The Prairie Detective: Secret Service Series No. 24 — page 135: what you’re looking at

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

THE PRAIRIE DETECTIVE. 133 both ’way offen the track. This is the way I put it up: Thet chap Robinson knows purty well what kind of men you an’ me are, or he thinks he does. Wal, he went fust, an’ sent them chaps back hyar to hitch us up, which they did, an’ did thunderin’ well, too. Then arterwards he waited till they came back to him. By thet time he hed stumbled onto the trail o’ Miss Esther. When they come up to him he laid _ this plan o’ sendin’ ee tO us, an’ pretendin’ that it was to help her escape.’ ‘‘But what could be his anit Your theory seems to lack an essential element.’’ ‘Does 1t? Wal, p’raps arter ye hear me through, ye won’t think so quite ez much ez ye do now. Ye must remember thet this man Robinson hez allers looked on ye with some suspicion. He thout in the fust place, thet ye was a huntin’ arter Persim Wil- liam, an’ no doubt he thinks thet his chief would like purty well to clap his peepers onto ye.”’ “Tf that was the case, why didn’t they take us prisoners, and carry us bodily to their chief?’’ “Took a hyar, Sycamore Dan! Are you a tellin’ this yarn, oramI? Ef it’s you, why jest go ahead an’ spin it out. But ef I’m doin’ it, do for the Lord’s sake dry up, an’ let me finish! Wal, ez I said, he thout ez how Bill would like to see ye, an’ he knows mighty well thet I sh’d be a prize the boss would give a good deal to hev the whip-hand onto, Now when he foun’ thet he’d be able to ketch Esther, he thout summat like this: “Them men, ef we let em alone, will foller our trail, so’s to git the t’other gal back agin. They ain’t men thet will weaken at anythin’ under heaven. Ef they’ll do thet, why we kin lay a trap for ’em by an’ by, an’ they’ll be dead sure to walk into it <S oy MSE Sree tc comicbook (efe)