Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 186 — page 10: what you’re looking at

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

na rs © s #S > a eA iw SOE Be — ~~ — _ ~ 5 ' ~ 10, taurant would be about as good as anything; this was a sly lick at the doctor, who had not been as active in this business as public opinion thought he ought to be, So it was decided that the two should open a first-class eating saloon, and after much delibe- ration it was decided that ‘ The Pilgrim’s Ranch ” would be a good name for it. = Yerte - wwe CHAPTER XII. THE ‘‘ OFF-COLORED” GIRL. THE camp, as we have said, was situated upon a “‘crick,” and naturally the habitations of the miners clustered near to the stream, for the con- venience of wood and water. About two miles from the town, up the “orick,” lived a man who was noted as a strange character. He was called Jacob Lau- derdaJe, and was from Florida—a tall, gaunt, weather-beaten old man, with a skin like parch- ment. He was ugly and cross-grained, with a marvelous appetite for liquor and an equally strong desire not to pay for it, if he could help it. la brief, he was a confirmed old miser, and, as the general sentiment expressed it, if he wasn’t rich he ought to be, for he didn’t spend anything that he could help, was noted asa close bargainer, never pein willing to give more than half what was asked for anything, and always tried to berrow whatever he hap- pened to want, Not a man in the region had a good word for old Jake; and as more than one miner bluntly eerreeen it, he ‘‘ wasn’t no good to nobody, no- ow And old Lauderdale had a daughter, as pecul- iar and as cross-grained as himself. This was the ‘‘ off-colored’ female to whom we have al- luded. Iris she was called—a tall, muscularly- built girl, of exceeding strength. She was not bad-looking, although very dark-complexioned; she had a masculine face, high cheek-bones, glit- tering black eyes, which would have been pretty had it not been for the hard, stern expression they commonly wore. Few people ever saw the eyes of Iris Lauderdale shine with a soft and womanly light. It was quite apearent that there was agood deal of Indian biood in the composition of the irl. " Lauderdale, as a rule, was close-mouthed, par- ticularly in regard to himself and his affairs; sometimes, though, when in his cups, he boast- ed; the old man was a terribly hard drinker, and had a head like iron; as remarked, it took a heap of whisky to ‘“‘set old Jake up;” still, once in a while he got under the influence of the ‘‘ardent,” and on these occasions he was wont to boast that he had married an Indian rincess of the Seminole tribe, and that the day ad been when it would have taken a good walker from sun to sun to put a girdle around his possessions. Part of this the miners accepted as truth, and the rest they doubted. doubter suggested, was plain, but, as to any ‘*TInjun” princess taking u that he had ever been worth anything, was en- tirely ‘‘too thin,” to use the doubter’s own _ Lauderdale had not been a great while in the valley, and at first he had been extremely un- lucky in his undertakings; fortune did not seem to smile upon him and he had a pretty hard time to get along, but, for a wonder, Shannon the store-keeper, was very liberal with him and gave credit, something rare in the mining re- eons where goods are almost invariably cash, or the average miner is an uncertain animal, here jody and fifty miles off on the morrow perhene. hen a chance came for the store- eeper to buy a valuable claim ‘‘up the crick” for quite a reasonable sum, and after the claim was purchased, he arranged with old Lauder- dale to work it on shares. Of course there was a reason for this liber- ality—a cat in the meal-tub, as the saying is, and the miners, who were no fools, speedily made up their minds in regard to the reason way the Shannons, father and son, were so lib- eral and easy with close-fisted old Jake, Young Shannon had a sneaking regard for the handsome half-breed girl, and he was tryin to curry favor with the rather ugly-temper and extremely haughty maid by extending kindness to her father. 2 The miners shook their heads when they spoke of this; in their judgment the girl was ‘‘no good,” and the men of the town at large had excellent reasons for this opinion. When Lauderdale had first arrived he staked out a claim on the creek, a short distance below eee ee IIE eee ee... EE — That the mother of | Iris had been an Indian, or a negro, as some | | Jake, having done all the work he cared to do with old Jake, or | that day, was anxiously inquiring about his Cool Desmond. * \.* eee Be Ree 44 Be the town, and when the news spread that a real live woman had arrived in the valley there was a good deal of excitement, for nothing pro- duces more commotion in a new camp than the arrival of the first woman. The bc ys made it convenient to call on their way and tender assistance to the new-comers, but the girl was as cold as a statue and never som the slightest notice of these little atten- ions, There were some bold souls in the camp, though, who believed that, like Petruchio, they were born to tame women, and so they essayed the heroic method. They called upon the girl and plumply told her that she was the nicest ‘‘ critter” they had seen for some time and that they had trate up their minds she was just the ** val” for their money. And every one of these bold wooers had fared badly. Thev had all labored under the idea that, because she was a “‘ leetle off-color” she could be had as easily as a red squaw, but they soon learned their errvur. With an angry face, and fire flaming from her dark eyes, she had ordered them out. Some, perceiving that they had ‘‘ waked up the wrong passenger,” had sheepishly retreated; others, too big foxls to know when they were well off, had laughed at the girl’s anger, and had at- tempted to play the part of a woman-tamer, with the result that the girl’s anger went from words to actions, and seizing the nearest wea- pon she had “‘gone for” these doughty wooers in a way they despised. She knocked one fel- low down and pretty near brained him with a hatchet; threw a whole kettle of hot water over another, and the war-dance that that luck- less individual performed, as he capered, howl- ing with pain and rage combined, for the cabin would not have disgraced any feather-garnished red buck, native to the _ plains. A third man she had assaulted with a big butcher-knife in such a ferocious manner that, as the fellow admitted, it was only the speed of his heels that saved his life. A fourth ardent and persevering swain she had driven out with a broom-handle, and, as the miner remarked, when he described the affair: ‘‘ Talk about fighting! Why, Ill back that gal for all the money I’m worth, or ever expect to be worth, to whip her ah in wild-cats. When she got sarcy and grabbed the broom, I out with my shooting-iron, thinking to frighten her, do you mind, when, the furst thing 1 knew, she knocked the weepon out of my hand, and then gi’n mea lick on the head that made me see more stars than there are in the sky, and I don’t keer what night you pick out for to look at them.” t took just a week for Juanapolis to learn what sort of a woman old Jake’s daughter was, and when the discovery was made, the men of the town unanimously came to the conclusion that she could paddle her own canoe if any one in the camp could. And, from that time forth she had very little trouble. The day was drawing near its close, and old supper. ‘*You are in a hurry, to-night, father,” the girl remarked, busily engaged in frying salt pork, ever the miner’s stand-by. “Yes, I’m going to town; it’s settling day with the Shannons, you know.” “You have done pretty well this month, hav’n’t you?” ‘* Furst- rate—furst-rate, but, you needn’t say so to any one, you know,” he enjoined. ‘‘Who should I say it to? ho do I find to talk to, I would like to know?’ the girl asked, disdainfully. * You will see young Shannon to-night, you know,” the old man explained, ‘“‘and I want you to put ona poor mouth, and say that the claim ain’t done very well this month, and that we hope to do better next month, and then give him his share; I’ve got it all done up ina bag for him.” ‘*And so you intend to cheat him out of about half that is really coming to him, I sup- pose!” the girl exclaimed, scornfully. ‘*Oh, not so much as that, but, what differ- ence does it make? He won’t care or won’t say anything, even if he had a suspicion that I was gougin him, so long as you garry the dust. e thinks a heap of you, I tell you.” ** And much good it will do him!” **It will do us some good, though,” the old man answered, shrewdly. ‘‘ And it is my little game to take advantage of all such little things.” ‘*T sha’n’t do it!” proclaimed the gir] ab- ruptly. ‘‘ What good is it for me to ead the manon? I don’t care anything for him, and 1 BBP LO EP OP A IEE BEEBE He A POE TEE ERE Ew a sem don’t want him to think that Ido. I don’t want to ask any favors of him.” ‘“Yes, but J do,” observed the old man, with a cunning grin. ‘*Well, do it, then, and don’t bring me into the affair at all.” ‘‘You are getting infernally stiff-necked and obstinate, all of a sudden,” the old man growled. ‘*But, I know what is the matter with you; you have got your eyes on Desmond, and now you don’t want to look on another man.” A little flush came up into the girl’s dark cheeks, but she went on with her work without making any reply. ‘*Tt isn’t any use for you to think about him, for he is one of the kind of men who are al- ways on the make, and if he did get into a love affair with you, and then had a chance to make a strike by going after another woman, he would throw you overboard in a minute,” There was a very peculiar and ugly glitter in the eyes of the girl asshe listened to this speech, ‘‘He had better not,” she rejoined. ‘'It he does come after me, he had better keep faith, or it will be the worse for him.” ‘‘Oh, go your own gait, but if you will take my advice, young Shannon is the man!” the old man exclaimed, petulantly. ‘‘ But, come, will you do as lask you?’ tf ‘*- Yes,” replied the girl, slowly, ‘‘but if mis- chief comes of it blame yourself, and not me.” CHAPTER XAIryl. THE IDIOT AT HOME. HiGH up on the side of the great hill that overlooked the mining-camp on the north was quite an extensive little cave, the entrance to which was quite small, but inside it widened out into a good-sized apartment. In this cave the idiot boy had taken up his uarters. Witless Will—so the boy was named—was about as well known as =e soul in the valley. He was one of the original settlers, and in fact had come into the region before Juanapolis had a local habitation and aname. He was the only survivor of the bloody massacre of Conejos, the story of which we must soon iell, for it is most intimately connected with the tele which we are relating, although the massacre happened quite a while before the time of which we now write. The idiot was stretched out in front of the cave, sunning himself after the fashion common to him, and as he lay flat on his back, basking in the sunlight, bis attention was attracted toa man toiling up the hillside. That the objective point of the man’s journey was the cave of the idiot hardly admitted of a doubt, from the direction which he was pursu- ing. Will knew the man well enough. He was called Dick Devine and was one of the idle ne’er-do-wells of the camp. Little work had he ever been known to do since he had arrived in the valley, and his principal occupations con- sisted of dvinking whisky and playing cards. In person he was a slouchy, long-legged fel- low, with an evil, hangdog face—one of those men who never looked any one straight in the eye. "Devisie climbed up the steep hillside until he reached the ledge where the cave was situated; then he came over to where the idiot was stretched out in the sun. ‘‘ Hallo, Will!” he exclaimed, seating himself upon arock and wiping the perspiration from his brow; *‘ mighty hot, ain’t it?” ‘‘Tt is good; the sun makes me well,” the boy replied. ‘Blamed if it does me, and that is what the matter is with you; you lay stretched out hyer like a durned rattlesnake until the sun bakes all the brains out of your head.” The boy merely grunted at this, but did not make any reply. | ‘‘Say, Will, wouldn’t you like a chance to make a big stake?” the man continued. “1 reckon that I know whar a smart, likely chap about your size kin make a heap of money.” ‘‘Money? Good!” remarked the idiot, tersely. ‘You bet it ts good, and you are jest the boy to make it, too, though folks do say that you don’t know nothing and. hain’t got any sense, nohow.” ‘‘ Mebbe not; who knows?” ‘‘Well, I’m a-betting on you, my boy!” the other protested, confidently. ‘‘I know that you ain’t half so big a fool as you look or as people think you are.” The idiot nodded with an extremely grave face, as much as to say that he perfectly agreed with the speaker. : ‘¢Now, I’m on a big strike, and I am willing | GOMIGDeCO cS