Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net ELLEN WALTON; OR, THE VILLAIN AND HIS VICTIMS. BY ALVIN ADDISON, AUTHOR OF THE RIVAL HUNTERS, ETC. CINCINNATI: H.M. RULISON, QUEEN CITY PUBLISHING HOUSE, 115-1/2 MAIN STREET. PHILADELPHIA: QUAKER CITY PUBLISHING HOUSE, 32 SOUTH THIRD STREET. 1855. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by H.M. RULISON, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court, for the Southern District of Ohio. THE VILLAIN AND HIS VICTIMS. CHAPTER I. FLEMING'S HOTEL. In the year 1785, as, also, prior and subsequent to that time, there was a hotel situated in one of the less frequented streets of Pittsburg, then the largest town west of the mountains, and kept by one Fleming, whence it derived the name of "Fleming's Hotel." This house, a small one, and indifferently furnished, was a favorite resort of the Indians who visited the town on trading expeditions. Fleming had two daughters, who possessed considerable personal attractions, and that pride of a vain woman--_beauty_. History does not, to the best of our knowledge, give us the first names of the two girls; and we will distinguish them as Eliza and Sarah. Unfortunately for these young females, they had ever been surrounded by unfavorable circumstances, and exposed to the vices of bad associations; and that nice discrimination between propriety and politeness, which is a natural characteristic of the modest woman, had become somewhat obliterated, and the hold which virtue ever has by nature in the heart of the gentler sex, had been somewhat loosened. In short, the young Misses Fleming failed at all times to observe that degree of propriety which should ever characterize the pure in heart, and were, by many, accused of immorality. How far this accusation was true, we shall not attempt to say, but, doubtless, there were not wanting many tongues to spread slanderous reports.