Rocky Mountain Sam — page 187: what you’re looking at

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

178 ROCKY MOUNTAIN SAM, to cheer on the hounds and witness their prowess, and the hunters, again breaking cover, charged the dismayed and faltering savages with signal effect, Big Horn being on foot, armed with knives and hatchets, cap-a-pie, as before, and performing prodigies of valor. “Go in, pard!” he yelled at the top of his voice, as but a small space of struggling humanity separated him for a mo- ment from the balloonists. ‘Them pups know their biz, an’ we're about to clean ’em out.” As he spoke he brought down an Indian with either hand, ripped up a brace of ponies by a couple of flying kicks from his double-bladed feet, chopping his way forward with the tomahawks at his knees and elbows, and thrusting his spikv head-piece into the diaphragm of another luckless savage, whirled his head around like the wheel of a patent straw- cutter with gory effect. | “Cheer up!” responded Sam, blazing away right and left with his revolver, while his companions were just as busily and disastrously employed. ‘‘T’here’s a whole company on their way to join you from the fort.” Dutton and a number of others heard this cheering news and welcomed it with a ringing cheer as they pressed for- ward into the thick of the fight. As it became evident that the dogs must soon tire of a contest so energetically pursued, and as the Indians, again buoyed up by their superiority of numbers, began to recover from their demoralization and to reorganize and fight back with vigor, the professor decided to cut through them again with the balloon. . : ‘‘We’re too near the ground—chuck out a bag or two, sam!” he cried. ‘Teddy, stand by the fan-wheel.” In addition to providing the car with scythe-blades, the four wings of the great fan-wheel, or steering apparatus, had been denuded of their sails and armed with knives and hatchets from the hub to their extremities, so that now when the car rushed mowing its way through the reeling ranks of the redmen, the great wheel, set into sturdy mo- tion by the brawny arms of the Irishman, began to revolve with tremendous effect, chopping, slicing, cutting, and slash- ing everything that opposed it, and effectually disposing of those whose good luck permitted them to escape the ruinous sweep of the scythes. es, Again and again did that terrible air-chamber of destruc- comicboo cS : 5 ia : : Tl (ele) ' . ‘2 5