Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 47 — page 8: what you’re looking at

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

—x 8 —— a we can’t shoot a man who can bare his breast for the bullet. P?’m no murderer. I never willfully shed blood in all my life, and I can’t do it now. Pick up your rifle and try to shoot me and Ill drop you too quick. No! Captain Dave, bad as you are, Nightingale Nat can’t take your life now. So now good-night. Keep away from me, pon BY my life! this circumstance will never be rae cated!” Nightingale Nat gathered up the reins and turned the animal’s head. Captain Dave breathed freer and sent a grim smile at the boy. a he would not thank him for sparing his e. It was getting lighter. Objects were becom- ing distinguishable at a distance. ith a wave of the hand, in mock adieu, the little 6 turned from the captain of the Vul- tures. He galloped away quite briskly, while the Apollo sprung to his rifle. Seizing it, he turned yoann 4 toward the vic- tor, and gave a peculiar whistle. The horse instantl me planting his feet firmly on the ground and almost sending Nat, rocket-like, over his head! It was in vain that he spoke to the steed. The animal would not budge. ‘‘ Fire and furies!” he cried, turning his head as he raised the pistol. ‘‘ This is a trick I never dreamed of.” It was indeed a trick that threatened to bring his career to a sudden close. He was beyond pistol-shot; but the captain of the Vultures, so lately discomfited, s erect, covering his body with the rifle. ‘‘The tables are turned, my little demon!” came the triumphant tones of Captain Dave. ‘* Now we'll see an empty saddle in less than a minute. You may spare a foe, but J never do !” Pm cheek of the speaker dropped again to the rifle. There was a second of awful stillness. ““Shoot if you dare, Captain Dave. J have turned vengeance hunter!” These words, clear, distinct, and musical as the sound of a silver bell, startled man and boy. Captain Dave lowered the gun and looked up. Not far away, resting on one knee, in true hunter fashion, with her rifle against her flush- ed cheek, he saw the girl called Violet Collyer. ‘‘T know you now!” she continued. ‘ You have lived a lie to me for five years. You are Captain Dave, the king of the forest Vul- tures. More than half bewildered at the sight of the irl, Nightingale Nat kept his eyes fixed upon er ‘‘Shadow-Shot has talked about a girl who would make things lively for the Vultures one of these days. I wonder if that is the one?” he murmured, CHAPTER IX. *THE CHAMPION LIAR. ** You will put aside the rifle!” The voice of the girl addressed to Captain Dave was gentle, yet full of firmness, and, with much apparent sullenness, he obeyed. ‘* Will you not go and leave us here?” she con- tinued, turning to Nightingale Nat, who had re- mained a speechless and bewildered spectator of the scene. The boy started at the est, and hesitated. ‘And leave you with that man who, if he hates you, would not hesitate to send a bullet into your heart?” “He will lift no rifle against me,” the girl re- sponded. ‘I want to be alone with him. ‘*T will not cross you, girl; but I will keep within call.” “No! no! Go beyond that. Ride on until you cross a stream. On the further bank you may wait for me.” ‘* That I will,” said Nat. It was with reluctance that the boy left the girl and the captain of the Vultures alone in the orest; but, as the former had saved his life, he felt that he should obey her without equivoca- tion. “Now!” said the forest girl, approaching Ca tain Dave, ‘‘we are alone. Ww at say you the lie you have lived to me for five years?” He looked into her face, and burst into a boisterous laugh that made her cheeks tingle. **A lie? o has been filling you with such nonsense?” he cried. “ Did you not call me Captain Dave awhile since? Why, that is the name of the wretch who leads Vultures— the man whom we have sworn yven- Beadle’s Half-Dime Library. ooo geance. Why, Violet, I am inclined to believe that you are ae oe wits. What! do you think that I would have placed myself so o in your power, if I were the real Captain Dave —the fiend who brutally butchered your father and his train?” The man’s words red the girl; they made a serious breach in her creduli Was that man telling the truth? searchingly into the depths of his eyes, as if by fathotning them she would get to his heart—his inmost thoughts. Swiftly across her mind rush- ed that thrilling scene in the night just passed when Rafe Armstrong invaded her secluded | home and declared that the man who called ; not send the man to himself Noel Gordon to her face was the ver- itable Vulture chief—the man whose blood, above all others, the cause of justice demanded. Rafe Armstrong was a Vulture, and he pro- fessed to know the man of numerous aliases, for had he not served under his leadership in the foese foray for many years of blood and plun- er? And now this Noel Gordon stood before her with the hat which Captain Dave was wont to wear—the broad-brimmed hat, looped up at the left side with a gold buckle; she saw the brig- andish cut of his garments, and yet he declared that he was the Noel Gordon who had befriend- ed her in the Wisconsin woods since the massa- cre of Collyer’s train. ‘Who has told you this, Violet?’ he cried the second time, coming forward when he saw the effect produced by his last words—his startling denial. ‘‘Somebody has invaded your home since my departure—somebody with poison on ; lips and hatred in his heart for me—for both of us. ‘‘T have been visited. A man was there last ht—and an Indian, too.” aptain Dave ‘ ‘“* Did they come together?” **T do not know. e Indian seems to have followed the white, for in my presence he struck him with his knife, and ran like a deer.” Well?’ rey res pervaded the outlaw’s tone. He felt that Sharp-Knife had accomplished the mission upon which he had sent him. ‘‘But fhe red-man did not get far,” Violet said with eyes sparkling with excitement. ‘‘ He id for that blow, for it was acoward’s. I shot im, and he fell somewhere near the spring. I ar — tee: HF slight] aptain Dave's face w y e. ‘They must have a cnainies "he said re- flectively. ‘‘ But the man, Violet? He was the poisoner?” “He told me that you and Captain Dave were identical,” she said frankly. ‘‘He said that he belonged to the Vultures but that the chief had dismissed him, and set the Indian up- on his trail. He must have been in the wicked band that night, for he told me so much about the massacre which I know to be true.” ‘*And he said that lam Captain Dave?” the outlaw said, growing so bold as to smile. ‘‘He did!” the girl answered. - ‘‘I do not want to believe it, for you have been kind to me. But that hat—these clothes, Noel—I never saw them on your person before. ““T suspect not, Violet. In order to hunt this foe of yours, and mine, as well, I must assume i which seem strange and outlandish to you. Do TI look like a brigand in this suit?” For the first time the beautiful vengeance- hunter smiled. ‘* Now, suppose I was Captain Dave,” he said; * su every word uttered by that slanderer last night were true—what would you do?” **T would not spare!” cried the girl, with flash- ing eyes, as she involuntarily started from the Apollo of the woods. ‘I have sworn toavenge the massacre of the train, and if I were con- vinced that you were the fiend who led the de- mons of slaughter that night, I would send a bullet cr through your brain.” — The attitude of the girl, oouied to the look that clothed her face, sent a cold chill of fear to Captain Dave’s heart. He was standing over the crater of a volcano of destruction which a eee act of his—might put in awful mo- on. “IT would roars the many kindnesses you have done me, if I knew you as Captain Dave,” she continued. ‘‘Why should I not? For five years you have kept me from the path of ven- ce; but I am on it now. That man ma ve lied; but he knew so much about the Vul- tures and their chief. Why is it that for five years you have accomplished nothing?” ‘‘T admit the prowess of the man I have been trailing. He seems anignis fatwus, which sud- denly ppears as you follow. I have tracked he looked | him to find myself on the edge of a cliff over which he seemed to leap. Violet, he shail not elude me much longer. This man whom I hate because he made you fatherless, shall fall before me— ‘*No! you have promised to let me avenge that my ees the girl cried. “So l did. I will not forget that, I see that I have enemies! That man who invaded the cave-house last night may have been one of Cap- tain Dave’s men; but he was a fool for telli ou. Does not the Vulture chief know that unt him all the time? Ah! Violet, who knows that he is not at the bottom of it—that he did Pow to set you inst me, and by your hand rid him and the world of me.” ‘*But the Indian?’ cried the girl. ‘‘Wh would a savage follow a Vulture! I thought the two bands were on the most friendly terms.” ‘Friends fall out sometimes. Where is the white man?” ‘“‘ He is dead!” Captain Dave averted his head that the girl might not see the gleam of triumph that lit up the depths of his eyes. Rafe Armstrong was dead! The garrulous man would bother him no more, _Bolder and bolder w this living lie in the presence of the fair girl whose hatred for him, e had adroitly turned intosefter channels. He was playing his cards so well that he ventured into new seas, nor kept near the coast. ‘“ Why, I laugh to think that I have been mis- taken by you for Captain Dave!” hesaid. ‘‘ Vio- let, do you think I would stand here, knowi what I do, if I were that scamp? Your t has led to me instead of the arch-fiend of these woods. If you had not checked me when you did I might now be on the freshest trail I ever struck.” Violet Collyer opened her eyes and started. ‘That boy was a very young imp!” continued the Apollo. ‘‘He rides where Captain Dave rides; young as he is, and innocent looking, he has taken a part in the overthrow of more one train.” Violet looked astounded. “It is that scamp who has upon several occa- sions kept his leader from my grasp. He has wit, courage and devilishness enough for a pack of robbers. I was not going to shoot him when ou came up. I would have captured him, and orced from him the whereabouts of his master —not very far away at this moment. What did you think of him, girl?’ ‘“* Not that he was a Vulture; he is too young!” was the reply. “If I thought of him at I ed him as a boy who may have escaped from some plundered train.” “Boys do not escape when Captain Dave leads,” laughed the Apollo, and there was a meanful fiendishness in the cachinnation which went to Violet’s heart like an arrow of ice. ‘‘ But we will let the imp go for the present. He has ridden far away ere this, You will go back to the cave now?” “Were you going there?” ** Yes. e time for you to step personally on the path of vengeance has not yet come.” * When will it come?” *‘T do not know—soon, I hope.” “Tt cannot come too soon! I have waited five years, and to day I am no nearer Captain Dave than I was then.” : She did not see the strange smile that flitted across the half-averted face. Walking side by side, the singular twain pushed through the forest in a south-easterly di- rection. ; ‘‘ Over there is the place where you told the ag Se wait for you,” Captain Dave said, poin a place they were leaving to the right, “He will never wait for you.” ‘Perhaps not,” was the reply. ‘‘ We will not. go over to see, ces tay But, seated on the outlaw’s horse, in the midst of a thick cluster of trees, Nightingal the two walking side by side. The the boy open his eyes, which were genuine wonder. ‘‘ What on earth does that mean?” he exclaim- ed. ‘Ten minutes ago she had a bead on Ca tain Dave’s head, and now she’s walking at side. It beats the Jews! Id give this horse to know the meaning of this. wonder if the ait in love with that outlaw? No, she cannot ! ’ Nat watched the twain until they had passed completely from his sight. ‘“T'd soon know something if Shadow-Shot the reins was here,” he said, gathering u that girl is pe Seas ” ed with ‘‘ But I feel one thing: If child, she don’t know who she is walking The boy was right! EOMmichboo (e .S