Under Fire: A Tale of the Shenandoah Valley — page 82: what you’re looking at

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

a uw WITHIN A NOOSE. 3 75 the ominous preparations, his face pale, yet not a muscle of that handsome countenance twitching with. fear. | He had faced death on many battle-fields without - flinching. Why should he tremble now? ; It was not the death he expected to die, if die he must, when he turned his back on his boyhood’s home amid the everlasting hills of the Keystone State, and faced the Southern bars, to battle for the preser- — vation of the Union and the old flag. Father, mother, and sister had bidden him good-by with fond tears at parting with their only boy; but not of regret at the step he had taken, even though he should fall a victim to the bullet of treason. But to die in that ignominious way was not what the young patriot had counted on. ‘*Colonel Trafton !”? | The officer turned his dark face toward the speaker a frown settling over his countenance. ‘Well, sir, I will hear what you have to say if you ate only quick about it.”’ Captain Chetwood raised his arm and pointed at the sun, which glowed in the hot Southern sky. “Colonel Trafton, that sun will rise for an hour, then go down, untilin a few hoursit will sink in dark- ness in the west. Your Confederacy has risen, passed its meridian, and is now far down the western hori- zon of its existence. After fighting nearly four years for the flag you follow, will you stain its folds, your own name forever, by committing a wicked and causeless crime? If you have a mother—a wife——’’ ‘“S’death!’ thundered the colonel at this point. ‘Vou have said enough, upstart. If you were Sheri- dan himself I would hang you.’’ | ‘"Tis-well,’’ uttered the cool young captain. ‘‘Re- member, however, that you may one day stand as I do now. Torbert will not spare you then. Your crime -will follow you, and the blood of an innocent man ‘GO comicbooks