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Altsheler, Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander), 1862-1919

"The Free Rangers A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi"

"
The moonlight was deepening and the shiftless one stood in the center of
it. His figure seemed suddenly to swell and the calm, victorious light of
the supreme conqueror came into his eyes.
"Boys," he said, and his voice was even and precise, as a victor's should
be, "when I undertook this here job o' settin' us on our feet agin, I
undertook to do it all. I not only meant to put us on our feet, but to git
us ready fur runnin', too. Boys, I hev took 'The Gall-yun' from the
Spaniards ag'in an' she's waitin' fur us."
"What! what!" they cried in chorus. "You don't mean it, Sol?"
"I shorely do mean it. All the boats that they expect to use to-day wuz
anchored in the bi-yoo or hay-yoo or whatever they call it. 'The
Gall-yun,' our gall-yun, wuz at the end o' the line nearest to the big
river. Nobody wuz on board, but she wuz tied to the boat next to her. I
slipped on her--it was pow'ful dark then an' the Spaniards wuz keepin' a
slip-shod watch, anyhow--cut the rope an' floated her down the stream,
where I've tied her up under sech thick brush that nobody 'cept ourselves
is likely to find her. She'll be thar, waitin' fur us, an' don't you doubt
it. An' fellers all our rifles an' ammunition an' things are on her.


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