Beadle's Dime Novels No. 139: The Border Foes — page 18: what you’re looking at

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

SS = a F <A for 2 certainty what has been the fate of the family. Let me go first, for Y know the way well enough now.” “Can you see no light yet, Walter ?” anxiously whispered Ryeburn, as they pressed onward through the darkness, “No; and we will not see any, for here I am, bump up against the house |” “Then there is no hope. Can you find the door?’ “ Here itis, and itis open. Take your knife in your hand, and follow me.” Wilson felt his way into the house, with his companion at his heels. As he gained the threshold, he paused and lis- tened, but ‘all within was as silent as the grave. With an audible sigh, he went on; but he had hardly en- tered the room, when his foot slipped, and he fell on the floor. As his hands touched the planks, they were moistened by something soft and sticky, which he at once recognized as blood, At the same time, his feet struck against a body. “Don’t move yet, George,” said he, “ Here is one body, already.” “Who is it, Walter? For God’s sake, tell me !” “It is Atlee’s negro man, for he has a woolly head. Take your flint and tinder, George, and strike a light, if you ean. We must see our way in this place.” Ryeburn soon got some tinder burning, and luckily discov- ered a candle on a puncheon-table in the room. He lighted it, and hastened to commence searching the house. “Shut the door,” said Wilson, “ while I wipe off this dis- gusting blood. We ought not to show any more light than we are obliged to.” George did so, and then both prosecuted the search; but they found nothing more below. The negro man was un- _ armed, and had probably been tomahawked and scalped as _ he arose from his bed, for there were no signs of a struggle. In the next room they saw nobody ; but the closet in which _ Simon Atlee kept his liquor had been broken open, and there was an empty jug on the floor. It was evident that there had been a drunken orgie in the room, for the furniture was broken and tumbled about, and Wilson picked up some fea- ‘thers, which had probably formed part of the plume of s comiclooolks.comn -