Beadle's Dime Novels No. 300: The Crested Serpent — page 31: what you’re looking at

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

\ OHALLENGED. — | 85. Leaving the scene of butchery they rode secretly past the mission, and shaped their route toward Vega motte, which was one league west of hacienda Santa Luzia. Arriving there they made preparations for a permanent camp, feeling Satisfied that the Tigers would not venture that distance from their mountain stronghold. Vega motte was a grove of oak trees, and inits center a luke that never became exhausted by the heats of summer. Here encamped Alberto Tristan and his Comurgo rifles, /Mounted his borse and rode to the hacienda Santa Luzia. ) Applying for admittance; the gray head and piercing eyes of | Marta gazed into the darkness. “Who comes?” she asked, shading ber eyes with her hands, in an unintelligible longue. “ Welcome; doubly eloome, my son!” said Marta, as she opened wide the door. He entered and grasped her hand in bis. “Are all true who reside bere ?” be asked. “All; true as steel.” He then told her of meeting Humfredo and Hernando Vidal ; how they had passed through their camp, their: pass- port beftig the talismanic ring; how the advance-guard had been cut to pieces by the Tigers, and the supposed capture of Steager; and that he and his companions were enéamped near the hacienda and would there remain until the return of | Vidal and Humfredo. “On the return of my son and Senor Vidal (we must now Call Paula by that name), I will enter the quarters of the Ti- gers in the character of a sorceress. But I must await the entrance of Humfredo and Senor Vidal into the enemy's eansp 80 that I can gain information of their plans and an insight . into the former lives of Boussard and his Arab wife. Through the instrumentality of the cave, I wil) nightly receive vews from the Tiers, and then suddenly appear in their midst and : Startle them with my knowledge of their previous acts hd Very thoughts. By doing this, I will gain a power over then, — 8nd lure them to certain destruction. Your command ibuct . eee rhe comicboo That night after darkness had set in, Alberto Tristan. aga a “A friend,” replied Tristan, and then uttered a few words — ro - artes