Rocky Mountain Sam — page 113: what you’re looking at

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

104 ROCKY MOUNTAIN SAM. professor back to his senses after the manner suggested, when the great hunter turned to Sam and whispered: ‘Now, old boy, thar’ ain’t a minute to lose. Jist tie them two ropes around my shoulders, swing up yer gas-bag “bout twenty foot from the groun’, and let me loose on the var- mints with these ’ere toadstickers o’ mine. D’ye under- stan’?” “Perfectly,” said Sam, swiftly making the ropes fast, as he had been requested. ‘‘Professor, have you got strength enough to chuck out some of the sand?” “TY can but try, my son,” said the still rather dazed pro- fessor, philosophical to the last, and, at the same time, with Fayaway’s assistance, he managed to heave overboard three or four of the larger sacks. This stratagem, though its execution took less time than has been consumed in describing it, was completed none too soon. The Indians having recovered from the shock of the charge of the mounted hunters, still confident in their over- whelming superiority of numbers, and re-formed and re- nerved by the incessant efforts of their indomitable leader, successfully resisted another charge, rolling back their assailants in considerable confusion upon their barricade, and once more—on pony-back and on foot—swarmed up to the balloon, pressing back its handful of defenders step by step, and making fatal inroads among the little band. “Hight your way back to the hills,” whispered Big Horn to the nearest of those who had followed him. The next instant the balloon shot into the air, and he was lifted several feet from the ground, but with his face to the enemy, with a grim battle-smile upon his lips, and a long, blood-dripping hunting-knife gleaming in either hand. . As the balloon suddenly careened above. .he was pitched, in a slanting direction, at an angle of about thirty-five de- . grees, directly through the Indian horde, and he fought with hands and feet as he flew, carving himself out a lane this way and that, and escaping from the blows that were aimed at him as if by. invisible interposition. While Sam had been securing the ropes under his arm- pits, one of the hunters, at his command, had tightly bound the handle of a hunting-knife under each foot, the long blade projecting far beyond the toes of the moccasins, as well as a knife at each elbow, with the blades sticking out at (~)\ EDOO cS ¢om €o aid Mite yt