Beadle's Dime Novels No. 215: The White Hermit — page 15: what you’re looking at

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

Sad ONE AGAINST THREE. . VW é paces to the right. Beckoning to his companion to follow his example, the young guide took the cover from his rifle, and change.) from the hungry, careless boy, to the woodman wild for battle. His gray eyes flashed, and his step was that of the panther creeping on his prey. Hush ! The click of stee] became louder as they sdvanbed and mingled with it came a hurried breathing as of men in deadly conflict. Bill Epps parted the bushes with his left hand. holding his rifle ready in the other, and peeped in. Captain Austen did the same and saw who made the noise which had turned them from their course. Three Indians, in the dress of the St. Regis of the lakes, were assailing a single warrior, whose dress, and the war-eagle on his naked breast, told that he was one of the great Oneida nation. He stood with one foot thrown backward, bearing his weight upon it, like a tiger ready for a spring, holding in one hand a heayy tom- ahawk, already dyed by the blood of his enemies, and in the other a long knife purpled to the hilt, Austen could not repress a start of surprise and~ admiration at the noble figure of the young Indian. Standing nearly six feet in hight, with muscular shoulders, powerful limbs, and brawny hands, he was a picture of forest comeliness. His dress was of buck-skin, ornamented by beads in fanciful figures, in which the Indian women so excel. These workings were the totems of the tribe, the eagle, and the lesser totems handed down from time immemorial to the people of the Six Nations. His opponents were strong and wiry men, ‘the pick of a nation at all times warlike and aggressive, whose eyes sparkled with rage as they struck-again and again at the resolute figure of the Oneida, who, with a smile upon his lips, even in the face of such fearful odds, warded off - their blows. At his feet, with a gory mark upon his fore head where that terrible hatchet had fallen, lay a huge In dian, and over his body his comrades pushed forward te - avenge him. All had paused a moment by mutual con- sent, for two of the St. Regis were wounded and the third out of breath, while the Oueida, unwounded, calm, and un- tiring, stood like a statue carved in bronze, with that smile upon his dark face. +. , cComicbooks:com