Beadle's New Dime Novels, No. 49 — page 40: what you’re looking at

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

rz THORNPATH, THE TRAILER; OR, In a few moments the cavalcade, now numbering nine per- sons including the captives, resumed their journey northward toward the Indian village. ‘The savages rode in single file, Red Hand in advance, but the captives were compelled to ride at one side, so that their animals could be led. The moon soon eame up and threw a pale and ghostly light over the beauteous landscape, and the soft south wine drifted calmly over the dark-green expanse, fanning the tal! prairie grass jnto gentle billows upon which rode myriads of sweet- scented wild flowers. Now and then a prairie-hen or a plover would go whirring up from its grassy roost into the air, and now a deer or a wolf would go bounding away over th@plain so swift, so graceful, that they seemed floating on the wind. But the captives saw none of these sights; their minds, their hearts were too deeply afflicted with thoughts of the terrible fate to which they were being taken. Neither of the captives nor captors spoke as they rode on, on, Every sound grated on the captives’ ears, hollow, sepul- chral. Even the tramp, tramp of their animals’ feet sounded ghostly, and the grim, dusky riders at their side threw an additional shadow across their gloomy and dejected spirits. Poor Mabel! she wept till her eyes were sore, and Miss Stump scolded and poured out her invectives upon the sav- ages until her vocabulary was exhausted, and herself, also; but the red-skins, heeding not their sorrow, rode on and on, deeper and deeper into the solitude of the great plain. Presently, however, a dark belt of timber rose up before them against the northern sky, black and grim. Red Hand now turned to the captives, and said: “ When We reach the grove we will halt for the night and Test.” - “ Who keers what you do, you great horrid nastiness, you, . “was Miss Stump’s rejoinder. — Nothing more was said, for the chief seemed to know that Miss Sally would have the last word in spite of him. Tie grove wis reached ; and continuing on a short dis- tance beneath its gloomy arches, they finally came to a halt. ~~ Dismounting, the ponies were unloaded and turned loose <. - Comiclboolks.cOn ~— a " = * ae a