his lips at the picture which it revealed. Standing on the broad rail, her slender form poised for the quick upward step, one hand extended to Bludsoe, was Eileen Brokaw!
On that hypothesis I am going to work, and as a consequence I am going to ask you for the indefinite loan of the Lord Fitzhugh letter. Will you give me your word to say nothing of that letter for a few days?" "It is almost necessary to show it to Brokaw," hesitated Philip. "Almost but not quite," Gregson caught him up. "Brokaw knows the seriousness of the situation without that letter.
And, by the way" Philip stood up and thrust his hands deep in his pockets as he spoke, half smiling at Gregson "it gives me pleasure to hand you a bit of cheerful information along with that," he added. "Miss Brokaw is coming with him. She is very beautiful." Gregson held a lighted match until it burnt his finger-tips. "The deuce you say! I've heard " "Yes, you have heard of her beauty, no doubt.
In his first glance he made up his mind which was Hauck and which was Brokaw. It was Brokaw, he thought, who was facing them as they entered a man he could hate even if he had never heard of him before. Big. Loose-shouldered. A carnivorous-looking giant with a mottled, reddish face and bleary eyes that had an amazed and watery stare in them.
Word Of The Day