Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 85 — page 1: what you’re looking at

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

pp ——__ Sani i ———— Vol. IV. Single Number. Buck Buckram; BESS, THE FEMALE TRAPPER. A TALE OF THE FAR SOUTH-WEST. BY CAPTAIN J. F. C. ADAMS, AUTHOR OF “‘ OREGON SOL,”’ ‘‘ GLASS EYE,’’ “‘ NED HAZEL, THE BOY TRAPPER,” ‘‘ NICK WHIFFLES’S PET,” ‘me WHITE INDIAN,”’ ETC., ETO, CHAPTER L A DEED OF THE NIGHT. ‘“‘Don’T you see the camp-fire yet, Buck?” ** No— ’sh! not so loud!” Two men, in trapper costume, were stealthily ypaddling an Indian canoe up one of the tribu- taries of the Colorado, in the far South-west. - Dark, heavy timber lined both shores, ‘and the faint | moon, obscured by the clouds [sees drifting past its face, threw a strange, flitting light over the river, relieved by the inky wall of shadow, that reached out several yards from land. Through this wild solitude, scarcely, if ever, visited by the hunter or CraRDSE these two men were making their way at midnight, one au- tumn, about twenty years 0. "eT he canoe was a small birchen one, such as the Co- manches and Apaches are in the habit of using, and, as the two occupants softly ressed their ace paddles neath the surface, they scarcely made a ripple, and the trained ear of the Ameri- can Indian would have noted their pro , only by that phantom-like figure gliding over the surface of the stream. Buck Buckram, a tall, sinewy, iron-limbed trapper, sabin the prow, his thin neck craned forward, as he peered forward into the Egyptian darkness, in his effort to dis- cover the little camp-fire, which he and his companion had left several hours batore. In the stern sat a heavy- framed hunter, Dick Havens who dallied with his oar, and at the same time managed to impel it at quite a rapid rate over the suritace of the creek. Both men had hunted and trapped at intervals during the last dozen years, and, in company with Dick Inglis, a younger and Jegs experienced mountaineer than them- selves, they had started from Santa Fe on a trapping expe- dition of their own, Buckram, although gener- . : | , - } ah \\)) My | “ _ Senne 7 . . . .~" he : ~ > . > - 7. \ : A > ‘ ~~ SU gr se SS i BEADLE 4 i PL den \ ANS " Ys saan WIN WI yi if W YY Copyrighted in 1879, by BEADLE AND ADAMS. AND ADAMS, No. 98 WILLIAM STREET, NEW YORK. ally starting from some of the New Mexican towns, had a home of his own in the upper part of the territory, to which, when not toiling for the necessities of life, he hastened, He had a beautiful half-breed wife, to whom he was de- votedly attached, although he had no children. The three men, after making a journey of several hundred miles on horseback, had turned their animals loose in a place where there was abundant grazing, and were not liable to be dis- turbed by Indians, and then had sought out their trapping grounds. Finding abundant signs around them, they had located themselves in this place, and’ had been here about a week at the time we open our story. They had met with unusually good success thus far, when they were annoyed by discover- ing that some animal visited their traps during the night, and destroyed whatever was caught in them, ‘*HE IS DEAD, AND THE APACHES HAVE SET HIM UP THAT WAY TO CHEAT US LL tllatelatalalallallalal) A a _—_~---—_--—-+-- - ‘ a4 — 2 a | \ ‘4 4 | cer MOON ~S ; Ke .y i™ oN NYO Ww ‘ ‘ ff \ 4 --- " ty ren, aia 14 PUBLISHERS, 5 Cents. To end this annoyance, Buck Buckram and Dick Havens made a nocturnal visit to their traps, in the hopes of detecting the intruder. After several hours’ hunting and waiting, they caught sight of a huge mountain wolf, that nu doubt was pleased at finding his meals prepared for him. A rifle-shot doubled him up like a jack-knife, and the two trappers set out on their return to camp. And so on this still autumn night, the two hunters glided silently up the creek, eyes and ears On the alert for danger. Their communi- cation was in those low whispers, which in the forest might have been taken for the rustling of the falling leaves. Suddenly Buck Buckram held his paddle mo- tionless, and with a faint “’sh /—” warned his comrade of the same. Halting thus, as silent and stationary as death itself, they detected through the hollow stillness of the night, a faint ripple, which an unexperienced ear would have deciared to be caused by a muffled oar, but which these two mountaineers knew to be made by some person or ani- mal swimming in the water. It was only the delicately trained ear that could have recognized the faint rustling ; but a moment’s listening sat~- isfied them both, that what- ever caused it was approach- ing them, and by an instinct- ive impulse, the light canoe was driven under the pro- tecting undergrowth of tho bank. Here the two hunters sat as rigid as the inky tree-trunks alon; shore. The creek wide- ning somewhat at this point, and the moon clearing, the clouds sweeping over its face, they had a quite distinct view of the center of the stream. Nearer and nearer came that peculiar liquid sound, until peering through the in- terlacing vegetation, they detec the huge head and lowing eyeballs of a pan- ther, swimming swiftly against the stream. As he came near the hiding-place of the hunters, his keen ol- factories scented their pre- sence, and he made a detour which carried him nearly inst the opposite bank. Ho did not land, however, but continued on in the cur- rent, until he was speedily lost sight of in the gloom of the night, and the wonder- fully acute ears of the hunt- ers quickly lost all sound of the retreating animal. A few minutes later, and the canoe was again descend- ing the stream, like the shad- owy figures ina vision of the night, and believing that all was right around them, the boat was impelled forward with greater swiftness than before, GOmMmicbooks (Elo)