Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 408 — page 2: what you’re looking at

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

a + * 2 eee ~ « F) 2 - Little Leather-Breeches. eee eee ee ee ee we ee ee — ——_ ~= -— scréamed” before letting it slip through their | shrunk back with a shudder of horror and a | she had unnerved, no doubt by awaking bis con- fingers. quailing chill of fear. | science, rushed on headlong toward the hight n their arrival in the New Eldorado it | The old hag cackled in her hideous glee. ' until, with ghastly face, protruding eyes, ahd chanced that they found the Powder Creek! ‘Ha! ha! chattering teeth, he s aggered up to the excited Gruich ** booming,” and in an hour the idea of | ye see it, my pretty ones? villagers. Did vou see it, my little ones? did Come all xe imps of His flesh to the trudging after the plow-tail was scorned, and every man of them saw himself a millionaire— in imagination ! darkness! here’s a pretty sight! fishes, his bones to old soul to the devil! Ho! he was a fine fellow, I But the Powder Creek Gulch ‘ petered out,” | tell you! No dying in bed for him! He died ‘‘in a way "—to quote Bill Nye—‘‘I despise,” | with his boots on! it was a bloody death! Ho! und one year from date our hunters of the | ae should have seen the blood, and the knife!— voiden fleece found themselves with both | ho! ho! a famous knife! Here it is! Do you breeches pockets turned inside out— bu’sted!” | see that black spot on the hilt? That’s blood!— There were ‘ natural-born” miners in the Gulch, and they slung their kits over their shoulders to their pick-helves, lighted their lit- | , ' Ha! ha! here you are, loveys! Fate, and ‘‘stam- ; three! four! five!—” tie black pipes, gave a jaunty cock to their rag- ged hats as if in defiance o yeded,” cheerily wishing one another “ better | uck next time.” Then Farmer Ashmead called his company to a serious consideration as to whether that sort of thing pte ‘* Tt’s all very well for men who have nobody but themselves in the world,” he said; ‘* but we have women and children on our hands; and when it comes to a question Of dragging them up hill and down dale through these mountains, I for one vote No! Weare farmers, and if we keep to that, we shall know what to look out for. Now, you all know that ten miles down the creek there is as pretty land as lies out- doors. I propose that we take it up, and leave off this fooling.” This wise counsel prevailed; and fifteen years later, at the opening of our story, Glendale was a thriving little village, in nowise envious of the mining-camps which all about sprung up, flour- ished, and disappeared, almost in a day. So much by way of ‘‘ getting the lay of the land.”” Now for the story. ‘‘Hal ha! ho! ho! The devils are out to- night! How they writhe and hiss and spit their venom! Hear them howl with rage, and chat- ter and laugh with impish glee! Ho!ho! I’m with ye, my little ones| my pretty ones! Come down—come down! Fill earth and air and heaven! Ha! Beezlebub, old Mumbo Jumbo hails ye Prince of Darkness!” A vivid flash of lightning that seemed to rend the sky from zenith to horizon disclosed a hide- ous old hag standing on a pinnacle of rock over- looking a valley. Her bent form, her fantastic dress of flutter- ing rags, her withered and leather-brown face, her eyes twinkling with crafty malice, the one diatelored fang that shut down over her nether lip, her fingers like the talons of some bird of prey—made up as hideous a creature as ever haunted the dreams of a half-crazy religious fanatic. She supported herself with a long staff, a sapling roughly stripped of its leaves; huge brass crescents hung from her nose and ears, and her hair was built up in tufts on either side of her head, after the fashion of some of the savage people of Africa. Legend said that this was once a beautiful quadroon, driven to despair and enmity toward all mankind by the cruelties of race hatred; but another said that she had been a belle in New Orleans in her youth, and that it was a freak of madness that made her now play the Negro Voodoo woman. At all events, her speech was free from the patois of the slave, and her features were un- mistakably Caucasian. 4 ‘‘Hal!l ha! afair night! a sweet night! a night for such work as mine! Come with me, ye devils! Ihave a pretty sight for ye! Ye love murder, do ye? Sodo I! e love dead men— dead by the hand of violence? Ha! ha! come with me, my little ones! my pretty ones!” So chuckling to herself, she hobbled off in the | | ror at a mass of bones, the human character of darkness, picking her way with her staff, quite indifferent to the pelting rain and eddying blasts, until she 4ame to where a tumbling brook rested for a while in deep, still holes, ‘‘ Here’s a place for murder!” she whispered, hoarsely. ‘‘ Ha! ha! here’s a famous place to whisper perjured vows! to leap out of the world, down! down! down! into the bottomless pit, where the devils dance | in the flames!” Where a stunted tree, dra the leaves and gazing intently into the black water, waiting for a flash of lightning to illumi- heavily with | a vine, hung over the water, she knelt, parting | his heart’s blood! All the water that falls from heayen in a twelvemonth couldn’t wash that out! ‘* But the night’s going! To work! to work! One! two! ‘ At each count she thrust her hand into the water and drew something forth. Presently she rose; anc lightning showed that she had a bag on her ack. Thus burdened, she tottered back to the crag ; where we introduced her to the reader. In the valle lights of Glendale. She waved her staff toward it, crying in a harsh, shrill voice: ‘* Curses on ye all! curses, I say! Ma withers in its bloom, while old age chides the lagelng déath that will not free it from its mis- ery! Curses on ye! curses! curses! curses!” Oarsely went out her voice on the blast, her execrations dying away in a sort of gurgle that horribly suggested strangulation. As ig in answer to her bitter curse, the heavens opened, and the earth shuddered with the reverberating thunder. An instant later one of the buildings in_ the village was enveloped in flames, darting their blood-red tongues up toward the black and mut- tering heavens! ‘*Hal ha! ho! ho!” chuckled the witch. “‘ The charm begins to work already! Didn’t I tell ye, my little ones, my pretty ones? It’s the mur- derer pleading with the devil that does it! Ha! ha! ho! ho!” ‘* Hallo, you,old vagabones!” shouted a gruff voice close at hand. ‘*‘ What have ye got hyar? Been stealin’, have ye? Come! trot it out!” The old hag turned, and a quivering flash of lightning showed her a manin the rough dress of the mountains, with his hat slouched down over his eyes and the collar of his coat drawn up about his neck while his hands were thrust into the side-pockets. “Ho! master,” she cried, with no evidence of alarm, ‘‘is that you?, I know ye, Hank Drake. You're left-hand cousin to the devil! But I like ye all the better for that. You’re my kind, you are. You've a liking for striking in the dark! Ha! ha!” ‘‘ Stow yer gaff, ye old buzzard! .What’s that you've got in that bag?’ ‘‘Ha!l ha! ho! ho!” cackledtheoldhag. ‘‘ Ye think it’s chickens, don’t ye? Ha! ha! Or may- be ye thiak it’s a lamb, or a suckling pig. Oh, no,my lad! I didn’t get itin the village. They don’t keep such things down there to steal. Oh, no! the devil gave it to me!” “Turn it out, and let’s see what it is, any- way.” | ““Tt’s a friend of yours,” she said, with her malicious chuckle. Then stooping, she took hold of the lower cor- ners of the bag, and timing the movement with a vivid flash of lightning, she lifted the bottom and poured the contents out on the ground, say- ing: “Tt’s Tom Grayle! Ha! ha! ho! ho! He was a rare one, and a friend of yours! Ye didn’t think to meet me here to-night, did is ¢” The man stared with eyes distended with ter- which could not be mistaken. The skull fell so that it seemed to grin at him. With a shriek he rushed away in the darkness, down the declivity, toward the village. The old hag caught u Ho! ho! here’s a place | it toward him, screamed after him: ‘‘ Murder! murder! murder!” The rapid tolling of a church bell in the village now spread the alarm of fire, and dark forms could be seen rushing to and fro. Faintly in the occasional lull of the wind came the cry: ‘* Wire! fire! fire!” umbo Jumbo, and his now the flashes of below appeared the twinkling | pesti- | lence, famine and murder scourge ye, till youth | hér staff, and waving | | on which our story opens. ‘*Hallo, Hank Drake!” cried one of them. ‘* What’s the matter with ye, man? Ye look as if ye had seen a ghost!” ** Boys!” he gasped, pointing backward, ‘“‘ it’s up thar! up thar! ‘*Up whar? What is? What air ye talkin’ about?” ‘* Tt’s that old devil's dam! She done it!” ‘*Mumbo Jumbo?” : ‘“Yes! yes! This hyer’s her work! She done it. She cursed ye an’ called down the light- nin’ 7 Whemhe Had become a little more com : he described the curse, but Omitted all reference yo the skeleton the sight of which had sostartled im, It was, plain that his auditors were prepared for something of this sort. They listened With gloomy brows while the flames roared heaven- ward and the charred timbers crumbled and fell to a heap of ruins, ' Then rose murmurs of wrath, Which swelled into open denunciation, ‘‘Boys,” said one man, presently. ‘* We've stood this thing about long enough. What’s the matter with the widdy Mowry’s cow, I want tc know? It ain’t two weeks since that old devil's limb cursed the widdy for stoppin’ her from stealin’ a loaf that she had set out to cool. ‘Yell want milk fur that bread! says she; an’ thar’s the critter with bloody milk a’ready. An’ then didn’t little Ben Darrach fall into the cellar ten days ago, with the chance of his never standin’ square on his pins ag’in in this world?” With this beginning the vindictive excitement waxed until it was proposed to go and “ tear her out.” Then there was a hurried shatching up of fagots, and, lighted by their lurid glare, the mob rushed up to the witch’s hut. Without stopping to see whether the door was fastened or not, they beat it in.and rushed into the hut. ‘‘ Boys, thar ain’t hide nor hair of her hyar!” said ne in evident disgust at their disappoint- ment. ‘“Of course not,” said another. ‘* When it’s as any to go up in the air as down in the ground, what kin you expect? She’d be a fool to stop hyar fur ye to pounce onto her.” ‘ Let's burn the old rookery down, any- way! nd the fellow applied the torch ‘under the eaves. But while the search had been in progress, a light spring-wagon with four sprited horses at- tached to it had dashed up, the driver Swing- ing his long lash and yelling at the top of his voce, ‘Just in time!” he cried, as he drew bis horses in ‘so sharply that they reared and pawed the air. “Now go for’em! Lay ’em out! Ha-a- a-a-ah! ha! halha!ha! ha!” . ‘The Mad Millionaire!” ¢ried one of the men. From the seat beside him a youth made a fly- ing leap over the wheel, and Phe See upon the fellow who was about to set fire to the ut, he snatched the torch from his hand and dashed it to the ground. ‘* None 0’ that, boys,” he said, with as/ nich assurance as if he had been a man among them. ‘“Who air you?” was the an mere formula of wrath, since a him perfectly well. His reply was prompt and pointed. ‘“ Yours truly, Little Leather-Breeches!” And drawing a brace of revolvers, he stood between the mob and the witch’s hut, with cool determination stamped on his young face. demand—a present knew CHAPTER It. AN OMINOUS FORTUNE, THE afternoon of the day following the night A picnic groun A Neve of girls such as the outdoor life of the West can produce—some pretty, some not so pretty, but none without freshness and resy wr in tee ee aos ena ‘For my part,” cri 6 rather haught Kate Ashmead, “I think he is altowethart t6 ) A boy of his years had no business in ~ 4 E nate the spot, And there on the cliff stood the hag, shriek- | fresh! A ‘ ee te . It came presently, a long, quivering, zigzag | ing: termeddling with men.” 1 ae ~~ stream of fire. “Curses on ye all! It’s Mumbo Jumbo that ‘* Why didn’t your men put him down then?” ay Mh tas Something gleamed white in the bottom of the | execrates ye! Curses! curses! curses!” reto Mary Dennison. ‘ Because they Tee SS pool One veholding it unexpectedly would have The shivering aud shuddering wretch whom | couldn’t spell able ?” || \ *\ ea hd Tyr’ 7 .< 7 A te saris 1 Sra a R ‘ ‘ \ iy . ; ; ~~ 4 - A - me » <a tf ’ / =| T ‘ cf A a -— IV00K ( |. \ - exe) k = Saad =a ea st : * nd rt A