Deadwood Dick's Big Deal; or, The Gold Brick of Oregon — page 53: what you’re looking at

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

| 3 ‘DEADWOOD DICE. 55 “hand and’ here ‘the ‘party ‘halted and a noosed lariat was thrown over a stroag limb. ~ Dick"was then placed upon his feet, and the noose ar- ranged about his throat. “There!” Stephen Raymond answered, after inspecting mattcrs, “I allow that will fix you off nicely, Mr. Bogus $<) Cecil. Are you aware that these are your last mo-. }rfents in this-world?” ? “No: I can’t say as I am,” Dick replied, in his old-time half-insolent way. “Well, know it now, sir, You came here on a fool’s errand, if you came to serve old Farmer, for I was pre- pared for you. But you did not come here for that alone —ha! ha! no!” “You are mistaken, sir.” “Not a bit of it. You came here, «still on your fierce Search for your truant wife, the fair Calamity!” “Curse you!. What know you of her?” “Everything—one ‘thing especially, and that is that she ‘is irretrievably lost to you, by being in my power—ay, so deeply in my power that she cannot hope to get out. Chester is ker rascally brother, It was to save him from ‘the. gallows that she deserted her heme and fied here, there and everywhere!” ; Dick shot a stern glance at Chester. | He now began to notice a resemblance between him and »the other fellow, Blondel. A rascally brother of Calamity -Jane, eh? Then she was, in one ‘sense, not so utterly false as he had at first believed! But that this swarthy aoe could be her brother, did not appear reasonable to “They came to me!” ‘Raymond went on, “and, being a distant relative to them both, I took compassion on them, "and teck Chester into business with me, anhd—” = “Established her in the gambling hell!” Dick cried, bit- terly, “You need relate no more to’me. I understand | “ ~ell I care to.” | _. “Indeed! But, I must tell you that Ihave been backing = the bank, and as she has allowed it to become broke; she ; whas but the choice of two alternatives—one is, to marry | _. me—the other is to quit the camp, or be forced to - ‘But, why this explanation to me?” Deadwood Ditk Comicbooks. com) - -