Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 198 — page 2: what you’re looking at

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

“ _—- Arkansaw, THE MAN WITH THE KNIFE; ’ The Queen of Fate’s Revenge. A WILD TALE OF THE SILVER LANDS. BY T. C. HARBAUGH, AUTHOR OF ‘NICK-O’-THE-NIGHT,” ‘‘ DANDY JACK,” ‘* KIT HAREFOOT,” ‘* MIDNIGHT JACK,” ‘* OLD FROSTY,” ETC., ETC. CHAPTER LI. A DELICATE ROSEBUD. ‘‘Wrica horse shall I take?” \, ‘“The fastest, of course. You must start in five minutes. I'll have the message ready.” The young Indian boy to whom these orders were addressed sprung from the speaker’s pres- ence and ran toward the stables not far away. ‘* Horseflesh must warn the men at the Bar,” said the man, nervously, as he watched the boy dispatched to the stables. ‘‘ He didn’t come to this country for any good. The eyes that-blaz- ed in his head I have seen before, but where? When he told me that he was on his way to La Tinaja, his own eyes called him a liar. The boys must watch him: they must kill him!” and the dark eyes of the handsome man flashed madly. Conrad Gordon was this person’s name. He was known as the richest man in the San Juan mining country, and was called ‘*Gold Conrad” by many. His house was the finest in Lodeton, a town liice many others in the silver lands, the abode of desperadoes of all kinds. He lived alone, wifeless and childless. Hand- some, cold and determined, he moved through the silver world, speaking to few and keeping his own secrets. Five years’ sojourn in the country where he had built his home had en- riched him. His past life none knew; but a few words which he had dropped when well-wined caused a few to believe that his had been a wild career, checkered like a playing-board, if not tinctured with crime. It was pretty well known, however, that he could speak the Apache dialect, and then, his body-servant, hostler and secretary, was a youth of that nation. When he had dispatched the boy to the sta- bles, Gold Conrad did not turn his eyes from the structure until his Indian reappeared lead- ing a horse. Then Conrad entered the bouse and picked up a message which lay on a writ- ing-table. Carrying it out, he went to the edge of the porch and awaited the boy who was coming up, well-mounted. ‘* You made good time,” Conrad said. ‘‘ Are you ready to go?” . ‘*T am ready.” “This message you will deliver to Colonel Thunder, and in private. He will know how to act. Should there be a seventh man at the Bar, when you arrive (but that will not be, [ think, unless people can fly) you will not show yourself to him—the seventh man, I mean. Did " you see anybody here this morning?” ‘* | saw the man that called.” “* Well, he is the man who must not see you at Vulture Bar; above all things, he must not know that you brought a message from me to Colonel Thunder.” The Indian youth had taken the meee and concealed it beneath his ornamented buckskin jacket. ‘* Now, remember; my future and your life depend on the delivery of that letter,” Gordon went on. ‘‘ That wild-looking man whose face was covered with the yellow dirt of the Arma- rilla country is more than he pretends to be. ‘You saw him pin that woodpecker to the gate- post with his knife?” pe ig “That very act betrayed him, for there is but one man living who can do that at sixty feet. I cannot be mistaken; therefore, my message must reach Colonel Thunder, If that knife-thrower isn’t stopped now, ‘he'll be hunting for bigger game. And if he ever does that, you and I, Catana, must arm ourselves. Now ro, and may success attend you! Take the ees Canyon road. It is the shortest and the st. ‘‘ To-morrow Colonel Thunder shall read your ‘awl s2zid the Apache as he leaped upon the 10rse. ‘*‘Qne moment. If you should, by any acci- dent lose my letter—” 2 Arkansaw, the Man with the Knife. ‘‘Has Catana ever lost one?” interrupted the boy, a flash of insulted dignity in his eyes. sé No—” ‘This one will not be lost!” “Good! You’re worth your weight in gold, Catana,” and Gordon had time to pat the mes- senger’s leg before he spoke to the horse which bounded away. A warm day was drawing to a close while the conversation just recorded was taking place be- fore Gold Conrad’s house. The road that stretched from the porch seemed to lose itself amoung the mountains of the San Juan range that lifted their heads skyward not very far away. It was narrow, like all mountain roads, and a cloud of yellowish dust soon enveloped the horse and his rider. Conrad Gordon watched it until it disappear- ed, and showed him the road again, but with no traveler thereon. Catana out of sight. ° ‘‘T can trust Thunder. By George! I am afraid to trust any one else in these parts. He commands his companions, and if he says “kill!” they will kill. I never thought that a woodpecker would make me so uneasy. [f it wasn’t so dark ’d go down and see where he inned it tothe post. I expect Catana opened 1is eyes at the feat; butif he is the man I think he is, then P’ve seen him transfix bigger game than woodpeckers.” Gold Conrad communed thus to himself in an audible tone before he retired to the house. The sun had sunk behind the sage bushes of In- dian Knob, and the cool breeze, refreshing and pleasant, was stirring bis locks quite thickly sprinkled with gray. He turned veers and passed into the room from which he had taken the message for Colo- nel Thunder. He not only closed the heavy door behind him but locked it as it shut and lowered the window, which had been up at his writing-table. The room looked like an arsenal. In each corner were several repeating rifles and straight, heavy swords, to handle which, a wrist of iron was needed. A brace of revolvers lay on the table, one serving as a paper-weight. A low bed on one side of the apartment told that somebody slept in this well protected rocm, and over the pillow hung a leather holster, from which the silver butt of a ‘‘ Navy ” protruded. There was a restless, uneasy look in Gold Con- rad’s eyes as he threw himself into a chair that stood at the writing-table. Something per- plexed him; he looked like a man who in the midst of fancied security and prosperity sees the avenger of some crime appear before him. ** Tf Colonele Thunder should fail me—pshaw! Pm starting at impossibilities!” and Gordon laughed. ‘*‘ What! he fail me? hen he does, Indian Knob will go to the coast.” The next moment a light tap on the window on the other side of the table made him start and as he leaned forward he caught up and cocked one of the revolvers that lay on it. ‘“Who are you?” he demanded, sternly. “I see you! Tell who you are, or Vili give you a pass to the limbo of fools!” rd The light of the lamp threw a mellow glow on the ground and objects a few feet from the outside sill, and Conrad Gordon uttered a truth when he declared that he saw the person who had tapped on the pane. ‘Out with it! Ha! you see I have you now! Run if you dare! Draw and die!” Vv —‘-* movement Gold Conrad had thrown up toe iower sash and his revolver was covering the head of the man in the light. ‘‘Ov course you’ve got the Rosebud of the Pink Forks,” came in a rough voice, which was followed by the fearless laugh of the genuine desperado. ‘‘ Yer pistol hez @ familiar look bet makes me glad thet I’ve come hyar. I say, p’n, jes’ hold it a leetle to the left so I kin in- spect its calibar.” Gordon looked at the man amazed. He was a perfect giant. Above the dark beard that covered two-thirds of his face, a ir of coal-black eyes glittered like carbuncles. e was clad in a dusty suit of mining clothes, and his pantaloons hid their ragged ends in a pair of dirty boots. Arms he gen to have none. Gordon could see the belt that went round his waist, but it.seemed to carry no weapons, not even a knife. ~ + te The keen eyes of the mining king took in his visitor physically in a minute. ‘‘T never saw him before,” said Gold Conrad to himself, ‘‘1 wonder what brought him here? Maybe I can use him. I may need devils before the month’s out.” Then he said to the man: oe ‘*The Rosebud of the Pink Forks, eh? Well, my good fellow, won’t youcome in? You want to see me?” ‘*T would like to shed a little ov my perfume in yer house, that’s sartain,” responded the giant, as Conrad lowered his weapon and straightened up. ‘‘Oh, don’t open the door. I’ve been a winder flower afore,” and the next moment the stranger had thrown himself into the room through the window, and towered be- fore Gold Conrad bigger and more uncouth than ever. ** Now I’m at your service,” Conrad said, re- covering from his astonishment at the man’s boldness. ‘*No, ’m at yours. You want jes’ such a flower ez the Rosebud ov the Pink Forks, an’ you want ’im bad, too!” sé | ‘Yes, you, cap’n. Thar war a man hyar to- day—a man what pinned a woodpecker to yer gate-post with his knife.” Gold Conrad started in spite of himself. ‘*’m no fool,” laughed the Rosebud. “I’ma flower thet blooms hyar to-day an’ thar to- morrer. I’m at yer sarvice. Shell I go an’ check thet man’s baggage through? y the word, cap’n.” Gordon looked astounded. ‘‘[ don’t know you,” he said, ‘To the best of my recollection we never met before. Who said that [ want that man with the knife killed?” ‘Yer eyes say so, cap’n. MebbeI have never seen you afore to-night; but ’m yer man. Jes’ send me arter him once; yes, Jes’ say ‘Go!’ to the Rosebud ov the Pink Forks.’ ‘* But what if [ should refuse to send you?” ventured Gordon. ‘Then Ill leave a corpse behind me when I go to shed my fragrance elsewhar,” was the startling answer. ‘‘ Cap’n, l’m goin’ to kill one ov two men, an’ I’m considerate enough to leave the choice to you. You don’t pick up such rare rosebuds in every garden. I’m a hotbed flower from Pink Forks, but I’m a reg’lar crusher. Which shell it be—you er the man what killed the woodpecker?’ From somewhere about his person, and in the twinkling of an eye, the Rosebud bad preduced a revolver, into whose barrel Gold Conrad could look without difficulty, for it was on a level with his eyes. Gordon involuntarily sbrunk ,from the wea- pon, but a moment later he had recovered his mee “The men with the knife, of course!” he cried. ‘1 would be a fool if I did not make this choice. Go and. kill him if you must kill somebody, and then keep on to the coast.” ‘*] didn’t agree to do that, cap’n,” returned the Rosebud, & wed o> discolored teeth by a rin? ‘‘ Ill go an’ kill thet man, an’ then come ack an’ tell you.” The giant seemed to take great pleasure in speaking the last half of the sentence, and the rough sarcasm in which it was clothed still rated on Gordon’s senses when the fellow eaped through the window and was gone. or a moment Gold Conrad stood bewildere:d and mute in his strong room. “s ‘‘No use to follow bim,” he suddenly cried. “The devil sent him here, for 1 will swear that I never saw him before. yei be knew why | sent Catana to Vulture Bar. By George! I'll start another message to Colonel Thunder yet this night,” and hastily unlocking the door he was soon flying down the dark streets of the mining town. At the end of the narrow street he rapped on the door of a cabin. ‘“* Come in!” called out a;rough voice. Gordon pushed the door open. A young man whose face wore an intelligent look rose from astool before a brush fire and greeted him. ‘‘ Halleck,” said Gorden, “I want you to start for Vulture Bar to-night.” * “For you ?” cried the young man, ‘ You said yesterday that I was Catana’s brother, and his mother was a low Apacke squaw! No! you insult me by coming here. Get out out of my cabin or by the gods! Ill choke you, if you are as rich as‘a diamond field.” The young man’s eyes flashed madly as ke sprung forward, but Gordon suddenly retreated, and saw the door of the cabin shut in his face. CHAPTER II. A NEW BOWIE AT VULTURE BAR. VuLtTuRE BAR was merely a small mining town situated on the westernmost rim of the silver district, and not far from the banks cé# the Rie Dolores. COMNEDOOT rcOrl