Old Shadow Shot — page 18: what you’re looking at

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

16 I were the real Captain Dave—the fiend who brutally butchered your father and his train ?”’ The man’s words staggered the girl. Was that man telling the truth? She looked searchingly into the depths of his: eyes, as if by fathoming them she would get to his heart—his inmost thoughts. Swiftly across her mind rushed’ that thrilling scene in the night just passed, when Rafe Arm- strong invaded her secluded home and declared that the man who called himself Noel Gordon to her face was the veritable Vulture chief—the man whose blood, above all others, the cause of justice demanded. Rafe Armstrong was a Vulture, and he professed to know the man of numerous aliases, for had he not served under his leadership in the forest foray for many years of blood and plunder? And now this Noel Gordon stood before her with the hat which Captain Dave was wont to wear—the broad-brimmed hat, looped up at the left side with a gold buckle ; she saw the bigandish cut of his garments and yet he declared that he was the Noel Gordon who had befriended her in the Wis- consin woods since the massacre of Collyer’s train. “ Who has told you this, Violet?” he cried the second time, coming forward when he saw the effect produced by his last words— his startling denial. “Somebody has invaded your home since my departure— somebody with poison on his lips and hatred in his heart for me—for both of us.” “T have been visited. A man was there “last night—and an Indian, too.” Captain Dave started. “Did they come together ?” “T do not know. ‘The Indian seems to have followed the white, for in my presence he struck him with his knife, and ran like a deer.”’ “Well?” Hagerness pervaded the outlaw’s tone. He felt that Sharp Knife had accomplished the mission upon which he had sent him. “ But the red man did not get far,” Violet said, with eyes sparkling with excitement. “ He paid for that blow, for it was a coward’s. I shot him, and he fell somewhere near the spring. I did not go down.” Captain Dave’s face grew slightly pale. “They must have been enemies,” hé said, reflectively. “But the man, Violet? He was the poisoner ?” “He told me that you and Captain’ Dave were identical,” she said, frankly. “He said that he belonged to the Vultures, but that the chief had dismissed him, and set the Indian upon his trail, He must have been in the wicked band that night, for he told me OLD SHADOW-SHOT. so much about the massacre which I know to be true.” : “And he said that I am Captain Dave?” the outlaw said, growing so bold as to smile. “He did!” the girl answered. “I do not want to believe it, for you have been kind to me. But that hat—these clothes, Noel—l never saw them on you before.” “T expect not, Violet. In order to hunt this foe of yours, and mine, as well, I must assume disguises which seom strange and outlandish to you. Do I look like a brigand in this suit?’ For the first time the beautiful vengeance- hunter smiled. “Now, suppose I was Captain Dave,” he said; “suppose every word uttered by that slanderer last night were true—what would you do?’ . ; ‘IT would not spare!” cried the girl, with flashing eyes, as she involuntarily started from the Apollo of the woods. ‘I have sworn to avenge the massacre of the train, and if I were convinced that you were the fiend who led the demons of slaughter that _ night, I would put an end to, your existencé.” The attitude of the girl, coupled to the look that clothed her face, sent a cold chill of fear to Captain Dave's heart. He was standing over the crater of a volcano of destruction which a word—an act of his— might put in awful motion. “T would forget the many kindnesses you have done me, if I knew you as Captain Dave,” she continued. “Why should I not? For five years you have kept me from the path of vengeance ; but I am on it now. That man may have hed; but he knew so much about the Vultures and their chief. Why is it that for five years you have accom- plished nothing ?” “T admit the prowess of the man I have been #railing. He seems an ignis fatuus, which suddenly disappears as you follow. I have tracked him to find myself on the edge of a cliff over which he seemed to leap. Violet, he shall not elude me much longer. This man whom I hate because he made you fatkerless, shall fall before me i “No! you have promised to let me avenge that night !” the girl cried. Bolder and bolder grew this living lie in the presence of the fair girl whose hatred for him he had adroitly turned into other channels. He was playing his cards so well that he ventured into new seas, nor kept near the coast. : “Why, I laugh to think that I have been mistaken by you for Captaim Dave!” he said. “Violet, do you think I would stand here, knowing what I do, if I were that scamp? Your trail has led to me instead of the arch- fiend of ihese woods. If you had not CORMEMOOKS ACO