The Wrong Man — page 7: what you’re looking at

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

AN ACCIDENT. a mening and its eyes straining from its head—bounded down a steep bluff on the Ohio shore It paused an instant on the of the flood, to cast a frightened glance around, as if doubtful which way to fly; but acrackling among the branches on the hill-side announcing its pursuer near, it sprung into the "stream, and swam with all its strength toward the opposite side. In a moment after, its pursuer came rattling down the bank, catching from tree to tree as he descended. He had reached within a few rods of the bottom, and was about to make another leap, when the twigs of a dried branch 3 - snapped in his hand, and his feet slipping on the damp soil ~ _- ut the same moment, he fell and rolled at full length upon the —. This accident seemed not to have been unwitnessed. A - Joud laugh, from lungs that might have rivaled Stentor’s, sa- ~~ -Juted the baffled hunter, as he scrambled to his feet; and turn- ing his head in the direction of the sound, the person whose merriment had been thus untimely awakened was seen approach- ing round a neighboring point. The first impulse of the sports- _— man seemed to be to spring among the trees, and reascend the aS like one unwilling to be seen. But, if such was his pur- ‘ , a second glance assured him it was too late; and mutter- iis a, curse, in which “d—d Yankee” were the only articulate _- words, he turned his back upon the intruder, and began to re- _ | Toad his rifle. = While thus employed, his stout form relieved against the ttering sheet of water, he presented a figure of a western hunter (a race fast melting away before the advancing tide of __ Givilization,) which might have furnished a study not unworthy the chisel of Crawford. In hight he was upward of six feet, and seemed of strength corresponding with his stat- ure. His thin, skinny face was lighted by a pair of keen black es, which twinkled deep in their sockets with a restless mo- _ + om and the corners of his agi mouth had a habitual down- isagreeable expression to his ‘ware curvature, that gave a countenance. A blue linsey-woolsey hunting-shirt, trimmed _- With yellow fringe, was fastened at his waist by a leathern gir- dle, to which a bullet-pouch of ottcr-skin was attached in front, and a long knife, sheathed in a scabbard of skins curiously or- --- Bamented, depended from it at its side. Moccasins of buck- skin sotroted Bia feet; while his legs were clad in a garment = of the same material, fitted tightly to their shape, and so laced at the side that a broad edge flapped about as he moved. The == of his hunting-shirt was thrown open, displaying a brawny neck and chest, the hue of which betokened long ex- zg oop vg gee pm wa aga - it fell back from his arm, raised in act of reloading his rifle, exposed enough of = Seutes ne aes member to corroborate the idea of great edaeh - i“, < - appearance created. : - i : » 4 _— 1 Fm “ 7%, = , x i. ~ * - ee | pind ® ae