Beadle's Dime Novels No. 85: The Fugitives — page 44: what you’re looking at

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

46 THE FUGITIVES. Abingdon arose to his feet, that he might possess the same advantage as his enemy, and drawing his knife awaited the onset. Nothing loth, the savage descended the bank, and with drawn knife warily approached him. At this point, when his eye gleamed with the light of exultation, something very much resembling a thunderbolt, came in collision with the side of his head, and he turned several grotesquely original summersets through the bushes. “ Most bloodthirsty heathen, go thy way t in peace !” The heathen went. | Upon feeling for his knife, with which to assist his friend, Stoddard Franklin was surprised to find it was lost, and that he possessed no weapon of any kind. Still, he was not to be deterred from assisting his companion. With a cat-like tread he stole up behind, and dealt him the stunning blow that doubled him up in the bushes, and sent a little - prudence in his head; for, scrambling to his feet, he hurried away, doubt- fess laboring under the impression that Colonel Z. Butler had marshaled the remaining men of his column beneath that same line of bushes. ; “ This vicinity is no longer safe; let us hasten away,” said — Franklin, hurrying rather recklessly through the water. '“No doubt that fellow entertains the same opinion regard- ing it,” replied the lieutenant, who could not be otherwise than highly pleased at the neat disposition his friend had made of the aborigine. The words of the Quaker were wise, and were instantly acted upon. A few moments later, the two stood upon the edge of the Monocacy, ready to:push off for the shore which each had left but a comparatively short time before. The darkness by this time was so great as to shroud almost every thing in gloom, and while this beyond question inured to the advant- age of our friends, it still rendered the greater care upon their vart the more necessary, to avoid running into some danger from which it would be impossible to extricate themselves. “ Now,” said Franklin, “ thou must be fully sensible, George, of the dire need thy family has for us. Should one of us be ‘ken, the other may still prove their protector; but. if both fall, they may well fear for themselves.” “That is too true.” cComiclhooks.comn :