Beadle's Dime Novels No. 316: Hurricane Bill — page 51: what you’re looking at

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

>» MARVELOUS LEGENDS, 55 CHAPTER VI. 4 THE “ EVIL LAND.” Tur Mexicans are nothing if not superstitious, Though Hurricane Bill and his comrade had long been aware of this fuct, it, was disagreeably presented to them before the night was half gone. When first setting out from the corral, the scouts had closely questioned their allies concerning the position of the Lopo hills, the distance and probable time it would occupy in making the journey. Somehow there seemed an extraor- dinary difference between the two last. Was the ground so very difficult, then? Yes, it was difficult—very rough and tangled. They must make a circuit of many miles—no one could cross the Mal Pais and live. “The ‘Evil Land, eh?’ interrupted Mustang Sam. “ What makes it so much worse than the rest of the country ?” The answer came promptly, closely resembling a skirmish- line firing at will, each shot clenching the one preceding it, the whole forming a wild melange of the weird, ridiculous, tragic and fantastic that one finds nowhere to greater perfec- tion than in Mexico. Marvelous legends were narrated of still more marvelous adventures and escapes; and while speak- ing the narrator’s voice grew more subdued, his saliow cheek pule, his great black eyes fill with a superstitious light as he glanc@g half-fearfully over his shoulders like one who sees other shadows than those of night alone. Many a stout man had entered the “ Evil Loud: ” either through ignorance or through foolhardiness, A few had em... erged from it; but how? As miserable, idiotic wretches to - whom death sania be a blessed boon. .Theruler of the Evil Land bad touched their brain with his searing finger—had breathed his baleful breath upon them, shriveling their mus- cles, Grying their brains, distorting their limbs, making old, decrepit cripples out of the young, bale man who, but a day comiclbooks.com