Beadle's Dime Novels No. 305: The Girl Scout — page 43: what you’re looking at

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

THE MASKED BAND. 47 followed by Wallace, and plunged into the dense swamp be- ond. ‘ “Come on!” he hissed. “I thort when you talked of buy- ing this cussed swamp you was @ fool, but I give it up now. You ain’t so big a fool as you look. Tl trouble the Secret Brothers to catch me byar, that’s all” He dashed on over hummocks and fallen logs until the sound of vursuit died away in the distance, when he sat down upon a tog, breathing hard, and lit his pipe. It may seem hard-hearted in this man that he could do that when he had just witnessed the death of a dear friend ; but tobacco, with the borderman, is the only solace in any grief. . “ Don’t say nothing to me jest now, young ’un,” said the old man, in a choking voice, while he pulled at the pipe, me- chanically. “I can’t bear it, I tell you, pard. I knowed that boy sence he was knee high to a prary dorg. He wur alus the same critter, rough and tough at times, but a gentle- man at heart. And he’s bin murdered; you hear me— he Secret Brothers hez scooped him in, durn the’r pictur’s, and I don’t want no rest till I’ve treed them ugly ducks.” “ Who are the Secret. Brothers ?” demanded Wallace. ° “Thet’s it; who ar’ they? Hoss-thieves, murderers, burkers, and low-lived skunks of misery, 1 know they be, but I don’t know a man as belongs to ’em. I mought gus- pect Black Wolf, Buck Bracer and critters of that kind, but I kain’t prove any thing. But I'll know, and when I do—the Regilators, that’s all.” “ ou won’t wait for law ?” “ We ar’ a law onto ourselves out hyur,” replied Old Jess, with a grim smile. “ On’y let me get a clue to one, jest one of them bloody cusses and I'l] hang on like a bull-dog, tell the teeth meet in the flesh. I will, by thunder.” “ Count me in, too,” said Wallace. “J liked Rod Phelps as well as if he had been my brother. There was something in his genial, hearty nature which suited me, and he has been most foully murdered. Where you go, I will follow, for I feel that when we pursue these black-robed dogs we follow my enemies as well as his murderers.” “He felt it coming too, poor boy,” muttered Old Jess. “ D’ye mind how he acted and looked back arter partin’ Wie