CHAPTER IV. A FLIGHT FOR LIFE.

ON the morning which followed his interview with the Mormon Prophet, John Ferrier went in to Salt Lake City, and having found his acquaintance, who was bound for the Nevada Mountains, he entrusted him with his message to Jefferson Hope. In it he told the young man of the imminent danger which threatened them, and how necessary it was that he should return. Having done thus he felt easier in his mind, and returned home with a lighter heart.As he approached his farm, he was surprised to see a horse hitched to each of the posts of the gate. Still more surprised was he on entering to find two young men in possession of his sitting-room. One, with a long pale face, was leaning back in the rocking-chair, with his feet cocked up upon the stove. The other, a bull-necked youth with coarse bloated features, was standing in front of the window with his hands in his pocket, whistling a popular hymn. Both of them nodded to Ferrier as he entered, and the one in the rocking-chair commenced the conv

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CHAPTER V. THE AVENGING ANGELS.

ALL night their course lay through intricate defiles and over irregular and rock-strewn paths. More than once they lost their way, but Hope’s intimate knowledge of the mountains enabled them to regain the track once more. When morning broke, a scene of marvellous though savage beauty lay before them. In every direction the great snow-capped peaks hemmed them in, peeping over each other’s shoulders to the far horizon. So steep were the rocky banks on either side of them, that the larch and the pine seemed to be suspended over their heads, and to need only a gust of wind to come hurtling down upon them. Nor was the fear entirely an illusion, for the barren valley was thickly strewn with trees and boulders which had fallen in a similar manner. Even as they passed, a great rock came thundering down with a hoarse rattle which woke the echoes in the silent gorges, and startled the weary horses into a gallop.As the sun rose slowly above the eastern horizon, the caps of the great mountains l

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CHAPTER VI. A CONTINUATION OF THE REMINISCENCES OF JOHN WATSON, M.D.

OUR prisoner’s furious resistance did not apparently indicate any ferocity in his disposition towards ourselves, for on finding himself powerless, he smiled in an affable manner, and expressed his hopes that he had not hurt any of us in the scuffle. “I guess you’re going to take me to the police-station,” he remarked to Sherlock Holmes. “My cab’s at the door. If you’ll loose my legs I’ll walk down to it. I’m not so light to lift as I used to be.”Gregson and Lestrade exchanged glances as if they thought this proposition rather a bold one; but Holmes at once took the prisoner at his word, and loosened the towel which we had bound round his ancles. 23 He rose and stretched his legs, as though to assure himself that they were free once more. I remember that I thought to myself, as I eyed him, that I had seldom seen a more powerfully built man; and his dark sunburned face bore an expression of determination and energy which was as formidable as his personal strength.“If there’s a vacant

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CHAPTER VII. THE CONCLUSION.

WE had all been warned to appear before the magistrates upon the Thursday; but when the Thursday came there was no occasion for our testimony. A higher Judge had taken the matter in hand, and Jefferson Hope had been summoned before a tribunal where strict justice would be meted out to him. On the very night after his capture the aneurism burst, and he was found in the morning stretched upon the floor of the cell, with a placid smile upon his face, as though he had been able in his dying moments to look back upon a useful life, and on work well done.“Gregson and Lestrade will be wild about his death,” Holmes remarked, as we chatted it over next evening. “Where will their grand advertisement be now?”“I don’t see that they had very much to do with his capture,” I answered.“What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence,” returned my companion, bitterly. “The question is, what can you make people believe that you have done. Never mind,” he continued, more brightly, after a p

Last Updated : 2020-03-30

All Chapters of A Study in Scarlet: Chapter 11 - Chapter 14

CHAPTER IV. A FLIGHT FOR LIFE.

CHAPTER V. THE AVENGING ANGELS.

CHAPTER VI. A CONTINUATION OF THE REMINISCENCES OF JOHN WATSON, M.D.

CHAPTER VII. THE CONCLUSION.