In the Sunk Lands — page 49: what you’re looking at

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

38 THE SUNK LANDS. Loafer munched his hay and oats and seemed contented. Fried quail and prairie chicken formed the main feature of our repast, washed down with water from a - small spring that seemed to rise from no- where and flowed to the same place. During the afternoon Loafer plodded along, the road becoming wilder and little more than a trampled path—yjust wide enough for the wagon—winding around trees and stumps in a dense wood. Squir- rels barked as they skipped about the trees, and some of them went into the wagon. The sun had set and it was growing darker every moment when we pulled up on the bank of Maumelle Lake. Nothing to be heard but the sounds of the forest behind, and the solemn croak of the frogs on the edge of the water. A fish hawk sailing along over the willows, that covered the lake, except where the currents made lanes. The willows were about fourteen feet high. Nothing could be seen but their yellow, waving tops, and the faint marks of a boat landing a little below us. Perhaps the boatman lived within hailing distance. We shouted singly and together. It was useless. -comicbooks co