She had not been gone two minutes—though those two minutes seemed like an age to Star, who found an almost superhuman strength in that writhing, twisting thing at her feet—when the bushes behind her parted again, and the same gentleman who had met and warned her of this danger sprang toward her, with his gun cocked and aimed at the dog.
His face was almost as colorless as her own.
“Can you hold him just an instant longer?—will you dare hold him while I shoot him? I will not harm you in the least,” he questioned, in rapid tones.
“Yes, I will hold him,” she said, resolutely. “If I let him loose now, he will surely bite somebody.”
Although she spoke so steadily and with so much fortitude, she looked like some beautiful spirit from another world, and the gentleman knew he must do what he had to do quickly, or it would be too late.
There was an instant of silence, then a quick, sharp report rang through the woods, and the little danger-fiend lay bleeding and dead at her feet.
All peril was past.
Star had saved an enemy from a horrible fate—she had done a heroic deed; but the tension on her own nerves gave way when it was over. She swayed, tottered, and would have fallen to the ground, but another figure sprang through the bushes to her side, and her fainting form was received into the strong arms of Ralph Meredith.
CHAPTER XXIX.
JOSEPHINE’S INGRATITUDE.
Confusion reigned during the next half hour among the company who had hitherto been so gay. Josephine Richards had rushed into their midst, startling everybody out of their senses by shrieking out: