The Land Claim — page 104: what you’re looking at

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

100 THE LAND-CLAIM. but in a minit thar come the awfulest clap of thunder ever I heerd, an’ it struck the house old Newcome was in—so they said—and the young man run right off to see what had hap- pened. But the house was all on fire, an’ I reckoned he wouldn’t come away very soon; so I give the fellers that was With me the wink, an’ we took a short cut for the woods. We was some surprised when we found the captain layin’ on his back in the awfulest rain !—an’ that girl a settin’ close by him takin’ care that he didn't run away with his legs tied up, an’ his arm broke by a big branch. She run away from us tho’. The captain grumbled ’cause she’d tied him up so tight ; but he wouldn’t let us stop her from gettin’ away; an’ so we left her in the woods alone—the wind blowin’ a hurricane, an the thunder shakin’ the bluffs. What d’ye s’pose Joe stopped to hunt for in the dark, ’stead of makin’ off, double quick Bb: “ The lady, perhaps, ” said one of the surveyors. “No ’twan’t. It was the gal’s shawl, tho’. She put it under his head when he was lyin’ on the ground, an’ he was so tuk by her kindness he wouldn’t part with the shawl for a hundfed dollars, he said.” The man whom all this relation concerned was mganing, swearing, and silent by turns. He seemed to have given him- - self up to his fate, albeit with a bad grace, and no longer in- terfered with the confession of his confederate; and before _ day dawned, Flag was acquainted with the whole history of the escape. The constable’s horse and wagon were left in the woods at a short distance from the hut; and it was the inten- tion of the thieves to have gone up the Platte with them, at the first streak of light, to an obscure ferry whence they could find their way to the southern portion of the territory, or into Kansas—shrewdly guessing that the constable would look for them nearer the Missouri. But the route they were obliged to take at daylight was one they had not calculated on—leading in more public ways, and to less desirable ends. Laid bound in the wagon, like calves destined for the shambles, they were escorted into Fairview by Flag and his assistants, and delivered into the hands of the authorities, to be dealt with according to law. conmmicloooks. conn