Bob Younger's Fate — page 123: what you’re looking at

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

- 114 BOB: YOUNGER'S FATE, CHAPTER XVIII, THE DETECTIVE’S ESCAPE. It seemed to Belton that he fell hundreds of feet before he stopped, but the uncertainty of what was in store for him was the most horrible of all to bear. ‘The sensation of ice cold water was the first re- minder that he had fallen into a deep well. Down he sank into its frigid depths with a momentum that must have carried him to the bottom, but a few mo- ments later he had arisen to the surface. Al hough he could see nothing, he knew his posi- tion must be well nigh hopeless. The fact was that in falling he had but one chance in a hundred of escape from instant death, but that one chance had come to him, and he was yet alive. Had he not descended in an upright posture his head would certainly have struck on the side of the well, and unconsciousness, followed by drowning, would have been the inevitable result. “Yes, my descent has been perfectly successful, not perhaps so much as the fair young Queen would have desired, but doubtless it will end just the same, for I can’t stand it much longer in this freezing water.’’ His hands came in contact with the smooth wall | ee search for a projection by which to raise him- self. “She has done it well; alas, too well, for my pro- longed sojourn on earth; but while there is life I’ll nose around for hope; and, by my good stars, I have, ‘ DEHEv?, found something more substantial than iets ee _ His last remark was called forth by the discovery of a break in the wall. He concluded at once that a peer of the wall had fallen in at one time, and is next’ movement was to find out whether the niche or recess thus formed were sufficiently large for him to creep into it, een My m comicbooks (E(0)