Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 48 — page 6: what you’re looking at

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

CHAPTER. VIII. THE CORRALED KENTUCKIAN. ““WaHat’s the matter with the hosses?’ sud- denly demanded Mr, Grimes, pausing in the act of lighting his pipe after supper, and listening. The stage horses of the ‘‘ Pioneer” coach, which stood at the feed-box, within ten feet of the door, were rattling their halter-chains and uttering uneasy snorts. . Jack Hardin started up and listened at the oor. *“* Wait till old Rat-tail speaks,” he whispered. ““Tll be sure then. I reckon it’s some o’ them thievin’ Utes around, but I ain’t sartin—” He was interrupted by the sonorous bray of an old mule that roamed loose about the straw- from all the mustangs there. ** Utes, by the ghost of Gineral Jackson Harilin, hastily. we'll chaw the ing of a yaller dawg’s tail.” s he spoke, he hurriedly picked up his belt, and buckle lowed by Billy Grimes. were accustomed to hold the degraded Indians round them in abject contempt, and took no further precaution against surprise than to blow out the light before sallying out. Then Jack Hardin flung open the door and rushed out into the night, with a cocked revol- ver in each hand, followed by the stage-driver, similarly armed. . Bang, bang, bang! went several rifles as they ran out, and Grimes uttered a cry of pain and anger as he felt a bullet tear through the calf of ; leg. In a moment more a score of dark forms seemed to spring up from the earth, and come . rushing at the borderers, when a confused and furious fight ensued. The night was bright with stars, but there was no moon, and all aim was necessarily in- stinctive, as both parties opened with revolvers, two against twenty. The flashes of the firearms were incessant, and shouts, yells, cries, and shots made a perfect aap agai in front of the little hut for near- a. two minutes, at the expiration of which time e voice of Jack Hardin was heard roaring: “Run, Billy. They’re too much for us. Into the stockade.” A moment later two dark figures were seen to break away from the confused group of sav- ages, one of them limping as he went, and run for the hut, The Indians pursued, but severalof their num- ber lay on the ground, and most of their revolvers were empty. e two whites gained the door of the hut and were rushing in when Crow’s Foot, the real leader of the assault, ran up behind the son det a who was in the rear, and fired the load of the revolver into the poor fellow’s Bill Grimes staggered, uttered a wild shriek, - and threw up his as he fell forward on his face over the threshold, jamming the door close to, behind Hardin, who had just sprung in. This latter circumstance was all that saved the Kentuckian’slife. The door opened outward, and the dead body of Grimes resisted the efforts of the first Indian, who seized the edge of the door-frame to pull it open. The expressman turned as he heard the crash of the door, and seized hold of the great staples ort eg the inside bar, pulling with all his mi ut whereas the dead body without helped him to close it below, something above resisted all his efforts, and he heard the dull sound of spy Mey and tearing flesh, as he crushed in the fingers of the Indian who had seized the ce of the door. he savage howled with pain, but Jack had the advantage of a good hold and would soon have managed to bar the door, had not two bul- lets come crashing through the boards, one of ea passing through his right side, plowing up flesh, The next moment Jack dropped the staple, after one vigorous wrench with all his weight bounded across the hut to the back door, an ost ” said “Git on yer irons, Bill, and was into the granary before any one could catch him, amiliar as they were with the premises. The granary the fortress of the was Featty ag being a square stone building, some twenty t high, with thick walls, loop-holed above the rway, and built with projections to flank the ance, Like the ving hut, the door opened outward. Unlike that, it was made entirely of iron plates and secured with a spring lock. The sof of this little fortalice was heavy in frame f covered with thick sheet-iron, purposely to \ , _perfectly smooth outside | ke skillful. yard, a sound followed by an angry squealing | _ place was absolutely impre Beadle’s HalfDime Library. resist the undisciplined efforts of the very foes ack was now fighting against. As the expressman rushed in, followed at a few feet distance by his yelling enemies, several knives were thrown at him, of which two struck re ee gashing his left shoulder the other his igh. Wounded as he was, however, he managed to run in, and. slam the door to after him. ‘Thank God!” ejaculated the rough Ken- tuckian, fervently (for the first time for many ag as he heard the spring lock catch behind im. He knew he was safe, for the door was with no handle, and was hung round his neck. The most burglar would have been puzzled to get in, with all his array of tools, one to Indians the able. ppointment out- the He heard their yells of di side, and the erash of heavy bodies against the varmints up in the shak- | dit round his waist, an example fol- | The two frontiersmen | | door, but the thick plates, resting against the solid stone, did not so much as shake: and the expressman knew that he was quite safe. hen it was that he found time to realize that he was badly hurt. His right arm was power- less; the warm blood was streaming down from numerous wounds, and he felt faint and dizzy. His first instinct, however, was not for self. Like a true American, he .thought first of his duty, and of the orders about what to doina similar case, left him by ‘‘The Company,” that unknown entity, which represented to Hardin the world of civilization, from which he was temporarily divorced. Byvaying dizzily from side to side, he stagger- ed through the pitch dark room, feeling his way to the lantern and match-safe, to strike a light. A moment later, he was clumsily trying to approach the flame to the wick, which seemed to spin round and round in the air, and when at last he succeeded in lighting it, he fell back on the hard clay floor nearly insensible. Then a thought revived him. ‘The Com- pany ” had provided a bottle of spirits for just such ig my which stood in a niche by the lantern. Slowly and dozily he rose on hands and knees, and su ed in crawling up to it, uncorking the bottle, and taking a draught. The effect was immediate. As the fiery liquid flowed down the throat, Hardin seemed to gath- er new strength; and then he stood up without help, and went on with his duty. e Indians were shouting and yelling at the door, battering it with gun-stoc and rails torn from the stockade. Every now and then they would fire a volley of bullets at the insen- sible door, which defied their efforts, while they howled out the most fiendish threats in their broken English against the single man who was me against the wall and point ning i the wall and pointing up- ward, was a long pipe of sheet-iron, like a stove- pipe; and this the expressman caught hold of, and pointed diagonally upward, out of a hole close under the eaves of the roof. It stuck there, on account of the slope of the orifice; and Hardin ran across the room, and extracted, from what seemed a bundle of fire- wood, a long, slender stick, bearing at its end a gay-colored cylinder of pasteboard, with a con- ical head. It was nothing more or less than a rocket. A moment later, it was in the tube, lighted, and soaring aloft in air, scattering crimson sparks, to announce to the stations far and near that the Indians were on the war-path. And then a sudden hush came on the crowd outside. They knew what that signal meant. CHAPTER IX. WHAT THE CLOISTER BEAUTY SEES. SISTER FRANCESCA, familiarly known in the nunnery by the various names of Pancha, Pa- chita, and La Chi isa airing her novitiate, had just risen from her knees by the bell-tower of the convent, where she been ato g alone for the last half-hour before sunse Since she had caught sight of that strange vision of the evening before, which had enticed her out of the peaceful paradise in which she so long rested securely, and given her one short linshee of the poesibtlivies of her own na- ture, iquita been strangely silent and reserved, All the next day she had taken every Op- portunity to steal away from the nuns, and wander in the convent garden, or pace the bat- tlements. And yet, strange to say, she had not men- tioned to any one that she once allowed her eyes to wander on the forbidden sex. Not even to old, superpnnanted Padre Junipero, the con- vent confessor, had she breathed a word of it, ——_——- - — - ote Fp she had been to confession, and the pur- blind old man had sleepily questioned her on the regular round of the ‘“‘seven deadly sins,” and hurried her off with an absolution, as a matter of course. Confessing La Chiquita was a mere form to Padre Junipero, for the sins were so ridiculously trivial, and always ran so much in the same track, that the confessor was fain to stifle a yawn, even when he blessed the innocent little novice at absolution. But to-day, La Chiquita, even after confes- sion, felt guilty. She had not told the good padre everything, and especially she had not mentioned that handsome youth, whose eyes had met hers, and whose face and figure floated before her mental vision ever since, as if indel- ibly imprinted there, coming between her and the crucifix, interfering with her prayers, and always galloping, galloping noiselessly on, with face turned toward her, and bright brown eyes meeting her own. Poor little Francesca felt dreadfully wicked when she found herself dreaming of this young man, even during mass, and to make amends for it, the little enthusiast went without her dinner for penance, though her appetite was as hearty as that of any other young girl in good health. In the evening, no doubt for further penance, she volunteered to take on herself Sister Aga- tha’s turn of duty, to ring the Angelus, which the old nun, who was growing rheumatic, was glad to yield to her. Here she was, then, all alone on the flat roof of the convent, standing by the bell-tower, watching for the sunset, which, as it still want- ed half an hour of the time, was a very merito- rious oe on her part. And then, being all alone on the silent ram- rts, Sister Francesca began to pray earnestly or strength to forget this disturbing vision, which she was sure the devil had sent to draw her from her holy work. La Chiquita prayed and sobbed earnestly, but whether it was the devil, or nature rebelling against unnatural laws, certain it is that she found herself, with- out intending it, praying that the handsome stranger might come that way again, and that she might be the instrument of his conversion to the true church. And when once she got on that road, it was = how the words came, and how earn- estly and heartily she prayed. There was no more vague and wandering thought, then. She seemed like one inspired, and her face glowed with a bright light, and she pictured in her rapt ape what a blessed lot it would be for her lead this stray sheep into the true fold, and then to see him safe all the rest of her life. Somehow, she never pictured herself as shut up from him by the convent walls after that convenient conversion. How they were to be near each other, she had but a vague idea, but in her fancy no thought of separation had place and it was with a bright face and cheerful heart that she rose from her knees by the bell-tower, at last, and looked out over the landscape. Of course she was only looking to see how near sunset it was, and of course she did not want to dazzle her eyes by looking the sun full in the face. Only eagles do that, and she was a very tender little dove. : So she first explored the plain below the con- vent walls with her eyes, to the east, then to the west, graduall dog pin her way up toward the sun, so as not to be ed. And thus it befell, that she distinguished, far away from the walls, on the Carson trail, a moving speck, which advanced toward the con- vent at a rapid pace; and La Chiquita’s eyes gleamed, and again she blushed scarlet, while a smile wreathed her lips in spite of herself, and she w i red softly: . ‘* Oh, Madre de Dios! el viene!’ (Mother of we = comes!) ta es, there was no mi ing the regular, rapi bounds of the horse: at full speed, tearing to- ward the convent gate. Minutes ea flash to the waiting girl,who stood riveted to the spot, eagerly watching the nt figure that came sailing along, with a rapid undulating Nearer and nearer comes the horseman, in the midst of the red flames of sunset, and soon she can distinguish the neat, erect figure, in its close blue uniform, the black mustang beneath — him oping on, gray with foam, whil how the heart of La Chiquita beats!—the rider’s qale is unmistakably fixed on the ramparts of e convent, at the foot of the bell-tower. _ Unconsciously, the warm, impulsive f girl extends her arms. She forgets she is ina convent, soon to take the vail; she only feels that some chord in her nature is quivering to her JOO S (E(@) aalice