Rocky Mountain Sam — page 14: what you’re looking at

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

fae era ow spe , . , mm “> — _“- : bs = Pa eX, ~ F : ROCKY MOUNTAIN SAM. CHAPTER I. THE WIND-SPECTER. As under the empyrean’s spotless blue The storm-cloud rushes, black with wind and rain, The InprAN SpEctTER from the far peaks flew, Then swooped upon the plain; Of awsome aspect, with distended sides— The red man’s terror—on the storm it rides, It was a wild and picturesque scene on the waters of the Upper Missouri; a wildly magnificent scene, and all bathed in the brilliant sunshine of a fresh spring morning; and yet, in the midst of all this beauty and grandeur, a fearful trag- edy was evidently preparing. | A group of savages, armed with the various weapons of fierce and desperate warfare, and hideous in war-paint; a single white man, in a hunter’s garb, but weaponless and bare-headed, and bound securely toa stake, around which his barbarous captors were dancing and leaping in fiendish glee, brandishing their weapons and giving utterance to mocking cries. | He was a queer-looking fish, the captive youth, and as he is destined to be the hero of our story, he will bear a mod- erate description. He was not more than five feet eight or nine in stature, and rather slenderly built, but a closer study of his anatomy would have convinced any one there that those classically CS’ (ele) m ’ ~*~ €omicboo