Bonny Jean, and A Severe Threat — page 95: what you’re looking at

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

88 BONNY JEAN. Philip swam to shore, and pulling himself up by an overhang- ing cypress, landed in safety. Then he arose and looked about him. His clothes were as wet as they could be, and he was half famished, but he feared to go in search of a habitation, for he knew not how soon he might stumble across some of the vigilantes, and he preferred to die of starvation, all alone in the forest, to that alternative. Sitting on the river-bank, endeavoring to dry his drenched garments, he heard, at length, the whoop of a cattle-driver, and presently a little negro boy came in sight, driving his cows home from the evening milking. Philip beckoned him to his side, and showing him a piece of money (for - fortunately a small sum of money had escaped the notice of the vigilantes), he begged the child to bring him some- thing to eat. This the boy consented to do, and then dis- appeared around a bend in the river-bank. After a con- siderable delay he reappeared with some coarse corn bread -and fat bacon, which he presented to Philip, received the promised reward, and soon hurried away as though half- frightened at his encounter with the wet and forlorn-looking stranger. | Philip partook of the unpalatable fare with keen relish, for ‘‘hunger is the best sauce,” and then, as it was getting quite dark, he arose, and feeling greatly refreshed, and his clothes being nearly dry, he determined to move on. The negro lad had informed him that he was on the road to Lee’s Landing, and Philip hoped that if once he arrived there he would find a schooner loading with wood or shells, upon which he might secure passage for New Orleans, where he proposed obtaining a detective to assist in the search for Jean and her mother. With this hope in his heart he hastened on. Darkness fell over all things, yet Philip made his way slowly, but surely. At last he could go no farther, The night had grown old now, and so dark that he saw at once the folly Eomicboo cS (eo) =)