Leather-Clad Tales of Adventure and Romance, No. 38 — page 124: what you’re looking at

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

118 IN THE SUNK LANDS. Mr. Morris, impressively, ‘‘ | watched that coon do that jess seventeen times!” ‘What wuz the matter with hit?” asked one of the men. ‘There warn’t nothin’ the matter with hit. I shinned up that air tree myself, an’ blamed ef hit warn’t so full 0’ coons that every time one went in at the top he crowded one out at the bottom !”’ Everybody looked at everybody else, ex- pectorated in the fire and said solemnly: ‘* Jesso!”’ After a painful silence, I was about to ask what he did with them, which no doubt would have confused him, when a gentle- man named Sandy, whose acquaintance I had made during the day, chimed in: ‘‘That reminds me o’ what I seed once. Hit wus the bigges’ tree I ever seed, an’ there wuz a line o’ bees makin’ fur one 0 the branches. So I gits a couple o’ fellers to help me cut hit down. We cut most 0’ that day; but hit never trembled. So I walks round to t’other side, jess to see how big hit wus.” ‘“ Well ?” asked. Bob, impatiently, as the other paused, Eomichbooks:.¢co m