Rocky Mountain Sam — page 194: what you’re looking at

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

ROCKY MOUNTAIN SAM. 185 balloon was rapidly filled and in a brief time the aeronauts were once more sailing through the clouds. ne ee CHAPTER XXVII, THE MOONLIGHT VOYAGE. ““We’ve got enough gas to keep usin the air all night, if necessary,” said the professor, reflectively; ‘‘and the moon. rises at ten o'clock. ‘Who knows but it may be best after all for the prosecution of our search.” He began to peek around with his telescope, as was his wont, and presently pointed out a long, straight line running through the woodlands from west to east, which he announced to be the line of demarcation between British Columbia and the United States. “Now,” said he, ‘it is among those lofty mountains just to the west there that Rube Tenyck indicated as the secret fastnesses of lirefoot, the renegade,” As the rising moon began to show her luminous face through the trees, a scene of wonderiul beauty met the eyes of our friends. | Beneath them slept the vast unbroken wilderness, melan- choly and awful in its sublime stillness, but touched and fused with ineffable beanty—-river and lake, hill and dale, rolling prairie and hoary wood—by the magic of the moon- hight. “The wind, though very light, was favorable, and the balloon drifted directly toward the mountains that lifted their dark and’ forbidding chain to the west, as if to shut out a realm of beauty from a benighted race. Presently they began to pass over the mountains, and all eyes were directed below, intent upon discovering the first signs of human habitations, however rude and savage. It seemed like a mockery to suppose that anything like a lodge or cabin should be found in such a solitude, but be- fore lony, Big Horn, who possessed the keenest eyes in the party, said ,in a low voice: ‘Thar you be, mates!” and directed the attention of the — others to a narrow plain, surrounded on every side by lofty mountain walls. Eomicboo “S (ele)