The Wrong Man — page 80: what you’re looking at

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

>» — 82 THE WRONG MAN rubbed them as though a sudden itching had seized them, and looked stupefied and amazed at some discovery he had made. “ Lord ! golly! hebbens! Which ankle did the cuss bite? He must have bit both, or else both am swelled amazin’.” He seemed in a quandary, unable to recollect where he had been wounded. “T's forgotten. Qu’ar how bofe ankles swell. Maybe neither one ain’t bit by the sarpent !” Overjoyed at the prospect, he minutely examined each ankle, 80 far as the moonlight would enable him, the result of which was, that he could not divine where he had been burt. En- couraged by this, he made search for the reptile itself, and was unable to find it. While cautiously searching, his hand en- countered a brier, and the cause of his slight wound was imme- - diately manifest. “Yah! yah! what a fool Catomade of himself!’ he laughed, as he resumed his burden and journey. The distance to the block-house was not less than two miles. but it was accomplished by the trusty and happy negro in a time that exhibited very considerable powers of pedestrianism. On approaching the little isolated building, Cato manifested a degree of caution altogether disproportioned to the likelThood of interruption. At last, apparently satisfied that no one was near the spot, he stole to the door, produced a large key from his pocket, inserted it in the lock, and turned back the bolt with a sudden wrench. The door, owing to the sides of the building being slanting, flew open with a force which might very materially have disarranged the poor boy’s ideas, had not brains been protected by a cranium whose thickness, on is occasion, at least, was not to be found fault with. Recoy- ering from his surprise, (for he was more scared than hurt.) he gr: Se softly into the block-house. he block-house had been erected at a time when two or three settlers, besides Enoch Sedley, were the only white inhab- itants within many miles; in constructing it, Sedley had been the guiding spirit. In order to secure the arms and ammuni- tion, from time to time deposited there, as any circumstance .gave rise to apprehensions of the Indians, a strong lock was obtained from New Orleans. In giving the order for this, Sed- _ lev had bethought him of procuring another at the same time, with which be might fasten, his own house in case of a sudden assault of the savages. ese locks, it happened, were pre- cisely alike, so that the keys fitted both indiscriminately ; but ihis circumstance had entirely faded from the memory, not only _ «af such of the settlers on sulgrs once have known it, but even os - of Sedley himself, until ed to.mind by his thoughts being ng ae of releas- ; _ earnestly exercised in an endeayor to form some W er was the nature and object of Cato’s errand to our Eomicbooks:com