José — page 222: what you’re looking at

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

JOSE, 215 themselves, and followed in uproarious confusion by the entire herd, until it seemed as though the terror of death had suddenly possessed the crazed animals. Now, too, aloud tumult ensued in the wigwams of the Indians. The fugitives had still a long row of lodges to pass and already dark figures, frightened into sudden wakefulness, were seen rushing out into the open air behind and before the unmanage- able animals, scarcely realizing what had taken place. The extreme limit of the village was reached ; here the valley began to widen. With unintermit- ting speed Bob dashed onward, followed by his companions—as promptly the drove of mules on the shore opposite thundered in behind their leader; while in their rear suddenly a new cry, like the death-wail of a broken heart, rent the night air, awakening a thousand strident echoes, until finally the wild, chaotic sounds blended into a general cry of lamentation. “The Prairie-Devil! They think the Prairie-Devil is in their midst!” Green exclaimed in an exulting tone, in which the joy at finding himself once more at liberty was plainly manifest. A rough, dull sound was all that escaped Bob’s lips while he merely urged his horse to faster speed. Steadily the moun- tain walls to each side of them retreated; the ground began to loose its green and to change into occa- sional areas of sand. The last sounds in the Apache village had died away in the distance; then, sud- denly, the confining ridges of the valley disappeared and before them, in the fading light of the declining moon, lay the wide-spreading steppe. Of the clear waters of the brook apparently nothing remained but a white strip of sand sharply contrasting with the soil of the prairie. Bob pursued its course for GEomicboo CS (E(0) m