The Wrong Man — page 13: what you’re looking at

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

A FIGHT ENDS THE JESTING. w Be cata well done, Ned Overton,” said the peddler, laughir g; “you talk as if you had a strong stomach for fight this morning, and could eat a buffalo for breakfast, hide and horns into the bargain. But these heavy words don’t sink my spirits. You seem tc forget I was by, Vother day, when young Dnudle stopped you short in the story you was telling about old Sed- ley's nivce, and crammed the lie down your throat.” 3 - This retort alinded to a circumstance which seemed peculisr- Sy irritating. _The sunburnt face of the hunter assumed a Enthier hue, and his keen black eyes glittered with passion _ His fingers involuntarily tightened their grasp around the bar- rel of his rifle, as he gazed. for a moment at the peddler, :n- certain what to reply ; and then, as if action were a readier re- source than speech, he flung the weapon to the ground, and springing toward him, fustened his sinewy hands firmly round his neck. The motion was not altogether unanticipated; and _ the peddler, by dextrously throwing his arms between those of his antagonist, and seizing his shoulder with a strong gripe, partially relieved his throat from the strangling embrace, : A struggle now ensued, which showed the combatants not -- wnequally matched. If the hunter presented a favorable speci- men of the large and vigorous frames of the frontier inhabitants, _ the other was no less a sturily representative of the well-formed ~ and muscular yeomen of New England. For some moments they strained and tugged without either gaining a decided ad- vantage. The angry glow on the hunter's cheek deepcaed at each succeeding effort; while the broad face of his antagonist still retained the provoking smile it had worn from the first. "The strife between them had lasted two or three minutes, and __ the deep footprints in the trampled sand attested the energy of their ineffectual attempts to throw each other; when at last the _ hunter—his lip quivering, and his eye flashing with rage rth denly relaxed his grasp round the peddler’s neck, and seizing him by the waist, drew him to his breast with desperate ‘Strength. At the same moment, bending himself stiffly back, and heaving up his chest, he succeeded in raising the stout form of his antagonist from the ground. The advantage now seemed om the side of the Kentuckian, and in an instant more he would have dashed the peddler to the earth, had not the other, whe lost not his coolness om ante peace greyed the _ Quickness of thought, of his new position in a way that turn the balance in eyo Seizing the short black locks of ng ailversary with one hand, while with the other he clutched his naked throat, and twining his long legs round those of the hunter, he twisted his head back with a sudden wrench, and bending his knees forward by a simultaneous and strong mus- _ ular contraction of his own nether limbs, the wy ange ofthe = as comicboo ; 2 << i , —— «A - ~ - sail