The Land Claim — page 115: what you’re looking at

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

JUDGE LYNCH. : 111 with orders to give him forty-nine lashes in twice as many seconds. Then arose the most horrible medley of cries, shrieks, blows and groans, all mingled in one appalling discord. Presently there was a lull in the tempest. The scarred and bleeding wretch was unbound and east fainting on the ground, and another took his place. This was the one of the thieves who had not spoken a word since his cap- ture. He was young, good-looking, and apparently in deep, though silent distress. Some of the mob compassionated his fate, and clamored for light punishment. ) “Gentlemen,” said Jim, who was sweating profusely from his exertions, “you are on the right tack now. He's a poor boy that Carnes sneaked away from his old mother, down in Missouri; and he’s a right nice sort of a young feller, an’ - not much up to our tricks. I reckon if you’d send him home to his mother, he’d have a mind to quit this business forever arterwards. That’s my ‘pinion of him, an’ I know him mighty well.” | A consultation was held, during which the boy’s white face — was turned imploringly from one to another in the crowd, to catch, if might be, some shadow of hope. After some little delay, no one was found willing to apply the whip to his stripling shoulders, and he was released, upon taking an oath never more to commit a theft, nor to return to the territory of Nebraska. . This clemency visibly affected Jim, who looked at the boy with tears in his eyes. But the sturdy villain asked no mercy for himself He rereived the twenty lashes, to which his punishment was commuted by general consent, with a dogged endurance worthy of a better cause, and was warned to leave the country within two hours, never more to be caught west of the Missouri, on peril of hanging: paratory to starting for the ferry, he turned to the bystanders. “You've done better by me than I deserve, for I’ve stole lots of bosses in this country, an’ never was cotched before. I ken tell you where Squire Allen’s han’som’ bay is hid ; he’s tied to a tree in the thickest of the woods over on the mill- claim, an’ I reckon he'd like to see an ear of corn by this time.” , comicloOolkks. conn — ~~