Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 1158 — page 1: what you’re looking at

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

fat F 41 , —— ET | ry rt Li eee ee OCopyricat, 1879, By BEADLE & ADAMS. _—- _- -_—-— ee ee ee eee 0), j & . Month. e — : i AR Published Every . j ; Sol Ginger, THE GIANT TRAPPER; 0 The Flower =i Blackteet, BY ALBERT W. AIKEN, AUTHOR OF “THE TWO DETECTIVES,” “ ABE COLT, THE CROW-KILLER,” ETC., ETS, CHAPTER I. THE EXPEDITION INTO THE BLACKFOOT COUN- TRY, On a bright afternoon in the month of June, almost all the inhabitants of the frontier post | known as Fort Benton, and located on the upper Missouri, gathered on the bank of the river to watch the approach of the first steamer of the season, through from St. Louis. On came the ‘* Mountain Belle,” the A 1 ‘“stern- wheeler,” which, for many weary weeks to her impatient passengers, had plowed her way pre tS the stor wa- ters oO e great Missouri, the “‘Mad River of the North,” on her upward pas- sage Fort enton, the head of navigation on the A motley crowd were col- lected on the bank, waiting the approach of the steamer. Here and there among the throng might be seen the blue uniforms of Uncle Sam’s boys, the garrison of the fort: side by side with them, a swarthy red-skin, decked out in hunting-shirt and leggins of deer-skin, or wra ina coarse red blanket, although the sun’s rays were pouring down with torrid fierceness; the woolen-shirted emigrant, seeking for life and fortune in the Far West; the hardy frontier-men, the “‘ guides” of the prairie wilderness — in fine, all the classes that go to make up the life of our far western villages, were con- gregated on the bank of the river. The passe of the steamer, too, gathered in little knots, on the for- ward parts of the boat, and were very rly survey- ing the scene before the the starting-point to many o a new life. Here they were to cast aside the ccmforts of wah erin Se and Sane the waste of prairie erness, the home of the Crows, the fierce marauders of the north- 0 bring with enso v? "et ls \ —--_ —-— - eC SN Win, NEW YORK I a3 — =? f= — 2 * = = - , » é vo a Halla —= J. . N 7 AW We ‘ Wh e. NN . A SS q » ss N han . 5 ~~ mw \ o \ \\ a WM, MA Ww / aw SSVI Se ae AAW i Sa > POWAY ' y ¥ NAYS TAY —- As x vet he ‘ : ’ —ma. oe BN ——— Dm me TNE NGM Tok 78 ot - Ye 4 - a \ \ v . , . ; *, \\ oS ' \) ivr N N ‘OR. mem M) WS Cae —o o rien ih wn fat i a a a a a a ea at a ak at a SS Aer NS VE. 2. REVERS & CO... Publishers (IAMES SULLIVAN, PROPRIKTOR), 379 Pearl Street, New York. — — | three thousand mounted warriors into the i field. It has got to be the fashion among the ‘‘ spe- cial correspondents ” of the daily newspapers, who make “‘ kid-glove” journeysto the frontier to write sneering accounts of the red-skins—ot ‘* Mr, Lo,” as they term the savage; to say that they want courage, and that they could be easily crushed out, should the government bring its strong hand to bear upon them. ‘These reli- able writers pick out some drunken, vagabond Indian, hanging around the settlements, his senses steeped in bad whisky, and they hold him up to the gaze of the public as a sample of the American Indian! h! away with such de- ception! me, messieurs, who are termed ‘ ial correspondents,” but who, one “half the time, could be more. aptly termed ‘‘ special story-tell- ers ”’—buy a Henry rifle, a good navy revolver, one of Colt’s fine weapons, a hardy Indian pony, , it. H y MOY r A Pot 25, Ve 4 SN 4 ’ .) ’ ’ ‘ . Fes., 1905, PRICE 5 CENTS. 50c. a year. — —@__. ~ and take a gallop with me, three hundred mila» north-west from Cadotte’s Pass, up the valley of the llathead river, right into the country of the Blackfeet—the nation that as yet have never yielded a single inch of their soil to the tread of the white man’s foot—a tribe that laugh to scorn the power of the ‘blue coated chiefs,” as they term the United States soldiers. In this trip we may encounter danger; nay, more, we shall encounter it; we shall owe our lives to the speed of our hors the sureties of our jhe nae the distance tha a good repeating rifle will carry. And Moneiour Correspondent will retu convinced that the American Indian will fisht after all,and that be can not be ‘‘ wiped out,” to use our frontier phrase, as easily as is gene- rally supposed, But to return to our story. On the hurricane deck of the Mountain Belle stood two men, side by side. They were dress- ed roughly—big boots drawn on over their ants, and broad-brimmed ats pulled down over their brows in the western fashion, But, their hands and faces, though bronzed by the rays of the sun and tanned by the prairie winds, yet showed no marks of toil; One of the two was a man no longer young; fifty years had prob- ably passed over his head, yet time had touched him wut lightly. His dark-brown hair, cut short, and brushed back from his temples, show- ed no silver locks, His face was massive and full; a broad forehead and square- cut chin, the chin half hid by a short, brown beard, gave it weight and firmness; his eves were gray, bright and full; his glance keen and penetrating. He wasone of those men who command re- spect even from strangers, is companion was a young man, not over twenty-five, a handsome, dashing-lookin fellow; jet-black hair cur] in little ringlets all over his shapely, well-forme: ead, His eyes were blac). uo his hair; a sna nage tee ad imperia eo his lip « chin: the aer fac’ had e laughing, devil") care look about it, as thoug!: ur felt disposed to ish» world as it came, ana ” gn of trouble, ese two men, though now Laan fast friends and holding close converse together, before that morn- ing had never spoken to each r, although they had been travelers t from St. Louis. A chance obser. vation from the elder to the ger in relation to the pees being nearly at an end, and their acquaintance began: hence we find them comicbooks Vv te €oO