Rocky Mountain Sam — page 227: what you’re looking at

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

218 . ROCKY MOUNTAIN SAM. - and be ready to spring up and charge at the word! ‘There — it comes!” Most of his men who understood the meaning of the warn- ing, obeyed him at once, much to the surprise of the Indians, who drew back, at a loss to comprehend the nature of such a maneuver. Certainly there was no time for them to take advantage of it, for only a second later the can ef nitro-glycerine, which had been packed between two heavy stones as before, struck the earth ata rocky point a little nearer the river, and one which was also crowded with the reformed ranks of the red men. The effect was even more terrible and disastrous than be- fore, CHAPTER XXXIII. THE BEGINNING OF THE END. The explosion seemed to tear and rend everything in its path. Not only were the Indians among whom it fell, scat- tered like chaff before the wind, and destroyed and mu- tilated in great numbers, but greatrocks were split asunder, cottonwood trees torn from their roots like the merest reeds, and masses of water torn up from the bed of the stream to fall upon the general wreck in dazzling showers. fot The effect upon the Indians immediately engaged in as- saulting the works was almost as disastrous. Many of them were dashed into the river, there to drown before regover- ing from the stunning shock; others were sent hurtling through the air as though discharged from catapults; while all of the remainder were prostrated and overcome by fear quite as much as by anything else. | The hunters and troops were soon upon their feet again, but little the worse for the shock, which had swept over their recumbent forms in an oppressive but not hurtful wave, and the next instant Dutton’s clear voice gaye the com- mand to charge. “Upand at them!” he yelled. ‘‘Don’t give them a chance to get on their feet again.” _ Cooped, as they had been for so long, in their close quar- ters while compelled to act solely on the defensive, they comicbooks