CHAPTER IV—BRUCE BROWNING’S ADVENTURE “Heavens, she is killed!” thought Frank, leaping up and running toward the fallen girl. There were excited exclamations from the group of archers, and a sound of hurrying footsteps. Frank saw the girl struggle into a sitting posture and pluck away the arrow, which seemed to have lodged in the upper part of her left arm or in her shoulder. Then she staggered to her feet. When he gained her side she was trembling violently, and her thin face was as white as the face of the dead. Only a glance was needed to tell him that she was the daughter of one of the poor whites of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Her dress was of faded cotton, her shoes heavy and coarse. In one hand she clutched a calico sunbonnet, which had dropped from her head as she fell. “You are hurt!” gasped Merriwell. “Will you not let me assist you in some way?” She shivered and gave him a quick glance, then stared toward the lads who were rushing in that direction. The sight galvanized her into activity. “I dunno ez I’ve any call ter be helped!” she asserted, starting back and giving a last look at the arrow, which lay on the grass at her feet, where she had flung it as if it were a snake. “Leastways, I ’low ez how I kin make my way home. I war a good ’eal more skeered than hurt.” “But I saw the arrow strike you!” Merriwell persisted. She put out her hands as if to keep him from coming nearer, then sprang back into the path, and vanished behind the tree and into the depths of the woods before he could do aught to prevent the movement. “She’s gone,” said Frank, as the others came up on the run. “There’s the arrow. I saw her pluck it out of her arm or shoulder, but she would not stay to explain how badly she was hurt.” “That is Bob Thornton’s girl, Nell,” said Hammond, in a shaky voice. “I hope she isn’t much hurt. That was an awkward slip I made, and if I had killed her I could never have forgiven myself.” Merriwell gave him a quick and comprehensive glance. It was caught by Hammond, and served to increase his agitation. “It was a very awkward slip, as you say, Mr. Hammond. That arrow might have killed me. It would certainly have struck me, if I hadn’t dropped as I did.” “Accidents will happen, you know!” pleaded Hammond. “I hope you don’t think I would do such a thing on purpose. It was a slip, just as when Dunnerwust shot the arrow into your nigger’s cap.” He was about to say more, but checked himself, in the fear that he was beginning to protest too much. “Perhaps we’d better gollow the firl—I mean follow the girl,” suggested Rattleton. “She may have tumbled down again.” He did not wait for an order, but sprang into the path that led behind the tree, and hurried along it, with a half dozen curious fellows at his heels. It was soon evident that the girl had not stuck to the path, which would have taken her back toward the village, but had plunged into the woods, which in places was thick with undergrowth.