Rocky Mountain Sam — page 78: what you’re looking at

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

ROCKY MOUNTAIN SAM. 69 shiveringly together in stupid amazement, like children in a haunted churchyard. : | Their chieftain seemed to be the only one who did not altogether lose his*presence of mind. He wasalynx-eyed, dapper little redskin, who had for several days excited the envy of his fellows and the admiration of his squaws_ by stalking about in a pair of immense hob-nailed cavalry boots, of which he had robbed some poor miner slain in the recent fight at Chapman’s Ranch. He now went stumping and stalking among his terror-stricken braves, exhorting them to fresh courage, cuffing their ears, and now and then bestowing upon them hearty kicks with his heavily-shod feet. But the conceit was suddenly taken even out of him by a large mud ball, dextrously dropped, taking him in the top of the head, and knocking the eagle feathers in his head- dress over his eyes. | | Almost at the same instant the cloudsrolled apart, reveal- ing to allthe dreaded Booglebooby, or Wind Specter, directly over their heads, and rapidly descending toward them. | The savages redoubled their yells, and most of them eroveled in the dust before the appalling apparition. Even the chieftain’s courage oozed out at his fingers’ ends, and he threw himself prostrate upon his face, clutching at the scant herbage with his hands, and kicking up his hob-nailed boot-soles in an agony of terror. : ‘‘Kasy now! let her down easy, Sam!” said the White Hermit; ‘‘and, Fayaway, do you hand me that magnet attached to the end of that long pole—that’s it, the thing that look’s like a horse-shoe. Jam about trying an experi- ment that has been developing in my massive brain for many and many a day. Hasy now, and stand by the sand- bags.” ‘The balloon slowly swooped down, and as it did so the professor took from the Indian maiden’s hands a long, stout pole, on the end of which was securely fastened an enormous horse-shoe magnet about two and a half feet in diameter, and probably possessing sufficient power to drag the spikes and rivets out of the timbers of a line of battle ship. As the car swung down to within a few feet of the ground, he leaned over, and skillfully applied the magnet to the hob nails on the soles of the luckless Indian’s boots. ‘hey, of : iy : * -ecomichoo (ele)