On the Trail of Geronimo — page 305: what you’re looking at

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

ON THE TRAIL OF GERONIMO. 291 The weather was frightfully hot. The perspira- tion was streaming from every pore, but our brave soldiers in the Southwest were accustomed to the flaming temperature, like that of Sahara itself, and in his excitement and anxiety, the soldier cared nothing for it. Bad as it was, it could not compare with what he underwent when lying in the scorch- ing sand after the brush with the Apaches in ambush. He recalled the precise spot where the four ponies were left, but he could not descry one of them now. “They have been here,” concluded the fugitive, with a sinking heart, ‘‘and we are in a fine situ- ation; suppose I should meet some of them now 99 without so much as a pistol to defend myself Just then he caught a soft, tremulous whistle, like the faint call of a night bird. He pricked his ears and shrank back among the shadows, afraid to reply lest it should prove a decoy of his enemies. It was repeated so near that he started and turned his head. Surely some one was creeping toward him, and even then was almost near enough to strike. Bedford was on the point of making a dash CoOmucoooks (C(O) mM