Red Plume — page 48: what you’re looking at

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

48 RED PLUME. as he supposed, the white man might rest securely, and left his companion to his slumbers, while he went to the edge of the slope to reconnoiter. He had not been there long when his attention was arrested by certain loud, prolonged and un- pleasant noises. He was as much surprised as an Indian al- lows himself to be, for he knew of no beast or bird, in the forest or prairie, that could make such sounds. He soon per- ceived that they came from the thicket in which he had left “Eben, and rightly conclided that the Yankee was snoring vigorously in his sleep. As he started back to awake him, fearing that the noise might bring an enemy upon them, he observed one of the Blackfeet crawling up the slope. It was evident that this man had also heard the snoring, for he seemed even more surprised than Black Beaver, and stopped, every now and then, in an attitude of listening. The Delaware, seeing that there was no time to be lost, crept back to Eben’s covert, swiftly and silently, and aroused the unconscious snorer'as gently as he could, but not gently enough to prevent an exclamation. “Avast there! Hello! isit time for the starboard watch ?” “’Sh-sh ! Injuns close by. Be still, and look.” Eben looked, and started involuntarily, as he saw a tall Blackfoot crouching by the side of a tree, a short distance from them. The Indian appeared to be istauinw intently for the strange sounds that had now ceased: His face was partly turned from them, and. his head leaned against the trunk of the tree. “Why don’t you shoot the whelp, Beaver ?” eagerly whis- pered the Yankee. “ Don’t want to shoot ; make too big noise. You shoot that long arrow mighty well ; spose you shoot it through his head.” “ Darned if I don’t! Stand by to haul him in!” Eben arranged the coil of his line, grasped his harpoon firmly, rose up quietly, poised the long iron for a moment, and launched it at the watching foe. The keen barb crashed through the head of the Blackfoot, pinning him to the tree, and he died without even uttering a groan. “ Good shot—kill easy !” said the Delaware, as he crept to» the tree, and disengaged the harpoon, at the same time secur- ing the scalp of the fallen savage, comicbooks.com