The Yankee Champion — page 153: what you’re looking at

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

146 THE YANKEE CHAMPION, - CHAPTER XVIII. THE TORIES LAY PLANS AND HAVE A LISTENER. On the morning following the events last recorded, Helen Ryan rose from her bed and dressed herself. - She knew by the sensation produced upon the nerves of her sightless eyes thatit was broad day- light, and she wondered that her brother had not called her as was his wont. In the kitchen she found no fire. It was eold, bit- terly cold. All was still as death in the place, for even the old clock had run down. A strange strength seemed to pervade her frame, for she sprang back toward the chamber stairs and as- cended to her brother’s room. She moved to the bed, and ran her hand over its surface, but she found it empty. She called again his name, and ‘then she turned. Her foot struck against a pros- trate body, and a sharp cry of alarm broke from her lips. Quickly she stooped, and her delicate fingers traversed over the form that had arrested her. She felt the sharp beard, the smooth hair, and the neatly tied neckcloth, and she felt, too, how cold and rigid the body was. | “‘*Tis not my brother! ’tis Baxter! But what did he here? Oh, heavens! perhaps they have mur- dered him yet! Gideon, Gideon! Oh, my brother, where are you? Answerme. ‘*Tis Helen, your sis- ter, that calls!’’ A death-like silence only gave back the echo of her own voice in reply, and with a heavy groan she sank back upon the bed, When she would have cComicbooks.com —