Bonny Jean, and A Severe Threat — page 50: what you’re looking at

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

BONNY JEAN. 43 CHAPTER VIII. HUNTED DOWN. Down the river—swollen, and turbid, and angry—came the frail craft, with the three frightened human beings, and the horses, half frightened with terror, their eyes and nostrils dilated wildly, and pawing the flat-boat with their feet, as if they would stamp it into fragments. On came the flat. Now it whirled around and around in dizzy eddies, now they were in immediate danger of coming, with all the force of which it was capable, against some giant tree; for the river had spread out and widened until it was over the land, and the swift current bore the flat-boat hither and thither. The wind had arisen, sending the flat in and out between the bushes; now sweeping entirely over some clump of weeds, whose heads were above water; anon, darting on with a rush, in danger of overturning. All at once Jean raised her eyes, and a look of horror swept away the pallor which their peril had imprinted on her features. She caught her mother’s arm. ‘‘ Mother,” she gasped, ‘‘God has forsaken us! See! there stands Gabriel Black !” Mrs. Conway turned her head ; sure enough, upon the river- bank stood the villain who was bent upon their destruction, while at his side were the scowling, bearded faces of the vigi- lantes. But how could he reach them? He had no boat, and the flat was nearly in the middle of the stream, sometimes di- verging a little from the center. ‘“My God!” moaned Mrs. Conway, frantically, ‘‘we are lost ! for he will find some way to reach us, Jean! He will never rest now until he has us in his power.” Even as she spoke, Gabriel Black drew his rifle, and raising it to-his shoulder, deliberately fired. He had no intention’ of Eomicbooks (eo)