Rocky Mountain Sam — page 184: what you’re looking at

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

ar _- s ay 7 Fa / ~~ ' - ‘s : Xe i ‘ t ee) » Sade a nat. 2 oy tn Oe yo & i \ : a a el ROCKY MOUNTAIN SAM. 175 As the balloon reached the vicinity of Miry Fork, the professor fora long time anxiously searched the country with his telescope, in hopes of finding some traces of the hunters and soldiers, but without success. ““Mebbe they’ve had another fight, an’ been wiped out,” said Teddy. “Impossible, you blundering fool!’ exclaimed old Max, _ but with a nervousness which showed that his own appre- hensions were scarcely less than his subordinate’s. ‘‘We will leave Miry Fork, and keep up the Marias, since the wind holds well. It may be that, instead of being behind- hand, they have got beyond us. Who knows?” Rocky Mountain Sam’s keenness of vision proved—and not for the first time either—to be more searching than the professor’s spy-glass; for, as they swept up to the north-west, at an altitude of about a mileand a half toward Birch River —a small, deep tributary of the Marias, he suddenly called out: “There they are, by crimminy! and they're haying a fight, too. Don’t you see the smoke of their guns?” «“Yes, I do now, and I can hear the shots, too,” said Max, not a little chagrined at having his telescope thrown into the background by the unaided eyes of his companion. ‘‘Pull the valve a little, Sam, and let us get a little closer to them. Ah!” he continued, presently; ‘‘they are, indeed, engaged, and cannot long hold their own against such odds, unaided. Why, by Heaven! the Indians appear to be num- berless; they occupy the entire plain at the foot of the mountain, and there’s a mud volcano in full blast almost between the combatants. As they drew nearer, they were enabled to take in the whole situation at a-glance. ‘The hunters and soldiers were, as usual, acting upon the defensive. ‘They occupied a little grove of fir trees, with their rear and one flank defended by the two streams, while the Indians, as Max had said, seemed to literally cover the broad plain in front, with their rear resting against the base of a steep mountain side, whose - summit, bare of trees, was covered with huge bowlders and other rocky fragments. It was evident at a glance that there was now a pause In the fight, and that the savages, thus far, had been unable. to dislodge the hunters from their position. One or two “S (ele) Comicboo