Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 67 — page 8: what you’re looking at

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

A — eee Ce CHAPTER XI. THE MISSING GUEST—OLD RATTLESNAKE AND F..ASH LIGHTNING—THE MEETING IN THE about her except that she lives in the gulch due Of 'VE. | west from the great bend in Dead Man’s Run. Vor:»me time after Berenice’s flight Old Rat- | Arthur must be there, and you must go to him tlesnake continued engrossed with his strange at once.” ' pets. _ “Right willingly will I seek thy friend. But He had had recourse to them to wean his | first let me place thee within the shelter of our mind from the brooding memories which the | home, and minister to thy pressing needs. ight of the girl had conjured up. | Canst get upon my back?’ mn a measure he was successful. When at | ‘*No, no! last he ae them away his brow had recovered | Arthur. He may need _ scarf, so that I could not roll over the precipice. Uncle, she must have got it from Arthur, and no doubt he sent her forme. I know nothing Let me lay, and go at once to elp worse than I do.” its wonted serenity, dashed perhaps by a shade | ‘‘Peace, boy! Let discretion run hand in of tender melancholy. hand with thy generosi Whatever hath de- With noiseless tread he went to the door and | tained thy friend must have befallen him days ushed it slightly ajar, to gaze in on hissleeping | ago; and now his need for thy company cannot guest. samme fsb be so urgent that thou shouldst not pause to The room was empty! medicine the ills of thine own body. The effect on the old naturalist was very ‘*Moreover, I have that of which I would marked. He stood like one dazed. speak to thee, as we go. See! I will lay me on He pushed the door further open, took a step | my face—thus. Now, if thou canst get upon into the room, and gazed all around. There | my back, I will rise under thy weight, and bear was no place to hide. She must indeed be gone, | thee hence to the greater comfort of thine own He brushed his hand across his brow and | bed.” gazed in the direction of the bed. There was the impress of her body. But for that he might have thought it all a conjuration of his imagi- | injured youth. nation. Vith some effort and — Flash Lightning Slowly he crossed the room, sat down on the | got upon his back, and, with a strength of whic couch and ‘put his hand in the depression, as if | his appearance gave no promise, the old man to satisfy himself that some one had ‘indeed | rose and bore him with seeming ease. been there. The spot was yet warm. After walking a moment in silent thought, With a sigh the snake-charmer bowed his.face | Old Rattlesnake began: in his hands and sat thus in painful reverie. ‘*Methinks I have seen the youn “Agatha, was it thou?” he murmured. | that, as thou hast said, oweth her “‘Didst come to remind me of thy wrongs yet thy address and courage.” Agreeably to his words the old snake-charmer stretched himself prone on the rock beside the —— woman vation to unavenged? Have I seemed to forget thee, Oh! And she sent you to me?” Agatha? Yet have I loved and mourned thee— ‘‘Not so. 1 found her confronted by a ser- ay, unceasingly ! nt, before which through fear she fell like one ‘*How can | make that which the wick- ead. My pipe saved her from the venom of the reptile, edness of man hath given to destruction? Will and knowing nothing of thee and it better thy sore gri®Vance should’ my hand | thy distress, I bore’ her in, and placed her on visit upon thy destrc”' * that which he meted | thy bed. There her swoon P into refresh- out to thee? Hath nov the great God, into | ing slumber. I left her so, and when at a later hour I sought her, lo! she had fled.” ‘* Pled !” ne re Flash Lightning, wonder- ingly. a Without saying anything?” ‘* But why should she do that?’ ‘“T have meditated thereon. Mayhap she awakened, and finding me with the serpents, fled in fear.” whose presence thou. “t gone, said—* Venge- ance is mine !/—I will re.ay ’ Hath He not set his seal of condemnat«m on the law—‘ An eye for an eye!—a tooth f-.. ~ tooth’? ‘‘See! Leaving the Great Avenger to the execution of His righteous law in his own food time and way, have not I done my part? im, for the boon of whose keeping thou didst bless the bounteous God in thy day of happi- ** And you followed her?” ness, and whose tender years thy death left un- ‘** Not so.” protected—him have I reared with watchful ** And why not? She could have told-us all.” ‘**Bnough,” said the old man, decisively. ‘‘ I placed myself in the hands of Providence, and was dir 1 to thee.” Puzzled by the snake-charmer’s evident re- ticence, Flash Lightning yet refrained from pressing him further. Presently Old Rattlesnake asked dedly: ‘*Know’st aught of this girl, other than thou has just told me?” solicitude—him have I loved much, that he might the less miss thy lost tenderness. ‘‘ Agatha! have I failed in my duty or my love for thee/—have not I done well?” For a time he sat thus, and then rose, pos- sessed by a feeling of restlessness. Leaving the house, he took his way among the rocks, eer me eg his hands, and muttering to himself, and looking anxiously about. He had not proceeded far when his attention ‘‘ No,” replied Flash Lightning, ‘‘ I never saw was attracted by-six pistol-shots, fired in rapid | her but once before.” ‘ succession. “Wilt tell me the time, and circumstance, and what passed between ye, if aught?’ Tie shots were repeated. ‘Tt must have been two months ago. ‘Tis some one in distress,” he muttered, and | on the cliffs above the gulch I told you about, hastened in the direction whence the sound and heard the baying of a dog, evidently fight- He stopped and listened. I was came. ing with some animal. Running to the spot, I When he had proceeded a little way, he fired | found a doe lying bleeding on the ground, and four shots from his own weapon. . beside it a blood-hound and a wild-cat fighting He soon got an answering signal, which was | desperately. Only a few paces from them ided to | stood this girl with a small rifle. And watch- ightning | ing her chance, she dispatched the cat before «ying. | my eyes, At sight of him the old man uttered a sharp | ‘She told me that the cat had dropped upon ery of pain, and ran and knelt down beside | the doe, and then the dog had gone in. him. ‘‘T cut the doe’s throat, and then offered to “Nay, my child!” he murmured, clasping the | skin it and take the hind-quarters to the girl’s hand of the injured youth, ‘‘ what misadven- | home. While she admitted that she lived some- ture hath laid thee helpless? Art wounded | where in the gulch, she begged me not to fol- sore?—say it not!—oh, say it not!” low her, or try to find eut tet ho pa more about repeated at intervals, until he was the ledge where he found Flash “Don’t worry, Nunky,” replied. Flash Light- | her, or to speak of her in Virginia City. ning, cheerily. ‘ I’m stove in somewhere about “Of course I let the thing drop, and that was the head-piece and I’ve got a kink in my back | the last of it. Now you will have to follow the that takes all the starch out 0’ me when I try to | trail of the horse to find where Arthur is.” set up; but barrin’ that, I'm as good as new.” Flash Lightning waited for some comment on ‘Thou makest light of thy sufferings, which | his story, but Old Rattlesnake, having made are not slight, I fear,” said the old man, anx- | him comfortable, left him with no further re- iously; “yet will not all thy bravery mend | ference to Berenice. broken bones.” Taking the trail of the horse, as Flash Light- ‘Oh; I'm allright. But, uncle, here is work | ning had suggested, the naturalist followed it to stead. Do you | the gulch, where his quick eye soon detected see this scarf? It belongs to Arthur Hamilton, | the curtain of vines torn by heedless passage. that 1 told you about. This morning I saved Lifting the curtain he peered into the mouth a girl from going over the cliff, by shooting her | of the cave. horse and catching her as she leaped from his All was dark, but from the cavernous depths back. It knocked me out of time, but she must | issued a low moaning, wailing sound. have escaped uninjured; for when I recovered, Listening, the old man’! determined that it « found myself anchored to a rock with this | was the voice of a woman in distress. for me, that you must do in m Beadle’s Half:Dime Library. ee ee — se ee — recemy ® then without fear, he ran araiust a curtain. Knowing nothing oi the interval ar- mo Die of the cave, he paused, and called ou ‘‘ Fear not, whoever may be in affliction, for I come to succor. I pray thee, strike a light, that thou mayst make known to me the whereabouts and surroundings that I may minister to thy needs.” Pausing for a reply, he received none; but the wailing sound continued, as if the sufferer were in too great distress to heed him. As he could do spree but lose his way in the dark, he returned to the open air, and made search for a splinter of pine which might serve as a torch. Soon he had a murky flame which he could bear about with him; and re-entering the cave, he proceeded to an inner apartment, where he came upon Aunt Sue, kneeling beside the empty couch which Arthur had occupied, wringing her hands and weeping and moaning in the keenest grief. As Old Rattlesnake entered with the light, she: turned and looked at him. The light fell full on his face and on hers. With a look of wild inquiry on her face, her’ laint suddenly frozen into silence, the poor, insane creature rose slowly to her feet and ad- vanced falteringly, step by step, until she grasp- ed the wrist of the hand in which he held his torch, and peered breathlessly into his eyes, ng her face scarcely more ae a foot from is. Then, without warning, she uttered a piercing shriek, and let go his wrist. At the same instant a sharp ~jaculation,escap- ed the snake-charmer’s lips—the torch fell from his nerveless grasp, to be extinguished at his AST pepe they were wrapped in utter dark- ness Old Rattlesnake heard a dull thud, and knew that the woman had fallen to the ground, pares SS SSC} CHAPTER XII. i A TERRIBLE BARGAIN! WHAT pen can describe Berenice’s feelings? She saw murder, utterly ruthless, in Patent- leather Joe’s eyes, and in Arthur’s a total un- consciousness of his peril. . Indeed, after the first greeting, Arthur’s mind passed from the gambler altogether. ‘* Berenice, is not the sun very hot?’ he said. ‘Let us sit down here in the shade. I feel so very weak, and my head is like a ball of fire. esat down in the shadow of a rock, and plucking a small reed with a ligulate flower, be- gan to pull out the petals, smiling, and saying alternately, as children do: ‘* You love me!—you love me not! You love me !—you love me not!” _ The pathos of his simple rt, in such utter ignorance of the awful peril that threatened , and in such tragic contrast with it, wrun the girl’s heart. She knew that it only steeled the soul of his waiting murderer. ‘*So!” sneered Patent-leather Joe. ‘A new phase of the game, and an interesting one, I as- sure you. This, then, is the way your courtship has been conducted?*—‘ You love me!—you love me not!’ No doubt you culled flowers that would make the issue accord with your wish.” ‘“There has been no courtship between us,” said Berenice, restraining her tears by an effort of pride. ‘** Indeed!” sneered Patent-leather Joe. ‘‘ Con- sidering that there had been no previous inter- changes of tenderness, I found my betrothed wife in a very strange attitude on my return. this morning !—and again but a moment ago!” ‘*Whether you believe it or not, it is the truth. Except on the occasions you have men- tioned, he has never uttered a word to me or committed an act which would be improper if I were already your—your—toward any mar- ried woman. And he knew nothing of our re- lations.” ; She stammered wretchedly in avoiding refer-, ence to herself as his wife. at hore Joe noticed it with a sardonic smile, ‘Tt was natural that you should conceal the trifling fact of your betrothal, while you were making love to him.” ‘‘T did not think of it; and I have never made love to him.” ‘Well, [have a better memory; and you will fiad that it was easier to throw away the rin that you wore than to evade the Obligation + symbolizes—at any rate, by marrying him!” And Patent-leather Joe scowled his murder- ous hatred at his unconscious rival. ‘Phave no intention of evading my obliga- » eom er } ehooksneom. -