He grasped her hand, and she clung to his as she would have
clung to anything that she chanced to touch in her fright. He said
rather sternly that she must come to the house at once, and she turned
obediently, following the motion of his hand rather than the meaning of
his words. He spoke to David also, without looking at the boy, but she
was clinging to him and hiding her face on his arm whenever the
lightning flashed, and did not notice what he had said until he repeated
his words:--
"You have of course brought back the doeskin string."
Ruth suddenly lifted her face from his arm, loosed her grasp upon it and
stood away from him. Yet in that first dazed instant she could not
believe that she had heard aright. It was impossible for her, being what
she was, to understand that he had never in all his life done anything
more true to his nature, more thoroughly characteristic, than to ask
this question at such a time. She forgot the lightning while she waited
till he asked it for the third time. And then, straining her incredulous
ears again, she heard the boy murmur something, and she saw him
hurriedly and confusedly searching his pockets for the string.
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