The Maid of the Mountain — page 82: what you’re looking at

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

84 THE MAID OF THE MOUNTAIN. powder in’the opening they had made, ready to blow up the secret door. When all was prepared, the Regulators left the pit, with the exception of the captain, who remained to light slow match. The men were making torches, and getting their weapons ready for the firal assault. The chief, in the mean time, had lifted the curtain of the ‘room in which the young Regulator was confined, and looked in on a strange scene. Two men were struggling for life or death upon the floor of the cavern, and a third sat on a small bowlder of quartz, a little way off, regarding the struggle with a benignant eye. This cool individual was our friend Josh. One of the fighting-men was Elliot, and the other, as he was turned to the light in the struggle, showed the livid face of the Mexican, De Castro. Surprise and anger for a moment held the chief dumb, that one of his men should dare to an- ticipate his vengeance, but his next thought was to let them fight the battleout. In either case it was again forhim. The Mexican was not a man to be trusted, and the young Regula tor was much in his way. If De Castro killed-him, Inez could say nothing, as the Mexican had good cause to hate him. He sat down on another bowlder and watched the varying fortunes of the fray. Neither ofthe prisoners had been bound, a circumstance which De Castro had forgotten when he stole in to take vengeance on the American for the torture-test on the sierras. Josh, confident in the powers of Tommy, had taken no part in the struggle, but acted ag a sort of referee. He kept up a running fire of comments throughout the strug- . gle. “Hit him again! That’s right. Come at a free-born American citizen with a knife, will yew? What use was yer knife tew yew, eh? Hullo, mister! How are yew? Right nice little scrimmage, I guess. Never seen sech a one, did yew? What dew yew think of the way Tommy hits with hits left, say? Wasn’t that a putty nice lick he got in that time, say? Don’t you think he’s putty good for a light weight ?”_ ¢ By this time the iron hand of Elliot had closed upon the throat of the Mexican with a grip which nothing but death could unclose. The strength of that grip caused the tongue of the fellow to protrude from his mouth, and a bluish white- ness to creep into his face. The chief saw that it was time , connicldooks.com