Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 773 — page 9: what you’re looking at

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

s : Sd ote - . ~ d 4 ee ny ee a ee . . - x a gg A A OR TI OAL A - - _~ The Rustler of Rolling’ Stone. and Quintius recalled the distressing fact that the key was in the pocket of a coat he had not with him, Therefore, the only way to reach the upper apartment was by means of the dangling rope, Quintius was not possessed of a sailor’s ex- pertness at rope-climbing, but he was active and siuewy. He was resolved that those papers must be secured, if it could possibly be done, There were Only two ladders in the town, and the men engaged in fighting the other fire were making use of those, He reached the rope at arun, grasped it, and began to draw himself up, band-over-band, The building was not of great beight; neverthe- less, the task was one to tax all his strength. With every muscle strained, he worked slowly vp the squirming rope, coiling the lower part about his legs at times, that he might stop and rest. He was within a yard of the upper floor, when the door above him was suddenly burled open, and a man leaped over his head and to the ground, Quintius was so startled that he came near letting go and falling headlong. And weil he might be startled! The man bore the bloody face of the ghost of the Grizzly Bear Mine, As soon as the fellow’s feet touched the earth, he leaped up and darted away as nimbly as Red Fee had done, As before stated, Quintius Quartz had never seen the ghost of the mine; but he had heard descriptions of it, and these descriptions tallied exactly with the figure seen, For a moment he clung to the rope, bewildered and trembling, hesitating between a desire to descend and investigate this mystery, and to con- tinue on his way, The man had disappeared in the gloom beyond the firelight; and, after a mo- ment of thought, Quintius climbed tcilsomely on. He gained the room, which was already well filled with smoke; and after securing the papers an’ valuables, hastened down, The men were contending gallantly against the fire, The supply of water was wholly ivade- quate, however, and they could do little, By means of buckets passed from man to map up the ladders, they saved some of the buildings furthest removed from the conflagration; but tnose in which it started, with the ones adjoin- ing, were destroyed, ‘*And now what’s to be done?” the railway man inquired, when the flames had died down and he and Quintius were once more in conver- sation. ‘I’m afraid you’re done up, my friend! Your stamp-mill is gone, and ali your macbiner aud appliances, and your houses, The outlook is a little blue.” Q@uaintius was trembling from the strain to which he had Leen subjected, ‘7 am here, yet!” be declared, with a sudden show of vehemence. ‘And go long as I can move a finger, li notsurrender, The scoundrel bas burned me out; and the worstof it is, L’ll pot be able to prove it against him. Tom and I re- cognized him, but no one else did} and we would be considered prejudiced witnesses, I am in bet- ter sbape, though, than when I commenced the fight. He left me for dead, then. I’m very much alive, now; and he’ll find it out before I’m through with hin! ; **This will not prejudice the chances of the railway?” ‘*A great deal of the property in which I was to have an interest is gone!” was the dubious an- ewer, “TI understand that, but I have another pro- position, Get your railway here within a month, and I wiil convey to you seven-eighths of all my wig hor ig . | ** Which will leave you practically nothing!” “ That is true! Bat tre tn the hs to ohh, and I'll do it if it takes everything I have, If I ean’t down Lucky Ledge, I’m gone, anyway. If I do it, and secure the Grizzly Bear Mine, I'm all rigiit, Red Fee bas robbed me, and now has burned me out! Will you accept my proposal?” After some reflection, the officer expressed a Wiilizaess to do so; and the contract was writ- ten ous that night and signed, the officer depart- ing tor Sunset City before daybreak. Quintius had said notbing to bim of the rmys- terious figure that had leaped from the upper room of the office, He knew not what to say, or if it was the part of wisdom to say anything. Hence, bis silence. “Who was this strange creature?” he asked himself time and again, without getting any sat- isfactory reply, It did not seem possible that the ** ghost ” could have been there in collusion with Red Fee, en- gaged with Fee in firing the buildings. Every- thing in the past tended to show that this could not be the case; andif not, who was he, and what had he been doing? CHAPTER XII. LAYING FOR THE GHOST, RED FEE was much disconcerted by the at- tack made on bim by Tom, and was shaken by well-grounded fears when he rushed from the place. He had not recognized Tom, and rested under the delusion that the assault had come from one of the Rolling Stone miners, But he knew Quartz well enough, and could not doubt that Quartz knew him, A shivering sense of dread bung over him as he hurried homeward through the night. He anticipated arrest; and until morning walked nervously up and down the narrow confines of his office, trying to shape some plan of defense, His courage grew with the-coming of day and the non-appearance of the officers. Ata very early hour he sallied out to ascer- tain the exact nature of the damage done by the fire. The towns were so close together that he had been able to view the conflagration from his office window; but he sought more definite information. Even yet the red glow from the ruins tinged the eastern sky. The fire had summoned almost the entire population of Lucky Ledge, and many of these were still returning, dropping in by twos and threes, discussing the catastrophe and its prob- able origin. To the most obtuse, it was plain that the buildings had been fired, and much speculation was indulged in as to why tbey were fired and by whom, The absence of Red Fee from the crowd sur- rounding the buildings had not been noticed, and he now mingled witb the speakers and heard their comments without attracting suspicion, His uneasiness abated as the bours wore by and Q@uintius Quartz made no movement; and he rightly judged that Quartz feared to trust to the slender evidence he might be able to bring against hisenemy, Discourse with friends and boon companions—for Red Fee had these in abundance—increased his growing confidence; and before nightfall he had cast aside his fears ' and was again plotting and scheming in the old way, Now that Rolling Stone was practically de- stroyed, he felt sura.of success for Lucky Ledge, But this faith was qhickly shadowe:; for within less than two days it became positively known that the railroad was to be continued from Sun- set City to Rolling Stone, which was to be its terminal point for an indefinite period, The Sunset City papers were filled with re- ports and rumors concerning this new enter- rise; and much disturbed, Red Fee visited that ively town to learn the exact truth, and ep- deavor to induce the railway officials to con- tinue the road on to Lucky Ledge, He found his worst fears verified. The railway was to be extended to Rolling Stone, but nota yard further; and neither money nor prounises could induce those in authority to reconsider their decision, Red Fee returned to Lucky Ledge a desperate man. In spite of bis villainous scheming and crimes, ruin stared him in the face, Rolling Stone was rising on its ashes like a veritable pbosnix, and the restless and shifting population gathered at Lucky Ledge were moving or pre- paring to move to the more favored location, guided by an instinct akin to that of the rat that leaves the sinking vessel. He bestirred himself witb all bis might to counteract the many influences that were work- ing against bim. Early and late, night and day, be talked, persuaded, argued; set on foot schemes innumerable for the revival of the wan- ing business of his town: predicted untold for- tunes and glorious futures for those who remain- ed {true to it;—but all to no purpose, The men were going, and nothing could stay them: and as the days slipped into weeks, and the railway began to crawl snake-like across the ridges be- tween Sunset City and Rolling Stone, the flight became a panic, He had kept bis secretary more than busy all this time with appealing letters to parties in the East. He had sent out untold thousands of cir- culars and pampblets extolling the wonderful mineral resources of Lucky Ledge, and irs un- surpassed advantages from a mining and com- mercial standpoint; but all to no effect. Post- age and energy were alike wasted, There is nothing so difficult to revive as a waning boom, The railway was now within five miles of Rolling Stone and would enter that town in less than a week; and Rad Fee, sitting gloomily in bis office one evening, considered this and all ! that had befalleu him, and determined to again _--__oOoooOo- SS OS ees es =S— ds — Oe? ee ee make ap effort to rescue the Grizzly Bear Mine from the grasp of the spook, That was really the only mine there worth the working, It was indeed a valuable miae, and if he could drag up from its bowels the great wealth there stored, he might even yet tide over his ill-fortunes. Now, it was a useless property, wholly abandoned by the miners. No offers of increased pay had been able to secure its work- ing. Red Fee had tried not to think about it, and in the rush of business had succeeded fairly well. He had a spell of the shivers whenever his thoughts turned on the ghostly manifestations, ‘‘]'Ildo it!” be declared at last, after fidget- ing for a long time in an effort to come to some resolve, ‘' Thot’s a slick game being played by Quintins Quartz, or by some one he’s hired to do the ghost trick.” He tried to speak the words firmly, but they did not entirely reassure him, He could not but recall bow his shots bad failed of effect; and he had always prided himself on being an excellent marksman with the pistol. ‘*T don’t see how I missed him, when he was a-standin’ out that fair and open, but I surely did!” He got up and walked nervously from one end of the room to the other. ‘Yes: Ill do it!” be again exclaimed, taking out. his revolver and examining it. The grip of the weapon appeared to add to his kindling spirits, He slipped the cartridges from the cylmder, refilling it with fresh ones from a cartridge-case in the drawer of his desk. ‘‘Them look all right, and they’re big enough to go through either man or spirit, without any trouble!” He thrust the weapon into his hip-pocket, and sat down again to watch tbe slow-going hours. He did not touch the liquor-bottle this time, having some weeks before reached the conclu- sion that a whisky-fuddled head was not the sort of head needed to compete with the assayer. Tom Craigen, in the disguise of the ty writer, had been holding social converse with Louise in the parlor, and was on his way to his room as Red Fee left the bouse. He had de- scended with lightsteps, knowing from the lamp in the office that Red Fee was still there, and hoping he might learn something to his and bis brother’s advantage by a surreptitious advance aloug the narrow corridor. Red Fee had just stepped into the rear yard, having previously extinguished the office lamp, and was examining his revolver by the light of the moon, when T'om saw bim, Like intuition came the knowledge to the young man that Fee intended a visit to the mine; and he resolved to follow him, His curi- osity had long been aroused by the reports of the strange doings at the Grizzly Bear. After looking at his weapon, Red Fee moved away iu the direction of the mine; and Tom Craigen, not given time or opportunity to dis- card his feminine toggery, came after, Red Fee moved rapidly, and it did not take him long to reach the mouth of the mine. Tom Craigen was close at bis heels, and crawled into the tunnel-like entrance oply a few moments after Fee vanished, He halted here, fearing to go further, and waiting to be guided by sounds of l’ee’s move- ments. None such came, and in a crouching posture be remained there long and anxiously. Fee was also waiting: waiting for the ghost to appear. But though the hour of midnight came and went, nothing occurred to disturb the serenity of the night. Tom, tired out by ineffectual watching, was about to retreat, when Red Fe, moving back along the passage at the same time, almost tum- bled against him. Red Fee uttered a cry of horror, recoiling violently in the idea that he had come unexpec- tedly on the ghost; and Tom, equally fright- ened, also uttered an exclamation and essayed to gain the outer entrance, Tbat exclamation told Red Fee that this was not the ghost. In spite of its startled character, Tom’s crv held a strangely familiar sound, In fact, Red Fee was almost sure be recognized the voice as that of his tvpewriter, ‘‘Cuss ye!” he gritted, recovering and spring- ing forward, ‘Ill kill ye fer that!” Tom could not doubt that this was meant in earnest, and the fear of a pistol-shot from Red Fee’s revolver added wings to bis feet. But the wings were destined to be clipped, He stumbled against a stone, and rolled bead- long on the rocky floor. Before he could regain his footing, Red Fee bad reached him and grasped him firmly by the shoulder.