Death-Dealer, the Shawnee Scourge; or The Wizard of the Cliffs

BY ARTHUR L. MESERVE.
NEW YORK, BEADLE AND ADAMS, PUBLISHERS, 98 WILLIAM STREET.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by FRANK STARR & CO., In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
It was a sultry summer day, nearly a hundred years ago.
The heat was almost intolerable, and man and beast sought the cooling shade of the forest, to spend the hours until it should in a measure abate.
Not a breath of air was stirring.
In a leafy covert, a little removed from the right bank of the Scioto, a form lay stretched at full length upon the earth.
One would have needed almost a second glance to have told whether the object was human or brute.
Even then he might have said it was a cross between the two.
At first sight, a Barnum or a Darwin might have gone wild with delight.
The former would have thought that he had stumbled upon a veritable “What-Is-It?”; while the latter would have declared that he had at last found the long-looked-for connecting link between the human and brute creation.
There was the human form, though ungainly in its shape; but covered with hair from the crown of its head to the sole of its feet.