The Prairie Detective — page 93: what you’re looking at

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

84 THE PRAIRIE DETECTIVE. srown used to each other, and were thus unfitted for general and serious fighting, although against the rambling bands of hostile savages who roam the plains, they would undoubtedly have proved very easily victorious. But they had not been used to working under any one particular chief, whose habits they had learned and in whom they had by long association acquired confidence. Their disad- vantages, on the whole, were very great. It took the captain of the Bloodsuckers but an in- stant to reorganize his men.- He knew that it would never do to allow them to be defeated, because such a fact would demoralize them for future action. So, with a terrible oath, Bill Creighton rode to the head of his company and gave the order to charge again. Then, with a revolver in each hand, and the whole pack in full cry at his heels, he started forward at an Sn aE gallop which nothing could withstand. The fight was deuneraits and bitter, but it could not last long. The hunters contested every inch of ground, like true men; but they were battling against a foe which their number could not over- come—they could only check its progress. Dan was very quick to see the condition of affairs, and the utter hopelessness of the cause of his friends. His thoughts reverted at once to the helpless girls, waiting in their tent for the result of the fight, and not dreaming that it would end in disaster for them. Already the tide of battle was working toward the spot where they sat. He could tell that by the sounds of fire-arms falling upon his ears. Until this time he had fought with but one object, the defeat of Bill Creighton. But, as the thought flashed upon him that Marian and Esther were in co “Eomicbhoo a