Beadle's Dime Novels No. 38: The Wrong Man — page 113: what you’re looking at

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

CURRENT RUMORS. 115 “Tt was so thought at first,” returned the other; “but a erent opinion soon came to be entertafnmed. The body, Which was supposed to be Dudley’s, and which was certainly habited in his garments, was so dreadfully mutilated that it Was difficult to recognize it; but there were circumstances Which caused many who saw it by daylight to declare that it Was not the body of Dudley, but of Ned Overton, the hunter. opinion was afterward confirmed by an examination of the hunter’s grave, which was found to have been rifled of its tenant.” “Then Dudley may pethaps have escaped,” said the ger man. “T fear not. The inquiries immediately set on foot fur- ed reason to believe that, with Sedley’s niece and slave, had attempted to descend the river; and a party set out ) overtake him, and inform him that the confession of the d man had exonerated him from all suspicion of the mur- er. They had not proceeded far, however, when they were tered, and obliged to desist from their purpose, by one Of those hurricanes which sometimes cover the Ohio with Wrecks. From intelligence that afterward reached Adrian- polis, it is too probable that Dudley and all with him per- in the storm.” “And has nothing ever since been heard to change that pinion »” “Nothing. There was at one time, a year or two after ie €scape, a sort of rumor in the town that Dudley was still Ving; but this, on being traced, was not found to have any ' foundation than certain obscure hints thrown out by former postmaster of Adrianopolis, whose curiosity, it was sometimes led him to pry rather too closely into Tr contents of the letters which passed through his hands. .W48 said that a package from Dudley himself had been re- by Nathan Dodge; and this story gained additional from the fact that, shortly after, carpenters were am busy in constructing a neat pale round the spot where Bediey’s remains were buried. But Dodge, who had just be- Some permanently settled in the village, denied that he had wnred any such letter ; and, indeed, a sufficient reason for — the old man’s grave might be found in the fact Eomicbooks.co