"But I will not be a coward," she at last said to herself. "I will save myself if I can. I am dying. I must not die. If I die no one will know who has committed this horrible deed. I will at least live long enough to see that this murderer is brought to justice."
She had strength left to get up and procure towels to wrap herself and stop the blood flow and to get a bottle of liquor which she knew to be in the house, and finding that she did not bleed so freely when standing or sitting as when lying, she mustered all her strength and remained up the greater part of the night, thinking over the thousand horrible things that would naturally troop through the mind of any one situated as she was, even the strongest nerved of the stouter sex.
Added to her other horrors was the knowledge that there was no one nearer than a mile from her, except, perhaps, the man who had shot her, and his proximity was her greatest dread. She had already convinced herself that her brother had been killed; otherwise he would have come to her assistance. "And all was silent then, and I was alone through the whole wretched night," she said to Gen. Cook. But we shall not attempt to picture the agonies of those few lonely, dark hours. The reader may well imagine the experience of the woman, and if he can not, no description would prove adequate.
At last the glad signs of day began to make their appearance. The gray dawn first peered in through the windows and cracks, and soon afterwards the long, slanting rays of the big summer sun were coursing their way across the floor of the dreary, bloody room, bringing with them messages of faint hope to the sufferer. How she must have prayed for the sight of a friendly face! By and by there came a rumbling sound as of an approaching vehicle. She went to the door. The road was some distance from the house, but there was a wagon passing by. Mrs. Newton cried out to the driver and waved her bloody hands in the air to him. Again and again she shouted at the top of her voice. But to no purpose.
She saw another hope pass away as the driver went on without turning his head, and gradually disappeared around a turn in the road, to be seen no more.
Once out of the house the wounded woman determined to obtain assistance of some sort. Her nearest neighbor was a Mr. Lyman, living down the road almost a mile distant. Thitherward Mrs. Newton bent her footsteps, dragging herself along with an energy and courage that would have done credit to a strong man.