Beadle's Dime Novels No. 96: Little Moccasin — page 81: what you’re looking at

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

THE MAJOR. . 83. “ Exactly.” “Tf so, what led him here? Can it be that Little Mocca- sin was abroad, or in danger, and that he was on the watch to save her ?” “Nothing more probable—but we are losing time. What do you propose now ?” “To find the trail of this fellow—and_ of his companions, if he had any—and then follow it up, till we are both satisfied about the screams you heard.” Saying this, he started ahead on a long, slow trot, ‘followed by Fletcher, and steering toward the north, It was now near nightfall, and they were ‘Wexinning to feel discouraged, when Fletcher stopped and made a sign to Gage, and pointed to a twig of cedat which had been lately*wrenched off, so as to hang only by the tough ark and afew fibers, and then turned in a contrary direction. After a little further search, they ‘ found other signs—two or three twigs of cedar under the: ice, fastened by the ends to preyent their being washed or blown away, intermixed with dry leaves and other rubbish; but all the cedar twigs they saw, were pointing in the same Ainection. however confused they oat t appear at the first glance. — They stopped, and interchanged a look of mutual triumph, and then pushed on, till they met with other signs, and enough to convince them that they, were on the track, not of one savage, nor of two, but of a band, a little way ahead of them. At last, and while there. was still light enough to. see all the signs multiplying, as. they got further and further into the woods, where the snow lay deeper—in some cases three and. four feet deep on a Jevel—and where the rain had been. less plentiful, or the wind less violent, rs eir attention was attracted, by the apparition of a large man—so large as to seem almost colossal, through the shadowy haze, coming directly toward them. It was the major himself—the Old For ester, and so changed of countenance they would hardly have known him, but for his bearing, and the dress he wore. Sternly and silently, he drew near, as if walking in his sleep; and when challenged, he stopped short, and looked up, with a bewildered. air, as if he had not seen them before. - comicbhooks.com