The Prairie Detective: Secret Service Series No. 24 — page 92: what you’re looking at

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

90 THE PRAIRIE DETECTIVE. CHAPTER Ix. ESTHER AND VIXEN. Esther Harper and her sister Marian sat in the tent during the greater part of the battle which raged furiously without. As the sounds of the fierce conflict advanced or receded, indicating thus the temporary success of one party or another, the hearts of these two girls, sitting wrapped in each other’s arms, bounded with exultation or shrank with fear. Every nerve and every sinew in their delicate organisms were strained to their utmost tension, as they strove to discern by the noises outside which way the tide of battle was turning. | Silent, absorbed, bound so closely in each other’s embrace that each could detect the heart of her sis- ter, beating tumultuously as the hot blood rushed through their veins, they sat as motionless as statues. The strain upon their systems was continous and intense. They sat thus for a time, which, though short in reality, seemed in their vivid imaginations to stretch away into an endless eternity of miserable suspense. But after a while, when the waves of battle had come forward and receded many times, they could tell beyond all doubt that at last the struggle was approaching in the direction of the spot occupied by them. There was no room for denying that the ~ hunters were being beaten, step by step, yielding every succeeding inch of ground only after the most comicboo