Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 589 — page 3: what you’re looking at

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

es ee — — Cw te ti es ae PO ae ‘erat — \ —_~ 4 ry of yy i 2 (em comfortable home. -Molly. ‘velo — she gave way toa fresh burst of weeping. ‘I ouchtn’t to have referred to that again. Let us valk of something else. My plans; how will that do? Though, to be sure, they are rather in- cefinite. ‘* Well, then, my plans! Lintend to start to Red Rock in the morning. I know the superin- tendent of the Eureka Mine, at thut point. He will give me work if he can; if he can’t, he will recommend me to some place where I can get work, ‘Tf I can obtain a situation similar to the one I held here I will be able to lay by enough in two years’ time to purchase us a small but At common labor in the inines I can do the same thing in something less than five years. ‘* Tt is a long time to look forward to; but, as you said awhile ago, we are young and can wait. So, whaetver[ may find to do—and I will find something—I will bend all my energies and thoughts to that one object—a home for you and me. ‘*Tf, in the mean time, your father relents and consents to our marriage, the time spent will not be lost. It will be in the nature of an edu- cation that shall better fit us for possible trials and sorrows to come, ‘‘Tf be does not relent I shall insist on our marriage anyway, when I have provided a proper home for you. You will be twenty-one jong before the echt of the two years; aud he cannot rightly control your actions in so important a matter after that, ** Will vou promise me, Lily, that you will be- ccome my wife when the proper time arrives, even without his consent? I will leave you to be the judge of the time! Only I want some definite promise to cheer me through the long months to come.” ‘*You have my promise!” she whispered, softly. ‘*I cannot feel that it is wrong to give it!” ‘* And now, one thing more!” he said, his rap- ture shining in his eyes. ‘‘We will want to keep up some sort of communication. How can ‘that be done? No doubt your mail will be watched.” ‘*T have thought of that!” she replied, balf smiling. ‘* You know Molly Mitchell! She is just the best-hearted, truest girl in this town!” ‘* Always excepting Lily Edgerton!” with an attempted laugh. ‘Now, you are joking me, after your old, naughty fashion! But, I am m earnest about She is a good, true girl; there isn’t a better anywhere, as you know. She is not as highly educated as some I could name, but it doesn’s take the polish of an education to de- a true woman. ‘* Molly shall be our post-mistress. You di- rect your letters to her, and I will get her to mail mine to you!” ‘* Capital!” he exclaimed. ‘You couldn’t have hit on a better plan, and as that’s settled, let’s walk up toward the mine buildin It is almost twelve o’clock. If yeur father discovers your absence he will arouse the town in bis ef- forts to find you.” Now that the hour of separation had come, he tried to speak in a cheery and hopeful way. He assisted her to her feet; and, clinging trustingly and lovingly to him, Lily Edgerton walked with him from beneath the sheltering shadows of the cedars. As she did so she started back with a wild cry of affright. A familiar form and figure stepped into the moonlight and leveled a cocked revolver full at the breast of Clifford Curtis. **Oh, father!” screamed the startled girl, striving to interpose her own body between her lover and that deadly weapon. A flash and a report was the age answer. Clifford Curtis threw up his hands, reeled -and fell to the earth; and Lily Edgerton, witha heart-rending cry, sunk down in a deadly swoon beside him, CHAPTER III. THE GOLD KING IN JAIL. WHeEn Lily Edgerton returned to conscious- ness, it was late in the afternoon of the next day. She was lying in bed in herown room, Her friend, Molly Mitchell, was keeping watch by ‘her side. ' ' ‘‘ Where am I?” she cried, staring about ina ‘bewildered way. ‘I feel like something dread- ful has happened.” Then she started, shrunk back in a terrified ‘way and drew the bed-clothes about her face as uf to shut out some horrible sight. Tom-cat and Pard. oe Oh, father! Cliff!” ‘Don’t take on so, dear!” urged Molly, lay- ing ber hand softly on the head of the tremb- ling girl. Lily looked up into the face of her friend, nd her arms about her and said, convul- sively: ‘Tell me all, Molly! Tell me the worst! I am strong, now! Oh, so strong!” Her eyes were hot and dry; and her face was flushed and feverish. ‘*It’s only bad news that I could tell you, dear!” said kind-hearted Molly. “If you can go tosleep ag’in for awhile, it will do you a heap of good, You will be stronger then; and I will tell you all I know. Here, drink this! It’s somethin’ left by the doctor.” Lily pushed the potion away with a firm hand and sat up in the bed. “T am not a child, Molly, to be put off in that way. I will know everything. If you will aot tell me, I will go out in town and learn the truth, Where is father?—and—and Cliff?” Her eyes took on a fierce and determined ex- pression. ** Don’t, Lily, dear! Don’t take on so! You flustrate me. 1’m that nervous, now, I can hardly stand.” The fierce light died away, to be supplanted | by a look of tenderness, ‘** Forgive me, Molly. I don’t know what I am saying, scarcely. I am almost wild. Tell me what you know, please. The suspense will surely drive me mad,” **If you think you can stand bad news, dear. Maybe I'd better not say anything much yet. This stuff will make you sleep, and you'll feel more like yourself after it.” ‘*l can stand anything, Molly!” with a terri- ble calmness and composure. ‘“‘ Anything! I am iron, steel! Nothing can be worse than my fears, Cliff is dead; I kuowit. 1 can seeit in your eyes,” Molly retreated to her chair and buried her face in her apron. ‘*Tell me all about it, Molly!” Lily insisted, with a shade of impatience. ‘I can bear any- thing now. Was be instantly killed? Why did they not revive me and take me to him? Where ishe now? I must go there if I have to crawl. Oh, Cliff! Cliff! To think that you should have been slain by the hand of my own father!” ‘** He was dead, dear, when they took him up!” said Molly, in an awe-struck voice, ‘Oh, it’s awful to think about!” ‘Where is his body?’ Lily demanded, her feverish fierceness returning! ‘* They buried him this morning!” ‘* Buried him?” ‘Yes, dear; they buried him early this morn- ing. Ididn’t get to see him, for | had to stay here with you. You was that bad for awhile, the servants bad to hold you in hed.” Lily shook convulsively, as Molly made the statement, but not a tear came to relieve her overcharged heart and brain. “Oh, Cliff! Cliff! Can it be that you are dead?” Then, looking up with a suddenness that startled Molly: ** Where is father?” ‘They arrested him,dear. He is in jail now, I thought maybe you’d want to see him, but didn’t know, and so couldn’t tell whether I best tell you or not. But you asked me so straight and in that way.” ‘*That’s right, ore th Don’t keep anything from me. It is best that I should know every- thing. Nothing can hurt me worse than the pre that Cliff is dead!” **Maybe you'll want to go to see him?” Molly ventured in an inquiring tone. ‘‘ Father went over there this morning, but the pe wouldn’t let him in, They couldn’t well refuse you, ery seeing that you’re his daughter.” ‘**They say Mr, Edgerton—your father, I should say—is as cold and hard asice about it. He won't talk on the subject, that’s what the jailer says.” Lily scarcely heard this last. Her thorghts were with the lover who had been so suddenly torn from her. ‘** No, I couldn’t go, Molly!” she said, at last, as if she had been turning the subject over in her mind. “It would kill me, to stand face to face with father, knowing what I do. ‘Ob, how could hé be so cruel? It doesn’t seem like my father, todosuch a deed. And yet, [saw him, Molly! He came out into the wide bar of moonlight, and brutally shot Cliff down at my side, ‘*T wonder if I am not dreaming? Ob, it can- not be true! Cliff dead; and my father his mur- 3 derer! ‘Tell me, Molly, that it’s only a hideous dream!” ‘*T wish I could, dear heart!” said Molly, soothingly. ‘“Why did they bury him so quickly?’ Lily eeierg after another passionate and tearless out- urst, ‘* That I can't tell you,” Molly replied, witha puzzled air. ‘‘I’ve been wondering about that ever since I heard they’d buried him, [run over home a little while, at noon, and spcke to father aboutit. But be don’t know no more’n Ido. He didn’t see it done. ** There’s the queerest-looking chap at our house, though, you ever saw; and he’s as sharp as a steel-trap, He’s got an idee that Cliff Cur- tis isn’t dead, at all, That there’s something crooked at the bottom of it.” ‘*What!” exclaimed Lily, straightening up and staring fixedly at her friend, ‘* Yes!” replied Molly, smiling at the new light that shone in Lily’s eyes, ‘‘He thinks there is some kind of a game being played. He couldn’t give any particular reason, The only thing I hang any hope on is that the chap’s smart: and wouldn’t talk that way if he didn’t have some idees. **He’s queer-looking, as I said, but you can tell that he’s got sense. And his name is queerer than his looks, Of course it ain’t his real name. It’s just his ‘ handle,’ as the Western folks some- times say. ‘* He stated that he had a pard following him who could get at the tap-root of the thing, i anybody could, This pard will be here this evening. The man over at the house 1S expect- ing him, now, every minute. ‘When he comes I’m going to lay this case before him, Maybe he can find out something.” ‘*Oh, do you really think there is a possibility that Cliff is alive?” Molly had no very strong hopes, but she could not blot the new light from the eyes of her stricken friend by saying so. ‘¢T’m sure I don’t know what to think, dear, There is always hope, you know. This queer- looking stranger seemed very arr ahiy in his opinions, He said he knowed, by the locks of things, that there had been crooked work, And it does look like it, judging from the hurry they were in at the burying.” ‘They can disinter the—the remains!” said Lily, chokingly. ‘* That will reveal all!” ‘Yes; that’s what [ was going to say, but I hated to. Dig him up. If they didn’t really bury him, there won’t be nothing to dig up, you know. That’s what I’m going to say to this stranger when he comes,” ‘¢Oh, can’t I go with you to see this man?” Lily asked, excitedly. “Tt wouldn’t do, dear!” protested Molly. ‘¢'You’re that weak you couldn’t get out of the house, You think you're strong, because you're so worked up; but you’re as weak as a baby. The doctor said you mustn’t leave that bed ‘for a week. I expect he'll give me ‘ bankins’ too, when he finds out how I've been talking to yo But, you would have me tell you everythihg you know; and vou were so wild-like when i didn’t speak as quick as you thought I ought to. Molly’s plump and rosy face showed that she was suffering acute mental distress, ““T won’t insist,” said Lily, noticing the ex- pression, ‘But your words, Molly, have put new hope into my heart, I will try to think that Cliff may be alive, until I can no longer entertain even that. hope. Time will tell; but, oh, it seems like I cannot wait. ‘**T ought to send some kind of word or mes- sage to father, but I can’t. Has he inquired about me, Molly?’ ‘“‘T don’t know, dear, No word bas come to the house since I bave been here.” The new hope which bad entered the heart of Lily Edgerton now unsealed the fountain of tears, and she gave way to a wild burst of wee ing, which quite startled kind-hearted Molly Mitchell. When it was over she expressed a desire to be left alone for a time; and Molly hurried home, to see if the expected stranger bad yet put in an appearance, CHAPTER IV. A LOVE-SICK TOM-CAT. Tue stranger who had ‘ dropped in” at the residence of John Mitchell, the mimer, was, as Molly stated, *‘a queer-looking chap.” He was'a genuine cowboy, as could be seen ata glance. Instead of wearing the regulation wide-rimmed cowboy hat, however, his head was covered by a catskin cap—the partially mounted head of the animal serving as the