Beadle's Dime Novels No. 38: The Wrong Man — page 72: what you’re looking at

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

74 THE WRONG MAN, while, was moving in a part of the river where the current’ was swiftest, anc rapidly approached the object. “May I never kill a wild-cat!” replied the one who had been addressed, “ if it ain’t powerful like a man’s head. There by —!” exclaimed he, as an eddy turned the face of the corpse partly round for a moment, “I sighted it then, and I’é bet the best keel on the river ’ginst a beggarly dug-out, it’s some poor devil that’s been drowned.” The attention of the man at the helm being drawn by these exclamations to the floating object, he guided the boat toward it, directing the hands at the same time to get out their poles They jumped with alacrity to their feet, and dropping their long, iron-pointed setting-poles over the side, placed the ends to their shoulders, and walked along, one after another, after part of the vessel, in a half-bent posture, pushin boat forward in the painful manner practiced upon the rivers before the introduction of steam navigation. “ Now, then, for a reverend set, and head her off!” cried a stout, broad-shouldered, half-naked boatman, who seemed to be a leading spirit among the crew. ~ “I wonder what’s got into Bill Sawyer to shy off so,” grumbled another in an undertone, showing that what he said was not meant for the earsof the helmsman. “ Hugh Overton knows no more about a steering oar than a steering oar knows about him. See, he yaws' her about like a Yankee moving- boat in a hurricane. Id give a smart chance myself if Ned Overton had been going the trip instead of him.” __ “Mark my words, Jim,” said the first speaker, as the hands returned in Indian file, trailing their poles toward the bow of the boat, “ you'll see Ned Overton aboard this craft afore the night’s over.” “What makes you reckon so ?” “Reckon! I dont reckon at all—I’m as good as sartain. I've kept my eye on him and Hugh, and I know there’s some wild piece of devilment going on atwixt them. But that’s none of my concern. Just you memorize what I say.- he'll be aboard this night.” : “I wish he may,” answered the othe?, “either him or Rill Satbeed or some patron that’s up to bushwacking ; or else it svon't be long after we're in the wicked Massissip afore we Conmmiclooolks.comn