Rocky Mountain Sam — page 128: what you’re looking at

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

ROCKY MOUNTAIN SAM. 119 ‘The fool-hardy fellows!” muttered the renegade between his teeth; ‘‘suecess has turned their heads, and they are rushing to their doom.” He was at the head of the line, and was awaiting the rush of the hunters with grim composure, when terrified cries from the rear and left flank caused him to turn. At first he rubbed his eyes, as if doubting their evidence. A burning forest seemed to be moving upon them from the north-west! A second glance served to explain the phenomenon to be heaps of blazing brushwood, which, grappled and towed over the ground by lines reaching from the balloon, were being whirled upon them in crackling, blazing masses. But the Indians were too much terror-stricken to hazard a second glance at the appalling apparition. Do what he might to restrain them, many of them were already scam- pering away as fast as their jaded ponies could carry them, and the main line began to waver and reel. The next instant the blazing branches went whirling and flashing among them, and almost simultaneously the hun- ters struck their right flank with a terrific shock, waving their knives, raising their battle-shout, and bearing down everything before them. The next moment the whole body of the Indians was nothing more than a broken, panic-stricken horde, whose only object was a mad yearning to escape. ‘Then, as the dawn brightened, there came the roll of a drum, and pres- ently, in the uncertain light, a number of mounted men arose from behind a distant hill, and directly after charged down upon the flying masses to the renewed beating of drums and the blare of bugles. The detachment from the fort had arrived, though tardily, and the overthrow of the Blackfeet was absolute and com- lete. 2 ‘All is over for the present,” said the renegade. ‘‘Rube Lenyck, follow me.” And, putting spurs to his Pawnee steed, Firefoot dashed | away toward the mountains to the north, followed by the -_well-singed Rube Tenyek and a few warriors. x Before the sun was an hour high, the detachment of _ troops—about twenty-five men, commanded by a sergeant— _. yeturned from the pursuit of the flying Indians, to find the comicbooks.co