The Prairie Detective: Secret Service Series No. 24 — page 36: what you’re looking at

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

34 THE PRAIRIE DETECTIVE. where it fell with a loud splash, and then sank from sight in the murky waters which surrounded and closed over it like a shroud of darkness. CHAPTER IV. SYCAMORE DAN MEETS POSEY RYAN. The water in the river was ice-cold. As it en- veloped the quivering form of the detective, it sent a chilling shock through his every vein. But it also had another and more satisfactory effect, for it re- stored him to consciousness. The point where he was thrown into the stream was just above a sharp curve in the river-bed. The current there was much faster than at places where the course lay straight across the prairie, and it car- ried the body rapidly away in the darkness. Sycamore Dan was out of the sight of his would-be assassins within an instant of the time he touched the water, and by the time he had returned to a knowledge of what was transpiring around him, he was fairly beyond the curve. When his eyes opened, he was close to the surface of the stream, struggling mechanically, for his ac- tion was not prompted by any workings of his mind. It resulted merely from the instinctive machinery of his physical organism. He was a capital swimmer, equally at home in the water as on dry land. And when he fully realized his position, he struck out boldly with all his return- ing strength toward the shore. The chilling influence of the elements in which he was submerged checked the flow of blood somewhat, although such a quantity had already passed from GComicbooks.co