The Prairie Detective — page 181: what you’re looking at

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

17 (THE PRAIRIE DETECTIVE. CHAPTER XIX. POSEY RYAN’S STORY. “When I war a boy,”’ began the scout, ‘‘I lived in the north’ard part o’ York State. My dad handed in his chips when I war an infant, leaving my ma, my sister, an’ myself behind him. Fort’nitly he left ~ us enough rocks so’s we could get along well enough ‘thout stintin’ ourselves. We lived alone some miles from the nearest village. Tharfore thar wa’n’t nothin’ perticallally rushin’ ’bout the life we led. Kz fer me, I used to think a derned sight more o’«my fishrod an’ gun nor I did o’ books, an’ spent tarnal near all my time among the hills away from the sight o’ men. I liked the woods an’ the mounting air, but doggoned ef I did like strangers. “Sister Kate was a great hand to sketch with a pencil. Doggoned ef she couldn’t make han’somer picters outen nothin’ at all, ’cept a hunk o’ charcoal an’ a slab o’ white paper, nor ever I see. She war jest litenin’, she war. Wal, we got along nice an’ easy like, never interferin’ with nobody, an’ never - bein’ interfered with, till it come along one summer, when all our troubles began. zd ‘One bright day in June I took my old shootin’ iron an’ went off into the woods a huntin’ game. I war gone two days, an’ when I got back an’ walked into the house, thar sot a stranger. He wara fine-look- ing chap, well built, an’ well dressed. It appears thet he hed come to the house durin’ my absence, an’ axed to be took to board for a week. He hed comicboo ‘S com