Beadle's Dime Novels No. 96: Little Moccasin — page 50: what you’re looking at

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

52 LITTLE MOCCASIN. “How do I know it!—why, there’s the print of the muz- ~ zie in pe snow! Examine for yourselves—eight square, you see.” Gage eked: and then exclaimed, “True enotigh !—but would a boy—a sportsman——ever be guilty of such a thing? That print, my good sir, only goes to satisfy me that, although she carried a rifle, she did’ not know how to. use it, and was no sportsman—I. beg your pardon—sportswoman. y “Very fair,” retorted the major; “ but you overlook the reasou. The boy—for the present I choose to.call it a boy— seems to have suspected that something was on his trail, for many of his tracks are covered up with light snow, and some are turned the other way; but ‘instead of doubling for any distance, when he struck the ledge where the print of the muzzle is found, the tracks disappear suddenly, and altogether —and when you light on them again, they are on the other side of the ledge, and running in a contrary direction, toward the dark, tangled underbrush yonder.” Fletcher smiled, and his fine eyes: lighted up with uncom- mon splendor. “ And what do you infer from all that ?” asked Gage, more and more bewildered. “Mount that ledge, and my life on't, you will find. a key to the mystery. But remember, you will see no footprints on the ice there. You must look for other signs.” . .. After a few minutes of narrow and close investigation, Gage called out that he had found something. Fletcher followed, and was able to trace, by the faintest possible signs, enough * to connect the trail. But the major stood afar off, silent. and motionless, darkly smiling, evidently annoyed, and yet, on the whole, somewhat pleased, that, his opinion, should be SO clearly verified. “Well, major, you ‘ate right, » said Gage. on “returning to the place of consultation; “ but I do not see, after all, how these facts go to ‘determine the sex of our OPE, Indian hunter. “But Mr. Fletcher does ; ‘ask: him,” said the nalar “ Not conclusively, | captain, * said Fletcher ; * but inasmuch as you inferred’ that ‘Little Moccasin | must ‘be a gitl, beeanse no boy would have plunged the muzzle of his gun into the Comiclookks.con