Beadle's Dime Novels No. 309: Mountain Ned — page 7: what you’re looking at

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

MOUNTAIN NED. CHAPTER I, THE FLYING SCOUT APPEARS, 2» Cracs, bowlders and quartz croppings in strange confusion, deep canons, fathomless guiches and snow-capped peaks com- bined to make up a scene at once grand and solemn. The peaks were those of New Mexican chain, the time—midsum- mer, and a solitary man stood upon a bare, brown rock, look- ing into the gulch at bis feet:—a man who had hardly seen twenty-five summers; with an erect manly figure; bold face, Searching black eyes and flowing dark beard and hair. He Was dressed as a border-man in buck-skin, but a certain fop- Pishuess in his attire showed that he was a sort of mountain Adonis—one of those stranve persons whose lives are as free as their hardsearned money, and whose bold hearts dare any danger for the mere love of adventure. © — Hush ! ; A sound is heard coming up the canon—a sound which he well knows, the beat of flying hoofs upon the hard bottom of the pass, At that sound the mountaineer sunk down behind a bowl- der. Almost by instinct rather than thought, bis thumb fell upon the lock of bis rifle, and the sharp double click was heard as he cocked it. Just at his feet the canon widened: until it was nearly thirty feet across, and as he gazed, the Coming horse sprung into this open space, bearing upon bis back a girl with a face which was surprising in its beauty to the © mountsin man, to whom the sight of a woman was a rarity, His quick glance took ina jaunty figure, clad in asort of short tunic of green cloth, with Turkish trowsers, high laced ; boots, gauntlets, and a neat riding-hat with a bustard-feather attached to the side by a rosette of black. The face beneath COnmmicloOolks,. Conn