José — page 187: what you’re looking at

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

180 JOSE. when a commotion among the {ndians below indi- cated that they had been observed. The throng scattered precipitously, some hastening into the tepees, others hurrying toward the plain beyond, apparently to get a better view of the arrivals. Bob seemed anxious to avoid any additional delay. “Keep behind me until they have satisfied them- selves who we are,” he said, hastening down the acclivity and holding his rifle with its green bough before him. “It must be that they are young folks or they would have recognized me ere this.” As the whites approached closer to the tents the crowd of redskins on the plain, adjoining, momen- tarily increased in number. Soon the trio was sur- rounded by a small group of Indians, whose gestures and movements would have betrayed only pardon- able curiosity, but for the obdurate and frowning looks on their dusky faces. Bob, not the least dis- concerted, pressed on, but his keenly observing eye moved warily over his surroundings, and when gradually an almost impenetrable, surging circle had been formed about them, constantly increasing in density and permissive only of a tedious progress, he suddenly halted, his brows corrugated into an ominous frown. “There seems to be ascrew loose somewhere in the friendship of these copper-colored children; but I’ll soon get at the bottom of it,” he said, in German, with a grim smile. “You two behind me, stand back; the rifle in the left arm; your right hand on your pistols, but fire only in extreme case of neces- sity.” The maneuver was executed with ready dispatch ; but it seemed only to render the Indians the bolder, for the circle began to contract visibly. Eomichooks co