On the Trail of Geronimo — page 155: what you’re looking at

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

ON THE TRAIL OF GERONIMO. 145 bubbled forth a mountain spring, which trickled across the level space, and found its way down the mountain to the valley below. So profound was the stillness that the listening soldiers could catch the faint trickle of the water a number of rods away. Lieutenant Whitcomb and several others were sure they could detect the odor of tobacco in the air—the remnant of the pipes that had been smoked by the Apaches hours before, and which had lingered in the still atmosphere ever since. Crouching thus on the very edge of the plateau, Joggens and Windstrom once more carefully ex- plained the “lay of the land.” The problem that was presented was plain. Geronimo and twenty of his followers were stretched out on their blankets near the middle of the plateau, where they had eaten their supper and smoked their pipes the evening previous. Their ponies were concealed at some point deeper in the mountains, where they were inaccessible to the white soldiers, who little cared, since it was the owners of the animals they were after. Could the chieftain and his party be exter- minated then and there, a long, costly and devas- 10 (C(O) nn) (C 6)(6)(6) (C(O) mM