Beadle's Dime Novels No. 96: Little Moccasin — page 79: what you’re looking at

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

THE SLAIN INDIAN. 81 “You see there is no tomahawk in his belt ?” To.” - “Yet he must have carried one. Stay—a thought has just struck me!’— stooping down, and tearing away the coarse blanket, and the fur underneath, all stained with blood —‘“ these are not signs of a gun-shot wound—much less of a rifle. Ah, look here!—gracious God !—the knife has gone through and through him !” “T see! I see!” said Fletcher, turning away from the terrible exhibition, as if sickened at the sight, and just ready to drop. . “One moment, Fletcher,” continued Gage, as if he had wholly overcome the horror that seized him at first, in his eagerness to get at the truth. “JI want your help in saute ing for a bullet-mark, if there is one.” “You want my help i in such a business !—not for the world !” > “ Well, then, stay wh re you are; but keep your eyes on that clump of bushes on your left, and be prepared for the worst, while I continue the search.” This he did, as if long familiar. with the horrors of a battle- field, or a slaughter-house, completely stripping the dead man to his waist, and turning him over to see if he was hit in the back. “ Not a scratch !” said he, as he drew up the covering and replaced the dead body in its original position, with the rifle and hunting-knife just as he had found them. “ And now, if you please, my dear fellow, let us take a peep into those bushes,,the only place near enough to explain what we see.” “Upon my word, captain,*you astonish me. I had no idea you were so full of the hunter’s craft,” said Fletcher, “and still less, that you were able to read signs that I had overlooked.” “ Nor J—and at another time you would have certainly forestalled me; but—excuse me—you were so entirely over- come by the sight of this dead body glaring up with his threatening eyes, through a thin coating of ice, that 1 do not wonder you thought of nothing else.” “Ah, look here!” said Gage, stamping with his foot upon conicloooks.com *