Red Belt, the Tuscarora — page 66: what you’re looking at

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

62 RED BELT. THE TUSCARORA. He did not hesitate an instant, but strode hurriedly yet cau- tiously to the curtain screen, and lifting it gently, peered in. Long and anxiously he gazed, but he did not seem satisfied. No sound came forth from the tent, anc nothing without in- dicated the presence. of any lookers-on. The savage still hes- itated. But then, after glancing cautiously around him, he gently grasped the curtain rope, and slowly, cautiously, drew it up. The easy-working skin gave forth no sound. The moon shimmered down brilliantly its silver full into the lodge, light- ing it up in its every part. The savage looked in greedily, as he tightened his grasp uponthe bow. But then he started violently back, and as stoical and as stolid as he was, yet he could not repress an ex- clamation of anger and chagrin. The tent was empty ! Slowly the Indian let fall the curtain, and turned about ; and then he stood with his face standing out clearly in the broad flash of moonlight. - But in another moment he glided away as noiselessly as he had come, and was soon lost to sight in the bushes. Scarcely had he gone, when the skin, of which the tent was made, at the further side of the lodge, was slowly pushed aside, and the head and shoulders of a brawny savage, with a long white beard, pushed into the — then the man drew his whole body in. Then he straightened uj up his rowers form, until his lofty head almost touched the top of the lodge. For a moment he hesitated, and then lightly trod toward the curtain screen by the entrance, and peeped out. The sharp pencil of silver moonlight which glinted throvgh the narrow opening, shone on the venerable face and stately form of old Man-e-wa-wa, the Tuscarora. For a whole minute the old chief stood gazing out; then he slowly returned to the interior of the lodge. As he did -80, he uttered a low, scarcely audible whistle of relief. - Then the old warrior sunk into the deep shade of the fur- ther end of the lodge. Ten minutes afterward the skin was raised gently at the rear of the tent, and the form of a man slowly crawled out. He comicbooks.com * *