That Girl of Johnson's — page 60: what you’re looking at

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

THAT GIRL OF JOHNSON’S. 49 places, sharp turnings and winding paths, ledges hidden by haze that would swallow a man as completely as a sepulcher, and leave no trace, massive rocks overhead that a tremor of the mountain would hurl upon them. No wonder the men grew silent and allowed the horses to have their way; man could not follow the dangerous, hidden paths; only brute instinct could find the safe places. They came at last to the path up the mountain, and the horses refused to take it until urged by whip and spur. It was a path that shielded all beyond it, as though the mountain had made a fastness that none could break. The horses toiled up slowly, slipping now and again on the treacherous ground; the tangled bushes and low boughs swept them as they passed; above the pine boughs parted enough for a man’s head to pass untouched beneath. Now and again the path seemed lost in the wilderness of bushes and ferns; great rocks loomed ahead and the path that seemed cut off turned sharply and wound up the mountain; again and again the horse-hoofs paused on the edge of a chasm half hidden by haze, and the men with white faces held them up by main force from the ghastly depths be- neath their very feet. Their voices, as they shouted in hopes of a reply had Johnson lost his way, sounded grue- some in the loneliness. Half way up the mountain they paused and faced about. It was useless, they said, and foolish to follow the path up higher ; no man would wander up there of his own free will; facing the law were preferable; one knew what to expect from it. Here death laid his traps in secret and lured his victim on; he waited at every corner and lurked near every rock; he was above, below, and before them; he reigned in the mountain’s heart. If Johnson were there he might stay there; their lives were of more value than his; they would return to the town and report the utter hopelessness of the search. It would be wiser to search for him nearer home; to hide from the law showed that Eomicbooks (eo)