Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 90 — page 20: what you’re looking at

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

20 panting for breath, stops beneath the old live oak. ‘Thank God! Iam not too late.” They are the first words the Phantom Horse- man has ever been kno wn to utter. As his gleaming eyes wander over the crowd, they rest upon Curt Dash, just leaving the outer edge. Quick as lightning he raises that fatal weapon. ‘‘Hold there, Len Moore! Another step and I will shoot you as i would a dog!” The Regulator has cleared his course; he will risk a shot from his mysterious foe before he, will turn at bay. Safe from that he can escape. So, plunging the rowels into his horse, he dashes forward. But, only for an instant, when he comes face to face with Mark Waring! “Stand, Len Moore! Your race is run! your game is up.” CHAPTER XXVIIL “BEHOLD THE MASKED OUTLAW!” SUDDENLY a man has sprung into the Regu- lator chief’s path, and at the muzzle of a rifle he is told-— “Stand, Len Moore! your game is up!” With acry of mingled rage and despair Curt Dash is compelled to stay his flight, Baffled at this very moment of seeming success, his rage is succeeded by amazement, ‘* For God’s sake! are you Mark Waring, or his ghost?” ** Ha, Len Moore! you thought I was dead— died of terror and starvation in that fearful dungeon, But, thank Heaven! I was allowed to escape the awful doom to which you had consigned me, and hope to live to see you meet the fate your crime-stained career demands,” Curt Dash seems stupefied; the crowd is astounded. What does it all mean? “There is some fearful mistake,” cries Curt, quickly recovering, ‘or you are trying to frighten me.” “There is no mistake, as you will find to your sorrow. At last your are caught in your own toils. Come; you are wanted under the oak,” ‘“‘-You can shoot me if you dare, Mark War- ing! but I deny your right to command me, Rangers!” he continues, turning to the crowd, ‘‘ will you stand idly by and see your leadez abused?” In answer, not a move! not a word! ‘“‘Men of Chesterville,” shouts Mark, ‘I denounce this man, whom you have heretofore considered a friend; he is a traitor and an out- law; behold in him Brad Wayne, the masked outlaw! "« Liar!’ fairly hisses Curt. ‘‘T do not ask you to take my word for this,” continues Waring, without heeding the other’s interruption, though closely watching his move- ments, ‘‘ but give him a trial, and if he is not what I have said, let him prove it; if he is, let him suffer, and not the innocent man he has caused you to drag to the slaughter.” The appeal has an effect. “Trap him!” cries a voice from the crowd. ‘¢ Never!” cries Curt, fiercely, and in his des- peration, he thinks to escape. But in the twinkling of an eye a dozen men hurl them- selves upon him, and after a severe struggle he is a prisoner, bound hand and foot, and borne beneath the tree. * This can’t be possible!” exclaims Colonel Raymun, the most astonished man in the crowd. “Mark Waring, you are crazy!” ‘“‘ Excuse me, colonel,” replies Mark, respect- fully, ‘but I have proof of whatIsay. Be- sides, do not his own actions condemn him?” The colonel vouchsafes no reply. He, like the crowd, knows not what to think or say. ““Good Heaven! had you got to that?” cries - Mark, as for the first time he notices the situa- tion of Vall Deckers. Then, without another word, he frees the Regulator. A murmur from the crowd, only, whether of assent or not none can tell. ““Wagh!” exclaims Gil Rey, who has watch- ed the scene with eager, curious gaze, ‘1 Your race is run! The Dread Rider. reckon, Mark, ye w’u’dn’t hed thet privilige « it hedn’t bin fer the gal hyar.” ‘‘You are right, Gil; and to you I oweu debt of gratitude.” Then, without heeding the assembly surrounding him, Vall turns to the heroic girl, who has dared and done so much for him, and seizing her hands, he ex- claims; , ‘Oh, Miss Raymun—Bessie! had it not been for you, my noble—” ‘Vall, oh, Vall! what did it all mean? You are not an outlaw?” and she falls into his out- stretched arms. ‘‘No, thank God, no! deal, but I am safe now.” Wonder upon wonder! when will mystery cease? The spectators are more amazed than ever; but now, save Curt Dash alone, there is not a dry eye in the throng. Even the stern and pitiless horseman, who has watched the foregoing events in silence, is moved with emotion. All seem to realize that there has been some dreadful mistake. ‘Come, come, daughter!” cries Colonel Ray- mun, as soon as he recovers enough to speak, ‘* vou will please go with me.” ‘‘No, no, father! not till I see the end of this.” | ‘‘Girl!l what do you mean? Will you bring dishonor upon yourself and parents by asso- ciating with an outlaw and desperado?”’ Plainly, the colonel is getting excited. “Father! how dare you? Mr. Deckers is a gentleman. But even if he is Brad Wayne, the outlaw, I would not undo what | have done, for Ilove him! J love him!” Who can say this would have been better unspoken? Certainly not Vall Deckers. “Pardon me, Colonel Raymun,” speaks up the Regulator quickly, “but wait a few mo- ments before you judge. Perhaps I am not what you think. It is time the vail was lifted, is it not, Mr. Dare?’ he asks, turning to the strange horseman. “Yes, yes, Noble; the time has come. Our work is nearly done. But you or Mark must give the explanations. J cannot go over those scenes again; besides, I do not feel like my- self to-day. Ithas all been too much for me ” “You are the one to do it, Vall,” adds Mark. ‘“ Take it from beginning to end.” ‘If you can explain all this mystery, Vall Deckers,” supplements the colonel, ‘‘do it at once, I am impatient to know what it all means. ” ** Spot ther trail,” chimes in Gil Rey. ‘‘The story! The story!” chorus the others. It was a terrible or- a CHAPTER XXTIX. _VALL DECKERS’ STORY. “GENTLEMEN of Chesterville,” begins Vall, “our friend, Mr. Waring, made a startling as- sertion when he said that Curtis Dash was Brad Wayne the outlaw leader we have so long dreaded; still it is to prove not only this but other crimes of which he is guilty, and to show him to you in his true character, that I am about to relate the following, hoping you will bear patiently with me to the end of the sad, terrible history: Four years ago I could have shown you in the state of Louisiana as happy a home as the sunever shone upon. A father, mother, daughter and son completed the family circle, though the last was then away at college, Suddenly a wolf entered the fold. A man, or rather a fiend in human shape, with flatter- ing address, stole away the daughter’s girlish heart. He told of the wealth and luxury he would bring her, of the happiness that would be theirs; and beguiled by the serpent’s fasci- nation, she, knowing her parents would object to the union, consented to flee with him. “‘ What a fearful mistake}! Soon he, as all other wretches of his stamp do, tired of her; and feeling the gulf widening between them, in her desperation she besought him by their holy marriage to respect and protect her. Then, in a few harsh, scornful words he told her that marriage was all a sham, all a mock- ery! ‘‘Oh, God! the misery that followed! Re- turning from college, where he had graduated with high honor, light-hearted, justly proud in carrying to his loved ones the achievements he had won, and expecting a glad welcome, he reached home—alas! barely in season to attend his parents’ funeral—his father and mother, whose gray heads had been brought down in sorrow to untimely graves by a daughter’s dis- honorable conduct. While she, innocently the cause of it all, was sleeping in a suicide’s grave, “Can you blame me, that son, if I re- nounced everything else of life, and vowed I would spend the remainder of my days, if ne- cessary, to bring that villain to punishment? ‘‘Two years | spent in ceaseless wanderings before I found any trace of my man. Then, at a settlement on the Red river, I learned of one whe I judged must be he. Here he was the leader of a gang of cutthroats known as Morgan’s Band. But he had fled the country, and none knew where he had gone, though it was thought to the Taos Valley. ‘Before leaving this place, however, I made the acquaintance of one who had as deep rea- sons to hate the now outlawed desperado as myself. This man had been active in trying to bring Morgan and his confederates to jus- tice; and they, when compelled to seek satety in flight, sought vengeance upon their persecu- tor by surprising him, the very night of their departure, in his quiet home, burning his cabin, murdering his wife and child before his own eyes, and then hanging him to the nearest tree, till dead, they supposed. But at the moment they were finishing their terrible work, a brother of the dying woman, having learned of the bandits’ nefarious intentions, was hurry- ing to warn his friends of -danger, and reached the ill-fated place just as the devil’s horde was leaving. He cut down the husband ere life was extinct; but the wife and child were be- yond the scenes of this world. ‘Suffering from two wounds received while trying to defend himself and family, both made by poisoned bullets—though why copper was used instead of lead is more than I know —one upon his face, and the other in his leg, causing the amputation of that limb, and snatched as he was from the very grasp of death, it was a long, long time before he recoy- ered, and then only to be, in body and mind, a wreck ef his former self, ‘Perhaps I need not tell you that my friend here,”—pointing to the rider of the roan horse —‘ Mr. Albert Dare, is the sufferer to whom I refer; and Mark Waring is the brother of that foully murdered wife. ‘Jointly, we three renewed the oath I had taken, including now not only Morgan, as my hated enemy then called himself, but his eleven followers. “Time passed on, and it seemed like a fruit- less mission. Mark, as you know, came to Chesterville, and settled here. In Taos, Mr, Dare found two of the outlaws, and ended their career of crime. But nothing could we find of him whom we most cared for, the leader of the gang. ‘‘ At last, in answer to the request of Mark, I came to this county. Judge of my surprise, when, soon after my arrival, I found myself face to face with the very same man for whom I was hunting. Mark had never known him, and he had never seen my friend or me, so that the recognition was wholly upon my part. ‘““My foe was your favorite, standing the highest of almost any one in Shelby county. I knew that an attempt of mine to expose him would be not only a failure, but dangerous. ‘‘Mark and myself, undecided how to pro- ceed, but still determined to make him suffer, went to Mr. Dare. In a short time, suddenly and unexpectedly to us, he made his appear- ance at the shooting-match, crazed with a spirit for vengeance. You know its result and the duel which followed. Then commenced the chain of mystery that has so puzzled you. ‘6 Wark had seen but one or two, and I had never known any of Morgan’s Band, as they were called, so of course we were unable to detect them, though they might be in the midst com ebooks-com