Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 81 — page 8: what you’re looking at

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

’ the fuse. 8 -_- there was an abundance of rich grass for their animals, and everything that could be needed by their riders. At one of these fires, a little apart from the rest, were three persons, engaged in the most pleasant converse, e long, lank figure, stretched lazily upon the ground, supporting himself — his elbow was om ape Jo, at his ease, with his nature all *“‘unbent,’’ and his humorous self at thesurface. As he talked, his black eyes sparkled, and his hand- some white teeth were constantly exposed as he ask- ed some question, or made some reply to Egbert Rodman and Lizzie Manning, who were seated upon the opposite side of the fire, rather closer together than was absolutely necessary, chatting with each | other and with the scout, who kept “chaffing”’ them so continuously that they had little opportu- nity for any private conference of their own. “You may as well wait, younkers,’”’ said Jo. “I don’t object to you squeeziaz each other’s hands jest as you tried a minute ago, whe. you thought warn’t lodkihecs but you needn't try to talk: to each other when I’m about. So wait, I tell yer, till some other time, for you ain’t going to get rid of me till you bunk up for the night.”’ ‘** No one wants to get rid of you,” retorted Lizzie as a blush suffused her face, and her eyes sparkle in the firelight. *‘ What do we care for you? Ihave no wish for any private talk with Egbert.” ‘Of course not; nor he with you; any fool can see that in both your looks 'specially in his. Bus that’s always the way. I had an aunt once that al- ways was interfering when any young dunces got t» fooling round. She had a son that she thought all the world of. He had learned the shoemaker’s trade, and when he was about forty or forty-five, he ot tender on a cross-eyed girl, with red hair that ived near him, and he went for her. My aunt didn’t like it a bit, and done all she could to break it up. She said if her boy would wait till he got to bea man, she wouldn’t object, if he would pick out a young lady for her worth instead of for her beauty, ashe had done. She done everything to torment the poor feller, giving him medicine to make him sick when he had a cial appointment with her, sewing big patches all over his coat, so that he was ashamed to wear it, and locking him in his room and giving him a good strapping when he got sassy and gave her any of his lip. ‘Cousin Josh didn’t mind that much, as he said the old woman had been a little peculiar ever since he had been ’quainted with her; but there was on> thing that he couldn’t get_used to, and that was her way of bouncing down upon him and hip sefiorita, = as they were beginning to act like you_two olks, ani thought nobody wasn’tlooking on. Thres times, Josh told me, he had got down on his knees and clasped his hands and shut his eyes, and was making proposal to his lady, and was just in the sweetest part, when he 1 tag his eyes and satv his mother standing afore him with a sweet smile upon her countenance, and more than_once, when he reached out his arm to put around the young lady’s waist, it went over the old woman’s neck, who was a-listening near, and who cuffed his ears for be- ing such a fool. ‘* Josh stood it as long as he could, but finally he got even with her.”’ ‘*In what way?’’ inquired Egbert. ‘*He got a big skyrocket made, and fastened it to the old lady’s dress, and got a little boy to touch off he last seen of my aunt she was whiz- zing and bobbing through the air, until she went out of sight. As she never came down ag’in, Josh wasn’t bothered any more, and he went on with his courtship and at last he got married and lived happy, as such a good boy deserved to be.”’ CHAPTER XVII. ON THE BRINK. Tux sentinels on duty at the grove detected more than once through the night the Comanches prowl- ing around the encampment; but they evidently saw enough to convince them that it wouldn’t pa to disturb the sleepers, and so they slept on, on, till the bright summer sun pierced the camp, an was active again. Then, as the preparations were made for resuming the journey to Fort Adams, and a careful reconnoissance of the surrounding prai- ric was made, not a shadow of a red-skin could be seen. ‘*I] was in hopes that I could get a crack at Swico,”’ remarked rg Te as he rode at the head of the company with rt Rodman and Lizzie Manning by his side, he upon her keepin him company when no danger was thereby incurred, as he declared there was no telling when such an opportunity would be given him again, and, as a matter of course, she was only too happy to comply with his wishes. “Twas saying that I had hopes of getting even with Swico, and he and me have an account that must be squared one of these days, but I wasn’t ven the chance to draw a bead on his shadow. owsumever, we'll get square one of these days, as my uncle used to remark when he cheated me out of my last cent, and then kicked me out doors when I asked him for a trifle. They’ve got some purty big devils among the Comanches, but I think Swico goes ahead of ’em all. Do yon know what sort of orna- ment he has made for himself, and which he thinks more of than any thing he ever had?” = two replied that they had never heard mention of it. ‘He wears a shirt of buck-skin, made without the usual ornaments of beads and porcupine-quills, but hung with a full, ws) fringe formed from the hair of white women and children ou needn’t look so horrified,’ the seout hastened to add, as he noted the expression upon the faces of his friends. ‘I’ve =r i Beadle’s Half-Dime Library. sent word to Swico that him and me could never square accounts till I got hold of that same thing, and I never can get hold of i, till I wipe the owner out, so you can see how /Aat thing has got to be set- tled between us.”’ ‘“* And if you hadn’t come to Dead Man’s Gulch as you did, that fringe would have been ornamented with my tresses,’ said Lizzie, looking with an awed, grateful look at her preserver. ‘*T s’pose,’’ was the matter-of-fact reply, “‘ the old scamp was expecting me, and I wonder that he waited. But he sloped when some of his scouts sent him word that we was coming. Howsumever, what's the use of talking? I don’t see as you've got any reason to think any thing about him.” “Where do you suppose this Comanche chief and his band are now?” inquired Egbert. ‘‘ OF over the prairie somewhere, looking for more women and children. That’s his forte, as they say down in Santa Fe, and I rather reckon that there are plenty more in the same boat with him.”’ The subject, at the present time, seemed distaste- ful to Lightning Jo. The fight was over, and he considered all danger at an end, and despiteasthe bier, with its awful load, that followed in the rear of the cavalcade, he seemed to feel a certain buoyancy of spirits that was constantly struggling for expres- sion in his words and manner, The morning was clear and bracing, and but for the lumbering wagons the whole party would have been bounding forward at a rate that would have car- ried them to Fort Adams within the next few hours. No interruption occurved until noon, when a halt was made for dinner, the cavalry being provided with sufficient rations to make it unnecessary to use the rifle in quest of gam. By the middle of the afternoon they were within a dozen miles of the fort; and, as there had been no signs of Indians visible since starting in the morning, it was concluded to be no violation of prudence for the main body to gallop on to their destination, leaving the wagons to follow at their leisure, it being confidently expected that they would come into the stockade shortly after nightfall. Lightning Jo and a dozen of the best men, includ- ing Gibbons, Captain Shields and Rodman, remained with the smaller party. were mounted, fully armed and Pipes with an abundance of ammuni- tion, so that no one felt any misgiving as to the re- sult of this proceeding, which at first sight might seem imprudent in the highest degree. In case any formidable body of Indians should put in an appear- ance, and it was deemed best to avoid a fight, the wagons could be abandoned, and the women and children taken upon the horses with the men, and pe tent would be as rapid and sure as could be de- sired. Nothing but the sternest necessity could induce Lightning Jo and his party to abandon their dead friends to mutilation and outrage at the hands of the Comanches; but they deemed that necessity so remote as scarcely to require a thought, and so they separated, and the main body rapidly vanished from view. A few miles further on the prairie was broken up in ridges and hills of such size as to merit the name of mountains, and Jo declared that several miles could be saved by a? through these. He had done so several times, and knew of a pass through which the bp tae could be drawn with as much ease as upon the open plain. Before entering this, however, he displayed his usual caution by galloping ahead and making a re- connoissance, from which he returned with the an- nouncement that nothing in the shape of Indians was to be feared. “There seems to be a heavy storm coming,’’ he added, as he glanced up at the darkening sky, “ but we can stand that in the mountains as well as upon the prairies; so let’s go ahead.”’ As the little company rode into the ravine, and marked the ominous gathering of the elements, more than one was sensible of a singular depression of spirits—a strange, chilling foreboding such as sometimes comes over us when standing beneath some impending calamity. And, indeed, Lightning Jo suspected the ap- alling danger which was already gathering over brave band, he would have gone a thousand miles before venturing a rod into that ravine! CHAPTER XVIII. SHUT IN, Tus little party of horsemen had scarcely begun their é through the hills, when it became evi- dent that they were to encounter the storm of which htning Jo ken. The warm air became of chilly coldness, and blew in fitful gusts against their faces, the sky was rapidly overcast by dark, sweep- ing, clouds, leh the rum ling omg sd peesoagied er an er, rolling up from the horizon like the “chariot-wheels over the court of heaven,” while the forked lightning darted in and out from the masses, e streams of blood. A few scree birds went skurrying away in a cloud of dust, and the appearance of every thing left no doubt of the elemental tumult that was on the eve of breaking forth. “We're going to catch it, you bet!” remarked Jo, as he looked up at the marshaling of Nature’s forces, clappin hands to the top of his head as if fearful that his cap would be whirled out of sight by the tornado-like gust of wind, “but it _would be worse out on the prairie than down here.’ He had to shout to make himself heard, although the lovers, Egbert and Lizzie, were riding close to m. Moe former shouted back the return in the ques- on: : “Can we not find shelter before the storm comes? We shall all be drenched to the skin, if we are ex- posed to the deluge for the space of five minutes.’ “Certainly, we can find shelter, and that’s just what I’m going for this minute. We'll make it afore the deluge comes. If we'd been on the perai- rie we'd had to hold our hair on, and we’d have got such a basting that it would have taken a lifetime to git over it.’ ‘**Couldn’t we have found shelter in the wagons?” yelled Egbert. Jo's face could be seen to expand in a grin, as he made answer in the same vociferous tone: ‘* Shelter in the wagons? I've seen that tried afore —when the covering was slathered to ribbons in the wink of an eye and the wagons went over and over rolling like a log, going down the side of a moun- tain till they went out of sight, and when we rid our hosses ‘long over that same route, we made our camp-fires with bits of wagon for the next fifty miles, I reckon you haven't had a storm sin’ you left St. Louey?”’ ‘*Certainly nothing like /Aal,’’ was the answer of Rodman, who thought the scout was drawing things with rather a “long bow.” ‘* We had several storms, such as struck us all as being very severe.” “S’pose you thought so; but they were the gen- tlest of zephyrs alongside of some that I've butted ag’in’. Icame over the plains with a —s in "48, when I was purty yovng, and took my first degree in perairie storms then. We were ‘bout a bundred miles out of St. Louey, when we butted ag’in’ a dead high-wind, that got so strong that we see’d purty soon we shouldn't be able to stand. When I see'd how things was going, and that my hors was a-slipping backward, 1 jumped off my hoss, and laid cown flat on my face and held onto the ground; but it wa'n’t no use. Isee’d my animal going end over end over the plain, looking like a dough-nut turnin summersets, and, finding I was blowing loose, crawled into the wagon in the tallest kind of a hur- r ve ‘“‘And there you were safe,’’ remarked Egbert, knowing that something stunning was at hand. ‘Yes, I rather think we was,”’ he answered, iron- ically. ‘*When I crawled into the ox-wagon, I found all the rest war there, and the old shebang was al- ready going backward, and gaining every second like a steam-engine. You see the wind was dead ahead, and the cover of the wagon acted like a sail, and it warn’t long afore we was a-going over the pe- rairie at a rate that you never dreamed of. You can just bet things hummed. I looked out of the side of the coach, and see’d the wagon-wheels going round so fast that you couldn't see anything but the hubs, and they had a mi sort ot look, from bbs geag round in such style. me of the women got a little nervous, and said they preferred to ride at a little slower gait, and axed me, if it was all the same to me, if I wouldn't shut off a little steam. All T could do was to put on the brakes, and the minute I cone that, I see’d a flash and they was gone!—jist like a pinch of powder—burned up by the friction. ““So I told the folks to compose themselves, as I reckoned we war in for it, and we'd all go to pieces together. Well, now, that shebang kept going fast- er and faster, I jist tell you things buzzed for awhile. I looked out the tail of the wagon (we war going tail foremost) and see’d ourselves going right straight for Devil's Humps—which you know is two mountain peaks, something like a quarter of a mile apart. Thinking every thing was up, I eg scrooched down in the wagon and watched o see ourselves go. I anon you will think I'm ex- eggerating, when I tell you we went right up the first mountain-peak, which was half a mile high, as quick as a wink, but there the wagon struck a rock, turned summersets; but it was going so fast that it shot right across from one peak to another and gene to light right side up, we kept straight on for St. Louey. That ‘ere jump from one mount to another rather mixed us up, and some of the women complained of being "se yn a little. Howsumever, we got straightened up after a bit, and then begun to watch ee, a I knowed there was fun ahead, when I see’d a thundering big drove of cattle right in our patb. They tried to get out of our way, but they couldn't, and we went ht through them like a cannon-shot, and when I looked back I see’d a regular tunnel through the drove of buffers knocked to flinders. You see there was several purty good-sized streams in our way, and when we buzzed through them, some of us got our clothes a little moist, but we had to let things go and, to make a long story short, we never held in until we reached St. Louey, where we shot straight through the biggest hotel, and into an old lady's cellar afore we stopped. ‘‘Of course we was a little shook up, but that was nothing to what we met next day—”’ Lightning Jo suddenly pa , in the very mid- dle of the sentence, and his companions saw his face blanch, and his eyes flash, as though he had caught sight of some new and appalling danger, CHAPTER XIX. THE TERROR OF THE PRAIRIE. THERE was no need of Lightning Jo telling what it was that so startled him, for following the direc- tion of his own gaze, every eye saw it on the in- stant. On the upper caren of the precipitous chasm or cafion, through which they week Np their way, ata point about a hundred feet above and directly over them, was the apparition which had so startled Captain Shields when in Dead Man’s Gulch. The mustang was standing as motionless as then, and the same ge Bp dal nondescript was perched upon his back, its black head turned a little to one side, while it was evidently gazing down upon them with a fixed, intense stare, corm i 5OOKS.COMm