Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 340 — page 10: what you’re looking at

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

é — . ko e / ' 4 , eS - Paz 8 . i | ee ees P ~ i : \ * + . “\ Snr o 10 been discovered, and that an expedition would be sent out the next day to capture them. Preparations for taat purpose were openly made, and the settlement was astir over the movement, which was believed in by all except the few who were in the secret. Of course the news was heard by Zach Stam- mel as he lJoafed about the ‘“‘ Graveyard,” and those who were watching him already noticed that a peculiarly eager look came into his usually dull and listless face, Shortly afterward he disappeared) but not so stealthily and completely as to prevent him from being seen and followed. Abe Shedder and Missouri Mose, who had been selected to shadow him, were experienced scouts and trailers—in fact, good mountain de- tectives, though that was not their profession— and well fitted for the task they had under- taken. When the supposed spy started off into the hills they no longer had any doubt that he was a spy, and they followed bim at a safe distance, and with the greatest possible caution, but as closely and relentlessly as Indians on the trail of an emigrant train, It was a long and tedious tramp that he led them, pursuing no beaten track, but keeping a straight and certain course as steadily as if he knew where he was going, and had not the least fear of losing his way. At times they nearly lost him among the in- tricacies of the hills, but perseveringly stuck to his trail, and at last ‘‘ treed ” him on a plateau far up a mountain side. It was then near the middle of the afternoon, and the trailers had reason to hope that the man they were following might lead them to the hid- ing-place of the desperadoes. This hope, however, was not justified by the events as they transpired. Zach Stammel had evidently treed himself, as he showed no disposition to go any further. He took a whistle from his pocket and blew a long: shrill, and reaching blast. en he sat down at the foot of a tree to rest and wait for a response. Abe Shedder and Missouri Mose concealed themselves near by, and closely watched for de-, velopments. The response came quickly. A similar whistle sounded from a distance; but the spy did not stir from his position. was evident that he expected to be met there by the men he sought, instead of going to meet them. After a wait of nearly half an hour a man ap- peared on the plateau sosuddenly and unexpect- edly that the watchers could not guess where he had come from. He was heavily armed, but not masked, and was at once recognized by the trailers as one of - the men who were believed to belong to Spence ~) “se eee . ‘ ¥ +)7aee 4 “7 “Bie Pe : . Pan wv eould bardl Sy mmes’s band, The fact was certified by what followed. Zach Stammel rose to meet the man, and a ‘conversation ensued between the two, in which the news of Orodia was fully told. All that was said did not reach the ears of the watchers; but they heard enough to amply con- vince them of the fact which they set out to es- tablish. ‘So they think they’ve got the bulge on us now,” said the man from nowhere, with a loud laugh. ‘* You may bet vour good-for-nothin’ life, Zachariah, that they’re as bad fooled as if they’d been swapped out o’ their boots. But your story is worth money, if it’s true, and I reckon it is, as you’ve done the squar’ thing by us so far. Here’s your ducats, old soak-an’- swill, and mind that you don’t let us miss a bit o’ news we ort to git.” Zach Stammel eagerly hela out his hand for the pieces of gold that were dropped into it, and + inetd trausferred them to his pocket. As he turned to go away a rifle cracked from the cover of a rock, and its bullet struck the outlaw in the breast. He staggered, and dropped upon his knees, btu eA aus raised bis rifle when another shot wus fired, and he fell over, a corpse, The spy was so astonished and frightened by this unexpected attack that he was incapable of flight, and he made no attempt at resistance when the two trailers ran out from their places of concealment and seized him. He was at once strongly bound, and was hurried away as soon as his captors bad searched the pockets of the dead desperado and taken ion of bis weapons, Zach Stammel was so terrified by this un- looked for termination of his adventure that he move, and it required the most vigorous talk and action on the part of his :" € ‘ ‘> ae o> de Saye , 3 J ty) ‘<) - 7 EC Ses " - Clip, the Contortionist. captors to set him in motion down the moun- tain. Dull as he was by nature, and soggy with liquor, be did not need to be told that the discovery of his treachery had not been acci- dental. It was clear to the muddiest intellect that he had been suspected and followed from the set- tlement, that his capture was pre-arranged, and that there could be no question of his fate. He knew that he was a doomed man, He was compelled to retrace his steps as rapidly as possible, and he and his captors made pretty good time on their way back, reaching Orodia considerably after dark, but before any of the citizens bad thought of going to bed. Tbe news of his capture and arrival speedily became common property, and a crowd that included nearly every person in the settlement congregated in front of Judge Waller’s new office, whither he was taken. There was of course no thought of resorting to any process of law to punish him, except oe law of the majority—the law of Judge ynch, In deference to the wishes of the crowd, the prisqnes was brought out on the street, and the ynch court was organized ‘in the open.” Twelve jurors were selected, and Judge Waller was chosen to preside, and the proceedings were brief and summary. | After Abe Shedder and Missouri Mose had given their clear and convincing testimony, Judge Waller made a short address, in which be properly described the crime of the spy, by which, as he said, a knife had been put to the throat of every man and woman in that region, and which had made possible the murders of Susan Nettle and Mrs. Warner. Without any hesitation the jury pronounced a verdict of guilty and a sentence of death. The prisoner had nothing to say for himself, seeming to be stupefied by the entire affair, and not until he was dragged to execution with the rope around his neck did he recover his senses sufficiently to beg for his life and for a drink of whisky, His entreaties were unheeded, and soon the boiy of Zach Stammel was swinging from a tree at the edge of town, a warning to all who might be tempted to follow his example. CHAPTER XIII. THE MYSTERY SOLVED. THE scouts who had been carefully searching the hills, skillful and active men as they were, were slow to bring any information of value, and it was reserved for Clip Saunders to make the next important discovery. One day when he was in Orodia he was sur- prised at seeing there no less interesting a per- son than the Indian woman known as Ginger, who had been made a sort of left banded widow by the sudden taking off of Sam Bunker. He had happened to know something of the position she occupied in Bunker’s cabin, and had naturally wondered what had become of her since the death of her patron. When he saw her in Orodia she was well dressed—for her—and was actually sober—so sober that she went about with a stolid and in- expressive face, and appeared to be quite un- able to understand the meaning of any questions that were addressed to her. She had intelligence enough, however, to know what she wanted, to make ber purchases with good judgment, to pay for them properly, and to make sure that she was not cheated in making change. As she was supplied with money, it occurred to Clip that she must have found another pro- tector. , From the fact that she was sober he con- cluded that her new master must be a man of sufficient force of character to scare her into leaving Jiquor alone when he did not wish her to drink. He must, also, be a man who was unwilling to come to the settlement, or he would not bave given ber money and allowed her to make pur- chases in Orodia. It was to be supposed, therefore, that he was a man somewhat of Sam Bunker’s stripe, and probably one of Spence Symmes’s gang. These conclusions were confirmed by the na- ture of her purchases. She bought whisky at the ‘‘ Graveyard ”— quite a quantity of it—but did not even smell at a flask, though she would doubtless gladly have drained at least one of them. She made several other purchases of various little matters that could not possibly have been intended for her own use. ~ aod as Having settled it in his mind where she bes ™ longed, and on what sort of an errand she had come there, Clip was strongly inclined to be- lieve tbat whoever followed the Indian woman from Orodia would be led to the hiding- place ef the outlaws. Therefore he followed her. He did not excite her suspicions by queetion- ing ber or dogging her heels, but noted the route she took when she left the settlement, and set out in that direction. Soon he had the satisfaction of seeing hér mount a horse that she had left tethered in the timber and ride away. As she was not likely to have a horse of her own, thi; was anotber item of interest, Though Clip Saunders did not claim to be a trailer like Abe Shedder or Missouri Mose, he considered himself fully able to keep track of & squaw and a horse, and bad no doubt of his ability to go wherever the borse could go, Somewhat to his surprise, the route that Ginger pursued after sbe had mounted was & public and easy one, From the timber she struck into the road that led by Warner’s Gap, where there could be no difficulty in following her. She did not attempt to press her horse to speed, and all the lad had to do was to jog along and keep out of her sight. In the course of time she turned from the road to the right, into a trail with which Clip had good cause to be acquainted, as it was the same trail which the first expedition from Oro- dia had taken, and the same which he had struck when he went to the rescue of Helen Warner. She followed this trail to the foot of the mountain, where she turned northward. ‘This is getting interesting,” said the lad as he pursued her along the trail which he had previously trod under exciting circumstances. She passed the cliff where Spence Symmes and Cheyenne Charley had descended by @ rope, and where they had balted with Helem and lost her, and she went straight on toward the north. Clip followed her as closely as he could with- out being seen, fearing that he might lose sight of her, or that she might suddenly disappear in sume unaccountable manner. : But he soon learned that there was really nothing mysterious about the matter. At a little distance from the foot of the cliff she came to a mountain brook, a swift little stream with a stony bottom, that ran toward the east. Into this she rode, the water coming up to her horse’s knees, and of course effectually extin- guishing the trail. Thus she went on down the stream, Cli keeping her well in view, until the broo passed through a narrow gap in a high bleff. Ginger passed through the gap with the stream, and was lost to sight. The lad hastened his steps, and waded through the gap after her. Before him lay a scene that at once aston- ished and pleased bim. It was a little green valley, almost exactl similar to Sam Bunker’s Well Hole, with big hills on every side but the suuth side, which was a precipitous mass of rock. A number of borses were quietly grazing in this new Well Hole, and there, too, was the Indian woman, turning loose the horse she had ridden thither, and removing the bridle and aaa was certain that he had found the hiding- place of the robbers’ horses; but where was the den of the robbers themselves? | There was nothing visible in the little valley that would guide him tw it, and he could only hope that the unsuspicious Ginger would con- tinue to lead bim. A She took the few trappings of ber horse in her A and walked toward the cliff at the south side, No opening could be seen thers, nor anythi that could be called peculiar, except the trun of a dead tree, some twenty feet in hight, that stood close against the rock. Ginger went direct to the dead tree, while Clip peered out from behind his cover, wonder- ing what she was going to do, She stood there a few minutes, and then @ section of the tree moved outward, as if upon hinges, disclosing an opening in the rock, inger passed in at the eee and the sec- tion of the tree turned and clos bebind ber, The mystery was solved. There was the hiding-place of the outlaws, and very skillfully it was arranged, ~ ; The upper part of the dead tree was doubtless 7 _ 3 ae : : > cal ~~~ * at » + oe, 2 te ‘ a >) a ° s _ —_ - Se EE eee ee Ps - . ‘ . ‘ , a, ¥ ’ 7 ¥ | ® | . } vv 7; re ~ b () ) _ 3 Oia ) 3 ~~ . _ we y y ia» JZ |_| + ra, } ae 4 ae 7 - » e. z: . . > - ; ed or ee * ‘ . >