Rocky Mountain Sam — page 198: what you’re looking at

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

ROCKY MOUNTAIN SAM. 189 lying in the lodge by his side. She is willing to go with us, and accepts me, Big Horn, as her protector.” As the great hunter concluded these remarks, in his own phraseology—which the reader need scarcely be informed was more characteristic than elegant, he smote his massive breast proudly with his right hand, and at the same time passed his left arm around the slender form of Mewanee, who fluttered up close to his shoulder in a simple, trusting manner. “Yes, yes; that is all very well,” said the professor im- patiently, ‘‘but we want to know whether she can give in- formation of the whereabouts of Firefoot and his captives.” In a little while Mewanee explained, through Big Horn, that she knew both Miss Chapman and Fayaway very well, but that they had been taken back into the mountains on the previous day by Firefoot, for whom she manifested the utmost fear. Firefoot had with him a body-guard of fifty picked warriors. She could not tell precisely where he had gone this time, but she knew ali of his haunts, and would direct the balloonists to them, one by one. Upon being asked how the captives appeared to be treated, she answered very well, that Fayaway was not restrained in her liberty in the least, simply refusing to desert her mis- tress in her extremity, and that Miss Chapman’s captivity was by no means of a rigorous nature. ‘This is the first real clew we have had yet,” said the pro- fessor, rubbing his hands, ‘‘and the presence of Mewanee among us looks like agoodomen. We are already nearing one of the valleys spoken of by Rube Tenyck as containing an encampment of Firefoot’s braves.” | The balloon passed on, with the professor and Rocky Mountain Sam on the keen lookout, examining the under- lying country which lay spread out likea map in the brilliant moonshine, and with Big Horn and Mewanee seated apart, conversing in low tones, in her tribal language, which he wasso fortunate to understand. Presently the professor announced that they were ap- proaching the vicinity of an Indianencampment. In a few moments they were hovering lightly over a deep valley—set so greenly and deeply down among the surrounding peaks and ridges as to appear almost like a well, or the bottom of an extinct volcanic crater, in the center of which they could cS Comicboo (ele)