Beadle's Dime Novels No. 13 — page 36: what you’re looking at

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

$8 OEDAR SWAMP; OR, WILD NATS BRIGADE. > a CHAPTER Vt. HOT WORK AHEAD. Two weeks have elapsed since the time when Nat Ern- ghaw first formally enrolled the hames of the volunteers, who wished to fight under the continental banner. During that two weeks they have not been altogether idle, for, in addition to the discomfiture of the troop of dragoons, they had attacked and dispersed some fifteen or twenty tories who had assembled at a spot about nine miles from the swamp. , It may, at first, seem strange that the Americans did not make an attack upon the detachment of soldiers which had, for over a fortnight, been holding, as a barrack, the houses of Tappan and Phillips. No doubt they would have been willing ‘enough to attempt an expulsion, had there been a probability of success. Nat considered that his force of thirty-five or forty men would hardly be able to cope with fifty or sixty, unless the larger party could bestaken by surprise. Though a scout had been for days watching the houses, it so far seemed as though nothing could be done. It was late in the evening, and the sun’s last lingering rays had long since ceased to tinge the western horizon, when the majority of the patriot soldiers were already “turned in,” that Capt. Ernshaw was startled by hearing the low, long-drawn whistle of the sentinel stationed at the outskirts of the swamp. The signal implied that sCmething important was to be communicated. Thrusting a pistol in- his belt, Ernshaw left the hut and traversed the—by no means safe—path that led to the willow-trees under which the sentinel was stationed. As he neared the spot, it could be seen that the guard.had left his place of concealment, and was engaged in talking with a young lad. The boy, Who was mounted on a speedy-loo’s- ing roan mare, had evidently ridden far and fast. “Why, Simon, is that you ? queried Ernshaw, as he shook comicbooks.com