Rocky Mountain Sam — page 50: what you’re looking at

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

ROCKY MOUNTAIN SAM. 41 reader’s attention from the continued and stirring action of the story for more than a moment or two. Colonel Chapman was a Kentucky gentleman, who, hav- ing lost most of his property through unfortunate specula- tions, and becoming misanthropic through the loss of his wife, had, ten years before, purchased the vast tract of land - upon which his ranch, or farm, was now built, and removed thither with his household, consisting of his only child, Mollie, and a number of slaves. He had won the good will of the savages by fair dealings with them, and though his slaves had left him one by one for freer fields, his flocks and herds had vastly increased, his influence had grown more extensive, and fortune had smiled upon him generally. Molle had been accompanied by a poor New England gov- erness, who, after teaching her pupil pretty much all she knew herself, had laid her weary bones beneath the prairie grasses. Miss Yearning, the sister of the colonel’s deceased wife, had come, at her brother-in-law’s solicitation, to reside with him and his daughter. She had quite a little fortune of her own, but &ad fallen in love with border life, and, moreover, was in eafmest need of an article which maiden ladies of an uncertain age have, time out of mind, been de- sirous of obtaining—a husband. Whether she hoped to obtain one among the comparatively womanless regions of Montana,. -ormerely remained for the love of the thing, is a matter of question; but, at any rate, she hung to her brother-in-law. The only other member of the family was a visitor, Lieu- tenant Charlie Dutton, the young gentleman already men- tioned. He wasa distant relative, and a graduate of West Point, who had seen some service, but was now enjoying an unlimited furlough, on account of ill-health. He had visited his relative, with the intention of making a stay of but a few weeks, but, having fallen in love with Mollie on sight, had already stretched his visit to well-nigh a twelve- month, and had no serious idea of terminating it In a hurry. i «Tell me, colonel,” said he, that evening, when his’ host and he sat alone’in the principal apartment of the ranch, where they had been in vain endeavoring to rally each other out of their despondency consequent upon the capture of the Prairie Blossom, ‘‘who and what is this crazy genius of a White Hermit, as they call him? Where did he come from ?” | comicbook Col