The Prairie Detective — page 22: what you’re looking at

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

THE PRAIRIE DETECTIVE. 13 that peculiar, searching look which he casts on any body he suspects. | ‘*“He seemed to be attempting to read my very soul. Then the stern lines relaxed, and the old reckless smile came back—the smile that always makes a cold chill creep over me when I see it. ‘* “Those,’ he said, ‘are the best friends I have on earth.’ “If the sentence had come from the lips of any other person I should have laughed. But his expres- sion, aS he spoke, was so profoundly earnest, that an unknown dread began to take possession of me,”’ ‘“* “But surely you never used them?’ I asked. ‘‘He thought a moment in silence. A red flush stole over his cheeks, and his yellow eyes changed to the deepest black. There was every indication of great mental excitement about his appearance, when he turned suddenly upon me, and with vehement ges- tures, spoke something like this: . ““«Hsther, do you know what it is to be hunted from one year’s end to another? Can you realize the awful misery of one whose life is sought from day to day by a thousand of his fellow-men? Is it possible for you to understand the eternal, unending agony of a man who, sleeping or waking, sees in every shadow a hidden enemy, and in every bush an assassin? Do you know what it is to start from _ troubled slumber, with great beads of cold perspira- tion standing at every pore, and every sense strained to its highest pitch, in the wild, mysterious thought that you are watched, hunted, discovered? I do— oreat Heaven! I do!’ ‘All ina moment I saw everything that had made him moody, silent, and sometimes ugly. I felt sorry for him, and told him so; whereupon he burst into ¢ Eomicbooks:co