José — page 212: what you’re looking at

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

JOSE. 205 CHAPTER XV. THE PRAIRIE-DEVIL, Not until Baumann had sat down did he realize how tired he was. Nevertheless he was unable to go to sleep, for scarcely had he closed his eyes when a sudden feeling of terror again aroused him into active wakefulness. He required some time to go to sleep again, and then it was but a fitful slumber which his excited nerves permitted him to enjoy. Thus he saw “Old Bob” return to the fire, saw him prepare sundry small cakes of flour and fine-cut meat, and take out of a securely closed tin case a vial containing a brown fluid, only a few drops of which he then added to each cake; saw him place a skillet of lard on the coals and fry the cakes, then inclosing them, still hot and steaming, in a strip of buffalo skin, he saw the old hunter carefully clean the utensils he had used, and go away. But Bau- mann was too fatigued to make even an attempt to explain the singularity of Bob’s preparations or to what end they were made; by and by he no longer saw the glow of the fire and a firm, dreamless slumber settled down upon his senses. A severe shaking it was that finally startled him out of his sleep. The fire seemed long since ex- tinguished; intense darkness lay between the walls of rock, and the small strip of the moonlit sky far above their heads was scarcely visible any longer. At his side, Dutch Bill was grunting in a sonorous strain, that was suddenly cut short by a command- ing “Away! ‘Time for action is come!” from Old Eomichbooks com