Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 64 — page 1: what you’re looking at

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

Single Number. Vol. IIL. Dandy Jack; The Outlaw of the Oregon Trail. BY T. C. HARBAUGH, AUTHOR OF “‘ NICK O’ THE NIGHT,” ‘‘ THE HIDDEN LODGE,” ‘‘ NIGHTINGALE NAT,” ETC. CHAPTER IL. THE OUTWITTED GUIDE. ‘Lost anything, stranger?’ The person thus abruptly addressed started from the stooping position at which he had been rised and wheeled upon his questioner. ‘Lost anythin’? I should reckon I had!” he ejaculated in a tone of mingled rage and disgust. ‘*T’ve been an infarnal fool, an’ feel like whip- ad Lige Butler all over. ‘m mad—mad as a hull mad-house! at this partic’lar time the maddest man in Oregon. Say, whar do you hail from, an’ hev ye see’d anythin’ of a kivered wagon hitched to two hosses any- whar in yer travels? Ef ye hev, blurt it out, fur I’ve lost them partic’lar things—lost ’em last night by actin’ the blarsted greenhorn—me, Lige Butler, what has tramped this kentry fur nigh onto twent — cs He ai not give his auditor a single moment in which to answer his question, but kept on at a break-jaw speed until he was obliged to pause to catch his breath. ** Hevn’t seen a thing ’cept- in’ a few Snakes these three days,” pe aba = ore speaker, who, from his perc on the back of a well-to-do horse, seemed to be studyin the personnel of the uncout individual who had _ twice alluded to himself as Lige Butler. ‘*Uncouth,” I say, for that word in a nut-shell describes the gaunt specimen of humanity who, towering six feet above his moccasins of buffalo-hide, stood before the man on horseback. His face tanned by lon te to wind and Jain wou d not have been unhandsome if he had thrown the shaggy locks of dark hair that lay on his forehead back beneath the coon-skin cap he wore, and kept his beard in the neigh- borhood of a comb. His gar- ments consisted of that half. civilized costume seen to-day along the numerous wagon- trails in the Far West, and his weapons, rifle, pistol and hunting-knife added to his brigandish appearance. ! THE WAGON WAS THUNDERING TOWARD THE ORE I) & MINNOW 5 QL MIO KK ocd Vt Tat Vit Ui Vit it Vil CPN i nt Lt Yl Copyrighted in 1878, by BEADLE AND ADAMS, BEADLE AND ADAMS, PUBLISHERS, No. 988 WILLIAM STREET, NEW YORK, The man in the Mexican saddle was better clad, cleanlier in appearance and passably good- looking. But he had evil eyes in his head which began to sparkle maliciously when he first set them upon the gaunt man bending over the trail. + lazo hung from the saddle-horn. It was in the brief ee of a summer day that the meeting just described took place. Not far to the south rolled the majestic Oregon, and it was in the midst of that well known wagon- trail ‘i fatal to the early emigrants that Butler stood. He had emphasized the truth when he said that he was ‘‘the maddest man in Oregon.” Rage flashed from the depths of his deep-set eyes, and while he talked, he kept hammering the stock of his rifle with his great fist. “Til tell ye how it war, stranger,” he said, coming up the rider with one great stride. ‘* An’ when I git thro’ jest git off an’ kick me inter the river down thar. I left Council Bluffs / iff | MM | | I Tr ni ‘ ; == —=- — ——— LLL QI “AHHH GK QOL 2 GON TRAIL, Ci ~ (A ip Zi “~. SRR So 8 S ils Price, with twenty-three wagons in good trim, an’ hyar Iam with none. But I anticerpate, which isn’t a fair shake when a fellar’s in’ a story. I felt jubious about the train all along, an’ jest as I jedged, they got scared "bout Injuns an’ kept droppin’ off. We hed sixteen wagons when we got to Laramy an’ ten would’t budge from thar. I cussed, stamped an’ argued, but it was 'no go; an’, b’ilin’ over at the sneaks, but not half as mad as I am now, I led the rest on. At Fort Hall, up thar at Henry’s Fork, they got what they calla panic, an’, swamp me, stranger! if fourteen wagons warn’t fur stoppin’ thar, an’ arter a rest, goin’ back. Fourteen wagons outen sixteen! jest think of it. Butthe two had backbone; why the boy—I called ’im Dandy Jack, fur he war as pert a fellow as I ever ided—swore he’d go on to the coast ef he’d ev to hoof it alone.” ‘'Thar’s courage in little hearts,” observed Long Lige’s single auditor as the narrator paused to consult a plug of tobacco, evidently his last from the mournful manner in which he eyed it as he returned it to his capacious pocket. **Courage? I should reckon there is!” he said. ‘ Thet boy, Dandy Jack, isn’t afeard ov all the red-skins on the lains. Wal, we kept on. har war eleven ov us now. I had promised the boy to take him through, an’—by hokey I’m goin’ to do it yit! But we met with an acci- dent. Up atthe mouth ov Raft, one of the men took sick. It war a queer kind o’ sickness; he got greenish 0ts all over him an’ died. e war our bestman. Then everybody began to git sick. It warn’t in the climate, stranger, fur I’ve taken too many over the Oregon trail. I'm not goin’ to express my opinion jest now; but,”—the fist came down hard upon the rifle-stock—‘‘ ’ve got one! Wal, everybody in the lead wagon died, ’ceptin’ the gal an’ she didn’t appear to ai at all. Curious wasn’t it? That green-spotted disease, what- ever it war—an’ mind ye I’ve got an opinion—took all but four: me, Dandy Jack, the gal, an’ a man named Luke Whittles!” The gaunt man’s teeth ted harshly behind the ast word. ‘It war the dyingest time I ever heerd on,” he contin- ued. ‘I buried the dead, os the gal inthe only wagon eft an’ kept on. e got hyar last night; it war just tting dark like it be now. ow it isn’t hard to take a train from hyar to the coast, ef the guide knows his busi- ness, an’ I fancied thet I knowed mine. Yes, hyar’s whar we squatted fur the Mmicooo (S <S=GO