Beadle's Dime Novels No. 127: Bald Eagle — page 7: what you’re looking at

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

BALD EHAGLE. CHAPTER I. THE “ COWBOY’S” HOME. New JERSEY has often been called the Flanders of America, and it certainly earned the name by the number of battles fought upon its soil, and by the expenditure of life and money in the great war of the Revolution. Ramapo Valley suffered more than any other locality. Three years the American army encamped therein, and its fastnesses were often in the hands of the enemy, or usurped by marauders, who killed and _pil- laged either army without principle and without mercy. This historic and most picturesque region was at that time placed upon a bad eminence, as being the arena of the terrible exploits and cruel devastations of a class of men popularly knowp as the “ Cowboys.’ These marauders belonged to ~- neither of the parties which divided the country — they were neither patriots nor loyalists, but preyed alike upon either, as it best served their interest or malignity. The leader had been, for a long period, one Claudius Smith, a bold, handsome man, around whom secretly clustered all those unprincipled and daring men, to be found in all communities when its peace is disturbed by the presence of conflicting armies, Smith was from a good family, which had a right to expect better things of him ; but this only goes to verify the old prov- erb, that every flock has one black sheep. Hedhad a mixture of generosity, craft, cruelty, and unflinching courage in his composition, which made him a hero in the eyes of that class Which discards all moral questions of right and truth from the scale of judgment. .- At length he was taken prisoner and hanged for his crimes ; but he left a son, Richard, a cruel, fiery youth, who swore to be revenged upon the patriots for the death of his father; and for a long time he was the terror of the whole region; ‘and from his well-known characteristics, had earned for himself the familiar name of Black Dick. Comiclooks. com