Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 1140 — page 4: what you’re looking at

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

mo) = ed for a long time. One time, he met sfcar- | c hate, _ Filage comin’ toward him, and turn out; the road was the sloping side of 2 no tain, so that, when he started, he kept “@ turn- ing out, till he and his animile had rojtg@i three or four thousand feet down the side tthe bot- _ tom. Unele said he didn’t mind tk ffall, and _ the roiing over several hundred tiles, ’cause ' @e was used to that; but he was Afeard that » the chap that he turned out for fnight think ~ he done it on purpose, and didn’t kfow any bet- ter.’ . * But did he find the young lady?’ asked Sol, who seemed disposed to h sity for talking. “Ae You don’t suppose he’d/turn back when he made up his mind to/do a thing of that ? That ain’t the sty/é of the iffles fami- . There’s Calamity, when he fixes his teeth to a bear, Injun, or ther animile, there it’s und to stick. So, a¢I was going tosay, my nele spit on his hands and went at it All the Hoppenhots that he met he stopped and inquired abit the young lady. They was the most all-firedest stupid set that he ever see’d. Some of ’em nded that they couldn’t un- derstand what he wanted, and the others was so _ dumb that he had to ala ’em afore they’d tell — n sefn a come of miles further on, ants and lions were rather plen- Z healthy, and so he got in his sig A his lines, and off on a jog- fplace, determined more than ever to 6 carry any weapons with him?’ res; he always two muskets under of the gig. One of em hadn’t any lock sto¢k, and the other hadn’t any barrel. But he two together, and they made one ood and he felt that he could get along if the is didn’t shove in onto him too fast. lon animile kept up his trot till he had gone i more nor two miles, and he es looking around ) or some signs of the female, when his hoss gave a shy to one side, so sudden-like shat my uncle turned over on his head, with his feet p’inting up in the air. He was rather fat and heavy-like, he could sleep on his head as well as an r way, and so, instead of righting himse “in, he laid still, with his head down, his feet and his hoss z- till he could look ig round and see what it was that had skeered his na animile, for he know’d it must be something ee to do that. A aN . t was a good e afore he see’d anything to account for the skeer of the critter, bat at last he see’d it, and what do you s’pose it was?” _ Oregon Sol scorned to notify his friend again that he had not the remotest conception of the wae: more Dae of the story he had set out to tell, we and Nick Whiffles resumed: sy. ** What he observed was three lions and three ts oping after him. It was aremark- . : able coincidence that there should be the same am Sumber of each kind of animals, but such was Meat nh the solemn fact, and they were all headin’ to- bea. ward him. He managed to. straighten up and - --—s twist ‘round, so as to get ofthe right en rv then he whi his hoss to e ’im trot a little faster in the hope of gettin’ away, but it was @ | deams with t hoss not to go an faster than that one gait, and so my uncle stopped nm’ at and whacking him, and looked round the animiles that were keeping him | company. There was three elephants on one ee side the road and the three lioms on t’other, bE U BS F uer very well, and they was all holding k gee. eeniten’ fur the others to begin the fight, so as to Res git a better chance. 4 | ** My uncle was a-lookin’ at the front elephant, Ook gab € Fer PaO a he had seen in a circus company in the State o Connecticut. It was at a time that my unc! was driving a load of hay to town, when the elephant slipped ‘long behind him and eat it all mp, and when he drove on the scales to get his Lay weighed, he looked round and found it all one. “ Wal, of course, the elephant felt very tender toward my uncle, and he meant all this winking to igt him know that he was his friend, and had come along to stand by him and help him. pao) Phat e the traveler feel a _- --and-he kept joggin the alee ade to make the attack. - He did not have to wait long, when one of . the lions gave a yelp. and made & jump. He went up pretty high in air, and just as he was ‘ Lire | “ a Bere 26 we, mor his propen- ." ; * rd ae 4 Beadle’s oe | - - « eile HalfDin.. pe ol about to ‘light, the elephant that had gone into cperene 3 with my uncle, cotched the lion on tusk which went straight through him, and held him pinned fast. About the time this was done, the second lion was in the air and he cotched him the same way on his other tusk, so that he had them both fast, where they couldn't de anything.” ** But, you said there was three of ’em. What had become of the other?” “He was an awful fool. He might have knowed better, but, I s’pose when he saw them two lions stuck on the tusks of the elephant, he thought there warn’t nothin’ in the, way to hinder him from havin’ a fair show at my uncle; so he give a big howl and licked his chops, and made a bigger jump than either of the others. I allow that things, did look a little shaky just then, but you’ve ‘heard how smart soms ele- phants are, and this one went a little ahead of any that I ever heard tell on, and if it hadn’t been my own uncle that told me the story, I would have thought there was some little mis- take about it. But, as I often heard him tell i there couldnt have been. The elephant wai till the third lion was pretty well up in the air, when he whirled ’round, quick as a flash, threw up his tail, and caught him on the end of that. en he had all three, you see, and the other elephants were kind of partners of his and the traveled off with him, so that my uncle was left alone to continue his journey after the young lady.” ‘* Did he cotch her?” ‘**'Wal, the old gentleman never finished the rest of the story; when he got that far in it he always dropped off tosleep. The Whiffles fam- ily were always great on sleeping. I once had an aunt that made a bet—”’ “Never mind about that yarn now,” inter- rupted is Sol, seeing there was little pros- tof Nick Whiffles ever reaching the end of is stories. ‘‘ You said we war to make a start northward to-day. It’s past noon now, and it’s time we war on the move.” Nick seemed to rouse himself to a sense of his duty, and coming to his feet with something of the vim and activity of earlier years, he calied to his dog, Calamity, that had wandered off in the woods somewhere. In a moment the saga- cious canine came trotting forth as if he knew that something rather unusual was expected of him, and the two trappers, with the brute lead- ing the way, moved off through the solitude, for a hundred yards or more, when they reached a fantastic-looking structure made of skins, logs, bark and branches of trees put together with no little skill, forming a cabin with an interior of something like a dozen feet in every direction. This was the cabin home of Nick Whiffles and Ha 3 Sol, when on their trapping expeditions in the far north-west. Its position was so se- cluded and well concealed that it had never yet been disturbed by the visits of any Indians, nor white men besides themselves. ,Here they had made their head-quarters for several winters, and there was something in the lonely life so attractive to both that they oc- | casionally extended their stay until far into the - ‘eause you know them critters don’t to- | when he noticed the critter wink his eye ina | tions for the last few months, Nick wag at him. When the animal had done | Oregon Sol headed directly northward, and con- t two or three times, then the great traveler | tinned that course for the remainder of the see’d what it meant. It was the same elephant | afternoon. : : ; ‘ ' j | , and | summer, only visiting some of the frontier forts, for the purpose of ey Sian of their peltries, and procuring ammunition and a few necessaries. The trappers paused only long enough to fill their powder-horns and bullet-pouches, when Oregon Sol mounted his little black pony, and Nick Whiffles bestrode his faithful beast, Shag- bark, and, with Calamity trotting beside them, they turned their faces northward, and began their long and eventful journey. nn. CHAPTER IV. A LOST SNOB. LEAV3ENG the scene of their trapping opera- hiffles and Mounted on horses as they were, it ee would have been impossible for them to have | kept up their journey over the wild, broken ground for any length of time, but for the fact that they were following a sort of forest trail, | North-west showed themselves in the next ac- Bore | that had been used often enough to mark the | route with just enough distinctness for their } animals. As was generally their custom, the intelligent | dog Calamity kept ahead of the others, picking | the way, and holding himself in readiness tc | give due warning of the approach of any danger. ood deal easier, | | ‘long, willin’ to wait till | afid scarcely spoke of or gave a thought to | | | | ern territory. The trappers relied almost entirely upon him, | danger. Beom what has already been said, it will be understood that there was really little occasion to think of danger, for they were already so far i me eee ee | close together, proving that quite a xy a PTE EE. My US: north that they were practically out of the range of danger. When one approaches or crosses the boundary line between the United States and British America, he has little to dread from the red-skins whom he encounters. The more warlike and vengeful are further south, and although he runs the risk of being ours with thieves, yet if is not apt to be pe ing more serious. , e precise cause of Nick Whifflesand Oregon Sol moving northward at this particular junc- ture, was not to follow or meet the young Blackfoot, as might have been inferred frem what has already ‘beer told, but it was in order to keep an engagement made almost a year be- fore, with an agent of the Hudson Bay Com- pany, whom he had met at Fort Alfred. This man was engaged in purchasing furs and peltries from Indians in Oregon and British America, and wished to employ. Nick and Sol to visit a section of whieh he had heard consider- able, in order to ascertain whether it was worth while for the Company to send half a dozen trappers down into that region. . s the section referred to was somewhere near their own hunting-grounds, the trappers gladly undertook the job. They had spent a month in a thorough exploration of the terri- tory, finding it possessed only of medium ad- vantages, and were on their way northward, to make their report according to agreement. The fact that the general direction they were following was the same as that taken by. Ma- runyo, had occurred to them, as well as the consequential fact that there was a strong pro- bability of meeting; for a party of such ex- perienced hunters as they were pretty certain to detect each other, if they came anywhere near each other. But these facts did not influence them in the least in the direction which they took, Ma- runyo had used his canoe, and they could have changed their course without trouble so as to keep much nearer the river than they were do- ing. The conclusion of both hunters.was that if the young warrior wanted to see them, it was his place to hunt them up, and not theirs to hunt him Nick calculated that it would require some three days of traveling before they could reach Fort Alfred, which was on British soil, and ww one of the posts of the Hudson Bay Company. There they expected to find the gentleman in x sree and to complete the engagement made as him As the afternoon advanced, there was quite a perceptible change in the temperature. They were so far northward, and it was yet so early in summer, that the only way to enjoy the sun- light in all its fullness was by stretching upon the face of some rock, where there was no wind or shadow to disturb, which, it will be remem- bered, Oregon Sol and Nick Whiffles were do- ing at the time they were introduced to our readers. ED It was quite chilly now, and the wind that e struck their faces, as they ascended the top of re some ridge, or crossed some unpro m had a stinging, cutting sharpness about it, as if it came from the regions of eternaliceand ~—_ snow which could be seen towering aloft inthe — western horizon. a It lacked an hour yet of sunset, when Nick Whiffles reined up his horse, and waited fora moment until Oregon Sol could come un beside him and do the same. They were on the top of an eminence some hundred feet in hight, w was covered with stunted pine, and from which they fee quite an extensive view of the sur- rounding country. Accustomed as the men were to the majestic scenery of the West and North-west, they seem- ed impressed by the peculiar sublimity of the region in which they now found themselves. They sat for several minutes motionless and silent upon the backs of their steeds, their eyes wandering over the wonderful expanse stretch- ing out before them. fears of the rough, dangerous life of the , - tion of the two men, who, glancing only at the ~~ 4 prominent, features of the landscape, ear searching for signs of life. While Nick Whiffles’s keen eye roved off ward the east, Oregon Sol, with scarcely les keen vision, scrutinized the eastern and north pie” re ey eel ~¢”. tg. ae ea as ee 7 f Both were successful to a certain degree, for, —— some two or three miles distant on thee Oe ae an elevated ridge, smoke could be seen ris re % from among the trees, which grew here vero = camp-fire was burning there, (E mn comicbool ~ J P| r Re - i os 3 Pn ah “ bf ‘ : bad ~ 2 ee a , re, Swe. eet” OF