The Mate of the Vancouver — page 161: what you’re looking at

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

LOVE AND HATE. of the wind, that we heard no one approach- ing our grumbling company until they were right upon us. I was just then half a dozen paces out in the darkness, cutting up some wood for our fire, and as the strangers approached the hght, I let fall my ax so that it narrowly escaped cutting off my big toe, for one of the two I saw was a boy, and that boy John Harmer! I slouched my big hat down over my eyes, and with some wood in my arms I approscied the group and replenished the fire. John was talking with quite a Western twang, as though he was determined not to be taken for an Englishman. “Rain!” he was saying; “well, you bet it’s something like it! On the lake it takes an old hand to know which is land and which is water. Old Hank was weary drowned in his tent the other day.” “Serve him right!” growled Bill. “ But who are you, young feller ?—I never see you