Beadle's Dime Novels No. 96: Little Moccasin — page 78: what you’re looking at

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

80 LITTLE MOCCASIN. Before three, in the afternoon, the surface of the snow was coated with a crust strong enough to bear a loaded ox-team ; the cold was enough to freeze woodchucks—unbearable in- deed, but for the hardihood of our two hunters, their long ex- perience, and their determination to go to the bottom of the mystery they had undertaken to see through. Fletcher led the way, steering in the direction of the rifle- shot and the war-whoop which followed like an echo. It was a long while before any thing satisfactory turned up— could he be mistaken about the distance, or the direction ? While they stood together debating, Fletcher started off sud- denly toward an object, the dim outlines of which seemed to be those of a human figure lying at his whole length on the snow, with his head hanging over the edge of a deep gully. “This way, Gage, this way !” he shouted, as he darted off, with a new cap on his rifle, and his eye fastened on the object. Gage sprung after him, and when they reached the spot, lo! a dead Indian, though not the Iroquois, lay there stretched at full length, frozen stiff and covered with ice, through which the wide-open eyes were still looking with a ferocious glare. “ Horrible !’ exclaimed Fletcher, growing suddenly pale and staggering away two or three steps. Gage, too, was nearly overcome by the sight ; for the dead man’s eyes, he said, seemed to follow him whithersoever he moved; and the coarse, brutal mouth, agape with an expres- sion he never could think of without a shudder, and the tangled, bloody hair scattered by handfuls upon the snow and frozen into it, were indeed enough to fill every human heart with abhorrence and loathing, instead of compassion. ' His arms were all abroad—in one hand a discharged rifle, and in the other, a large hunting-knife. The expression of _ his countenance, too, was not such as follows a sudden death by rifle-shot; but rather that of death after a long and vehe- ment struggle. “Are you sure, quite ; sure,” said cca “that you noara on- ly one shot ?” “Yes—perfectly sure,” « And that followed immediately by a wild whoop ?” “ Why, no—not immediately—though within two or three minutes at furthest.” comiclbdooks.conn