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Show Page 207 James Towne. A few plantations are to be held, but Martin's Hundred is not one of them." That afternoon the men of the fort went at last out of its walls to search through the rubble of the settlement. The shadows were reaching long fingers across the forest floor when they returned. I had watched anxiously from the palisade and knew they had been to the Davidsons', so I hurried at once to John. "'Twas as I feared," he told me brokenly. "Walter, Twig and Jane were within the dwelling. We could tell them apart only by their size, for they were horribly burned. I would have thought Jane Margaret except that you told me she was without-and except we found her elsewhere." "Tell me," I urged, for John seemed loathe to relate to me Margaret's end. Though I would carry always a tender, aching spot for dear, mischievous Twig, I had from the first sensed him dead. But Margaret was still a fresh wound in my heart that had not yet begun to heal, for I had been a witness to her torment. "She had dragged herself to the trash pit near the gully," John said, then seemed reluctant to continue. "Go on," I demanded, needing to hear it all. "She looked as though she had simply gone to sleep. She was lying on her side, her knees drawn up. One arm was to her |