Paddling under Palmettos — page 73: what you’re looking at

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

66 Paddling Under Palmettos. turned half-around, as though disposed to resent such an insult as this. Archie slipped in two more shells, but when he raised his eyes to look for the bear, behold! the lat- ter had vanished like dew in the morning. Discre- tion was better than valor. When Archie drew his boat up alongside the oth- — ers, his first act was to dive down into one of his cartridge boxes and secure several buckshot shells. Two of these he slipped into his gun. Then he went ashore and climbed the bluff, but if he expected to see the bear sitting there on his haunches waiting for him he was mistaken. Bruin was more shrewd than that. | Seeing no signs of the late thief, Archie went be- low to ascertain what damage had been done. He found a sorry mess in the Sachem, where the brute had knocked the lid from Ned’s camp chest and spread himself upon the provender. Archie firmly believed the bear had been about to open a can of baked beans with the can-opener when he was disturbed by the shout outside. He covered up the traces of the old wretch’s visit Gomicbooks co