The Skeleton Crew; Or, Wildfire Ned — page 47: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

; -— THE SKELETON CREW; OR, WILDFIRE NED. tf) Uf Ef / Vid f —— — —_ — ~ ——s — _— — Se -_———— a ——"— ‘““PHE BODILESS LEGS WALKED SLOWLY ACLOsSS THE PATH.” $i With a thick bough, which Tim had torn from the tree, he took deliberate aim, and dealt his enemy a tremendous* thwack on the skull, when half-way up the tree, and knocked him down again. This trick Master Tim had played several times with great success; but ere long two skeletons essayed to climb up after him. For a few moments they amused themselves with firing at Tim with their pistols. This was very pleasant sport for them, but quite the contrary to Tim, who jumped about as nimbly as a squirrel, and after many attempts suaccess- fully hid himself in the upper part of the trunk ! ‘“T'm safe now,” thought he ; but to his horror “No. 6. | he heard his grim pursuers climbing up and probing the rotten trunk with their swords every yard as they ascended. One of their sword-blades grazed Tim’s shin, and he quickly fell from his perch right to the bottom of the trunk, and some three feet below the surface of the earth. For be it remarked the tree was an immense old cypress, which in ail cases have hollow trunks, The two skeletons searched and searched in vain. They cut, and hacked the soft bark, and, wherever they found a knot-hole, plunged their long sword- blades into it, in hopes of transfixing the unlucky, and timorous groom. But with a long-drawn sigh, Tim thanked his