Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 186 — page 13: what you’re looking at

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

tN eb ee + we ee ee + + 0 se ee oe Ne come—a steady and sure hand struck a terrible blow, and the single stroke was at once the.out- law’s passport to the other world. Just a sin- gle moan came from his lips, and then his soul took flight. So still the night that each one of his com- rades distinctly heard the death groan, and for a moment the sound seemed to awe them into statues. Bold, strong men, familiar with blood and death, they realized that the grim king of terrors was near, but then, after the one single ery, hearing nothing more, they roused them- selves from their stupor and set about to dis- cover the meaning of the sound. ‘** Hey, Jack?” called one, cautiously. ‘*All right, Bill,” was replied. ‘* Did you hear that, Bob?” asked the first. ** You bet!” **Whereare you, Mart?” again questioned the t But the fourth man, Mart, answered not. This immediately excited the suspicions of — pers He might be asleep, but it was not ely. “Hey Mart?” again cried the first outlaw, raising his voice, but he did not speak loud enough to awaken the outlaw, lying so quietl and peacefully on the flat of his broad bac gazing with staring eyes up at the cf Only the sound of the last trumpet would be loud enough to awaken that sleeper. ‘* Blazes, boys! I’m afeard that something is wrong!” one of the men exclaimed, thus put- ting into words the thoughts common to all three, ‘*Let’s see, anyhow!” ejaculated one of the others. The outlaws were prompt to act upon the sug- estion, but it was with cautious steps and with Sear, cocked revolvers that they approached the spot where they perceived their comrade stretched at full length upon the ground. The ruffians had seen death in too many shapes and too near at hand to be deceived on the present occasion. The moment they caught sight of the man they understood that he was dead, and, what was worse, that he had died a violent death by a foeman’s hand. wigs: reached the side of the body; no trace was there of a foeman’s work, but when they turned the corpse over on its side eager to solve this mystery, there, on the side of the head just above and forward of the ear, was a woun terrible enough to let out a dozen lives. A stiletto-like knife, oval-shaped, double- edged and sharp as a razor, had been driven into the skull, and had produced death on the instant. The outlaws in stupefied amazement gazed for a few moments at the horrible sight utterly dumfounded. The secret slayer had found them and had done his fearful work, even while they had been on the watch to apprehend him! And, what brought the terrible death of their comrade more clearly home to them, was the thought that it might just as well have been one of them, for they fully realized that the deed had been planned so cleverly and commit- ted so quickly that the assailed man had not had the slightest chance afforded him of escap- ing from the attack. ‘* Boys, it’s a devil for sure!” one of the ruf- fians exclaimed, ey: and with a careful glance around as though he expected to see his majesty with the hoofs, horns and tail lurking, with a grinning face, in some adjoining bush. The other two shook their heads in a very dubious way; even if they were not inclined to side with their companion in the devil theory they were notable to say what it was that had wrought the deed of blood. Haunted age or not, evidently it was a very unhealthy place at times, and the three Sal ila were not sorry to depart. First, how- ever, they stripped their comrade of all his valuables—a dead man having no use for re- volvers, good clothes, and “‘sich”’ plunder. Straight to the outlaws’ cave in the canyon they journeyed, and, to what few of the rogues who had spent the night there, they told the story of the terrible deed on the hillside. By ten o’clock the next morning the captain and all the band were on hand, and then the story was rehearsed to a full audience and to the infinite wonder of the listeners. In all their strange life of adventure this was one of the most astounding things they had ever heard. As the tale was told, the members of the band looked at each other with anxious faces: and no wonder, for the matter was getting to be se- rious in the extreme. There had been thirteen in the band, twelve men and a captain; of the thirteen, four had already fallen. Two had been killed in the main street of the mining Cool Desmond. or ee ee Ce eee +--+ camp, one right in the mountain haunt sacred to their band, and the other on the hillside; three killed by a pistol, and the fourth by a dextrous, deadly stab, but one and all wounded in exactly the same place as if the secret foe was anxious that his handiwork should be known, and was determined that he would not be confounded with any common assassin. ** Well, boys, I am clean beat,” Captain Wild- cat averred, after quite a long pause. ‘I don’t know what to makeof it. If it goes on in this way much longer there won’t be enough of us left to bury the dead. It looks to me asif this fellow, whoever he is, had taken a contract to plant the whole of us and was going to put the job through in double-quick time, too. One thing, though, I am pretty sure of, and that is we were barking up the wrong tree the other night when we thought it was the idiot. For a lark some of the boys locked him up in Mur- phy’s shanty last night, just to spite the Irish- man who has a mortal fear of the idiot, and he wasn’t let out till this morning when Murphy came home; so you see there wasn’t any chance for him to be mixed up in this affair!” The outlaws gazed at each other with blank countenances, They were allin their ordinary clothes now with uncovered faces and had not assumed their odd Cat disguises. ‘*Say!” cried one of the men, abruptly, an old gray-bearded sinner who had led a life of crime in half a dozen lands, ‘‘I hev an idee, boys. How about these two pilgrims—these tenderfoots that lately came to town?” ‘Well, what of them?’ asked the captain, in a rather surly way, as if he was not over and above pleased that they should be made the subject of conversation. ‘** Don’t you s’pose that they may have some- thing to do with it?’ he asked. ‘* No, I don’t suppose so; and, what’s more, I don’t see any reason why you should suppose ‘*Wal, it is only putting two and two to- gether to make four, that’s all.” ‘* But I don’t see it, at all.” And two or three of the others joined in with the captain in this expression. ‘‘ Wal, I allers try to look clean through these things,” observed the old man in a very philo- sophical way. ‘‘ Afore these hyer two pilgrims came to town we never heerd nary thing ’bout this cuss wot is a-goin’ for us so lively, did we?” The rest were obliged to admit that that was rue. ‘Jes’ so! Oh, I’m a-gittin’ at it!” the old fellow declared, with a great deal of satisfac- tion. ‘‘Itis jes’ as plain as the nose on a man’s face tome. This here galis mixed up with the Conejos massacre; mebbe she is a daughter of old Conejos—she looks enough like him to be— and she has come down here on purpose to squar’ up the old account. Being a woman, and all women are devils more or less, she got in her work with a good deal of cunning; she don’t try any open fight, for she wouldn’t be able to make any fist of it, but she kin lay in wait and pop a man over as easy as kin be.” ‘‘But how about that work last night?’ the captain demanded, evidently taking no stock at in the theory of the other. ‘‘Do you think a weak girl, such as the woman is, could drive a knife into a man’s skull with such force as to kill the man instantly, hardly giving him time to utter a single groan?” ‘‘Mebbe,” replied the man, stoutly; ‘‘how can you or anybody tell whether she is weak or strong by jest lookin’ at her? She may be as wiry as a wild-cat, an’ ge as strong, for all we know. I knew a little [rishwoman once, up in Oregon, who used to keep a shebang, and she could flax the biggest man in the town when she got on the war-path. I scared her once one night when I had too much fire-water on board and she took a club and laid me out as purty as any one you ever see’d.” “The coming of the girl and the appearance of this mysterious killer is but a coincidence, that is all.” ‘¢ And then, thar’s the boy, too,” persisted the old rascal, who was loth to let go of his idea. ‘‘He pretends to be sick, but it is my belief that he is playing ’possum all the time; jes’ playing sick, you know, so that he won’t be ted of having oy hand in this deviltry.” ‘We can easily settle that matter,” the out- law chief remarked, shortly. ‘‘ We can come down on the shanty and go through it some night. If the pilgrims have anything to do with this affair the small-bore pistol and the pe- culiar knife will be in their possession, but, ro mark my words, you won’t find them. e@ must look further. We have trodden on some- body’s toe, at some time, and now the party is o——- eee returning the compliment, and with interest; but, it isa long lane that has no turning, and our turn will come, some of these days.” ‘* But, when it does come it won’t do much good to the chaps that go under,” one of the nd growled. The ‘*‘Cats” were fearfully dissatisfied; the secret killer had most decidedly demoralized them, and nearly all of them had made up their minds that, if the foe was not soon discovered, they would give leg-bail and get out of the way. CHAPTER XVII. IN QUEST OF KNOWLEDGE. OLD JAKE LAUDERDALE and his girl had come up tothe camp. Settling-day had arrived and the old man had come up to square accounts with youn Shannon, and in order the better to do this he had brought his daughter along. It was commonly rumored that Shannon was a little sweet on the dark-hued maiden in spite of her fiery temper, and the knavish old man, who was not ignorant of this, relied upon the girl to make the task of settling accounts an easy one. As he often chuckled to himself: ‘‘It takes a woman to pull the wool over a man’s eyes,” and most certainly his daughter had been of great assistance to him since he had taken up his abode in Juanapolis, for if it had not been for her, he surely would never have been able to et hold of the mine which he was now work- ing, for there were plenty of better men than he anxious to take hold of the property, and willing to give better terms than those which he had the mine upon. But the girl had asked Shannon to let her fa- ther have it, and the young man had given it to him, much to the astonishment of the town at large, who could not at first understand why such a regular scallawag as old Jake should be preferred to the many better men who were anxious to try their luck; but ‘‘ kissing goes by favor”; it’s an old saying and a true one. And now, so great a rascal was old Lauder- dale that, not satisfied with getting the mine on extremely easy terms, he was doing his best to cheat the owner out of his fair share. Old Jake’s mind rather misgave him on this occasion, though, and he had matter for anx- ious thought as, with his daughter, in the dusk of the evening, he walked up toward the town. The mine had been panning out pretty well, lately, and some of his neighbors who were dis- posed to be inquisitive had been keeping a pretty sharp look-out in regard to the way things were going. And he was sorely afraid that some one of these neighbors might take it into his head to go to M bat Shannon and re- rt to him how well the mine was doing. ow, the way the old man had figured it out, he made it appear that the last month was about the poorest one the mine had known since coming into his charge. He was much troubled in mind; a guilty con- science oppressed him, and just as he got to the outskirts of the camp he resolved to make ev- erything safe by getting the girl to settle up the account and pay over the money. Young Shannon might question him, particu- larly if he had been posted by some meddling neighbor, and he might put some question that would not be easy to answer. “Tsay, Iris, gal, I guess I will let you do the eam with Mr, Shannon,” he announced, abrupt ys as they approached thestore. ‘*Here’s the dust, and the account you will find inside the bag. I reckon it is all correct, but I have a mighty —— head for figures sometimes, and, maybe, | may have made a few small mistakes. If 1 have, I’) make ’em all right, you know. The mine ain’t done very well this month; there has been a heap of work, cleaning up and sich, which takes time but don’t figure much on the balance sheet.” The girl understood her father’s game just as fully as though he had explained it at length, and her lip curled in contempt. ‘Very well; I will do it,” she said; “but I am afraid that the mistakes you make are al- ways in your own favor and never in his.” he old man chuckled as though he regarded this observation in the light of a joke. This was his favorite way of avoiding a reply, when he feared to excite the girl’sanger. hols often boasted: ‘“‘She is cranky—as cranky as the make them, but I know how to handle her.” And he really believed that he did because the girl, utterly scornful of him and everything that belonged to him, chose to put up with his mean, petty tricks rather than come to an open | rupture with him. he lent her aid to fool young Shannon be- cause she did not care anything for the man; in —w owe COMIGEDOOKS:.CO