Bob Younger's Fate — page 215: what you’re looking at

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

206 BOB YOUNGER'S FATE. by the untiring Nemesis that was pursuing them in 3 the shape of stern and pitiless and bereaved men. Turn where they might these determined foes | stared them in the face, ready in a moment of for- eetfulness to pounce upon and annihilate them. Hardly dared they sleep lest the morning’s sun should tind them in the damp, cold embrace of the final destroyer; scarcely dared they come from out their cover into the glare of day lest the weapon of an avenger should select them for its victim. Thus they crept from bush to bush, from tree to tree, now scudding across an open field, now crouch- ing in a ditch as they caught sight of a human being. Despairing, they fought against despair, starving to death, they bravely walked upright, though their stomachs were empty. | The courage that had led them safely through many ascene of carnage and blood did not desert them in this their direst extremity. They knew that defeat, was inevitable, but the blood of the ferocious tiger ran in their veins; they would give up when they could no longer stand. They looked into each other’s weary eyes, but not one read a sign of surrender there; they took hold of each other’s hands; they whispered words of en- couragement one to the other, but in the counte- nances of all was depicted the indubitable result. And now they had taken their last stand. Advance was impossible; retreat was out of the question, and they dumbly stood waiting for the final attack. . It came with the force of a hurricane. Fifty men against four. : Half a hundred fresh human beings, flushed with certain victory and sure vengeance, against a quar- tet of almost dying men. | Their last shots were being fired as they slowly retreated from the leaden hail out into the open prairie, but they stood shoulder to shoulder, deter- mined to live or die together. Suddenly Jim Younger uttered a cry of anguish, staggered andfell, ~—Ss Eomicbooks (E(0) m <