Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 94 — page 13: what you’re looking at

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

) ' / ‘chap’s pulse before I get away. ———— eee —— ee —_—_--— The young savage lifted his eyes, and stared aghast at the apparition. ? They seemed to retreat, affrighted, deep into their sockets, and all at once, with a startling ery, he sprung back among his companions. ‘The Evil Spirit catch boy’s stick! It reach- es clear down from sky. Look! look! my bro- thers!” a2 The remaining youths, full of curiosity, not unmixed with fear, came forward. Torches blazed for a moment about Gopher Gid, and then retreated suddenly, their holders uttering cries of terror. There was a further exhibition of cowardice on the boy Sioux’s part; they turned and fled, frightened almost out of their wits by the hand which their superstition had called that of the Evil Spirit, under whose pro- tection Gopher Gid must be. But, all did not immediately fly. The leader sprung forward again; but did not glance at the hand. He now had no dogs to beat back; the animals were flying with their owners, glad, no doubt, to escape from the leath-dealing club, or sharing the terror of their red-skinned masters. The Indian boy leaped to the foot of the tree. ‘**Wachetoc, the Bad Spirit, cannot set the white boy free!” he said, showing the knife that glistened in his right hand. ‘‘He has fought well; he shall live; but he must go away.” Then the knife, sharp and keen, cut the cords that bound the boy’s | Ar to the cottonwood, and as he tottered forward like a drunken man, the liberator with a horrified glance at the ghostly hand overhead snatched up his torch and ran away. Free? Gopher Gid could hardly realize his good for- tune. His limbs, cramped by the cords, could not support the weight of his body, and he fell heavily forward where he lay among the dogs which his cudgel had slain. ‘*T am free!” he exclaims. ‘* The hole in the hill shall see me yet. What is the use of des- pairing while life lasts? That devilish hand has saved me, Now if Midnight Jack and Rube were here! Hark! what was that?—the club has fallen down!” The little trapper dragged his bruised body to the foot of the tree, and saw the stout cudgel lying on the ground. The hand had released it. “That hand is dead now!” said Gopher Gid, looking up, and seeing the outline of the mys- terious arm above him. ‘‘ Did they not bury ~ Tanglefoot in a tree? Maybe Midnight’s bullet did not kill the old fellow. Ah! whatif that arm is his? But they lifted him high among the branches—tied him fast with buffalo thongs. IT heard one of the party tell the story after his return. : Gopher Gid could not take his eyes from the hand that dangled above his head. It was al- most within his reach. The moonlight stream- ing through an opening in the foliage revealed it to him, but pertinaciously concealed the face which must be above. 3 ‘Tt is Tanglefoot’s hand!” he suddenly cried. “There is the broken finger. But, why does he not speak—why not come down? Why not? He is dead! Thatisit. He held the club un- til life became extinct; then it dropped from his hand. This must be so. I will feel the old It will be some satisfaction to know that Timon Moss has smuggled his last cargo of whisky over the frontier.” ; Eager to set his doubts at rest Gopher Gid stood on tiptoes, but could barely touch the fincers. He then drew the carcasses of several of the dogs out of the fallen brutes to the spot, and mounted the pile with better success. * Aha! I’m high enough now, thanks to my club!” he cried, and this time his iingers touch- ed the white wrist. But the next moment a piercing cry welled from his throat, and starting back he slipped from the carcass, to find himself swinging In mid-air, caught in the strongest of man-traps. His touch had quickened the Fanging hand into life; if he had sprung a trigger in the wrist it would not have closed the quicker ; and before he could withdraw his fingers, he was in the power of the eo trap. : The little trapper’s toes barely touched the round, and he tried in vain to wrench his hand rom the trap, and to drag the man from his rch in the tree. _ ‘Out of the frying-pan into the fire!” ex- claimed Gopher, in no good humor. “TIT have caught myself ere angers are getting cold— as cold as 1ce angieloot r ” Then he called aloud: y dead? sé ? . Can’t you come down? [ am in your hands, Midnight Jack. Timon Moss. I cannot getaway. Midnight did not finish you, then?” But not a word in reply. The leaves above him did not stir, there was no breeze. “IT shall go mad!” cried Gopher Gid. ‘* Must I yell to bring the Indians back? They could hear me at the camp—Midnight and Rube! I will shout even though I rouse the devils at the dog-feast. Tanglefoot is dead! That cold hand belongs to no living being!” The boy lifted his voice and sent it through the forest, again and again, the shrill cry of ‘‘ Help! help!” went down the grassy aisles of the wood, but elicited no response. From the direction of the camp came a series of yells that seemed curious to the fan boy. He grew silent and listened; he heard the Indian drums, the yelps of dogs, the cries of savages. ‘‘The orgies after the dog-feast!” he said, to himself. To be held in mid-air by the hand of a dead man is not calculated to create pleasant sensa- tions, even in the heart of the bravest indi- vidual. Gopher no longer looked at the hand; his eyes were other where; he was trying to make out the figures that had crept across a belt of moonlight and disappeared not far away. He had seen them for a moment; but in that brief period of time had recognized them as In- dians. Were they hunting him? Had the red boys told the story of the spectral hand at the vil- lage, and was he to fall into the power of the Sioux? The boy’s orbs were strained to keep track of the stooping figures now in the wood. Mid- night Jack and Rube might be among them, for they wore the garments of the Sioux. But the figures left him perplexed, mystified, despairing! Daylight would soon come. Was that dread- ful hand to hold him there forever? Never was prisoner better secured than he! ‘| will end this!” he cried. ‘If I cannot pull my dead foe down [| will climb up to him, Who ever was caught by a dead man before?’ Gopher Gid now tried to carry his newly formed project into execution. He swung him- self against the tree, and when he had estab- lished a good momentum, he caught a limb with his only free hand and drew his body over it. But, his other wrist was still griped by the deathly fingers! He paused |for breath and then parted the leaves that hid the body of his captor from his sight. ‘* Just as lexpected!” he cried, starting back yee his words. ‘Tanglefoot was not killed in the camp. They put him alive in this tree. Ah! he could not come clear down; this rope held him fast; it lowered him to this place but would help him no further. Dead? dena as a herring.” The bloated but white face of Timon Moss was upturned to the little trapper. The Indians had washed it before burial, as if unwilling that the coward of the Rosebud should be buried with a scarlet skin. The little eyes were star- ing upward, expressionless, but shining still; the body lay upon two limbs, and the rope which reached far above and lost itself among the branches, told the boy that it was fastenec in the top of the tree. Tanglefoot regained consciousness to find himself immolated in the top of the tree. The Indians had spared the gin-smuggler his revolver, which still stuck in his belt. It was soon in Gopher Gid’s hands. _ “Tt shall free me!” he cried, as he snatched it forth and set the hammer. ‘ It shall unlock the trap that holds my hand.” With eyes that flashed for joy Gopher Gid leaned over the hand that clutched his wrist. He thrust the muzzle of the revolver against the lifeless pulse and touched the trigger. _ There came a flash, a dull report, and the boy jerked his hand loose! The arm of the dead was still hanging rigid from the foliage, but the wrist.was so shattered as to be scarcely able to support the weight of the hand that dangled from it. 6 2+00d-by, Tanglefoot!” said the boy hero, leaping to the ground. ‘I’m rid of you for- ever. Now I’ll see the cave in the hill again!” But, he did not hasten from the spot. — ‘*'They are over there in the camp!” he said. “They were going to help me to-night—Rube said so. Should | desert them? That would not be fair. Old Rube has helped me—he has saved me from Tanglefoot’s revolver. And Midnight Jack’s sister is yonder—that girl for | 13 whom Gopher Gid would risk his life, if he never has seen her!” A moment later the boy was gliding from the scene of his exciting adventures—hastening straight toward the Sioux village, to be near his friends who might be in danger. ‘*T wouldn’t be worth shucks if I left them now!” he said. ‘‘One good turn deserves an- other. I’m nobody in particular. I’ve got no- thing to live for. Nothing? Ah, 1 wonder if a fellow feels like as I do when he’s in love.” The boy smiled to himself, even laughed; but he ceased abruptly, for, not twenty feet away, an Indian was drinking from a spring that bu bled from the ground. Gopher Gid cocked the revolver in his hand, to see the savage leap to his feet and seize a re- peating rifle. ‘‘Sett_ag Sun!” ejaculated the little trapper, and then he touched the trigger. But the hammer fell with a sharp click upon the empty cartridge, and the Sioux chief uttered a cry of sarcastic triumph thereat. “Tl try again,” was Gopher Gid’s reply; but the same result ensued, With an exclamation of rage, the little trap- per threw the pistol at his feet. He was at the mercy of Setting Sun, for he stood in the moonlight, a splendid target for the Indian’s aim. ‘‘Shoot!” he said, aloud. ‘“ Better to be killed by an Indian than die by dogs or a dead gin- trader’s hand!” In response to his words, the chief’s face drop- pes to the stock of his handsome rifle. Gopher tid saw his eyes scintillate at the butt of the barrel, “Tl face death with my eyes wide open!” he thought. ‘I guess Pll never see you, Dora!” Then came the clear, ringing report of a rifle. It awoke the echoes of the romantic little glade, in which Gopher Gid and his executioner had unexpectedly met. CHAPTER XV. THE DEATH-SHOTS, SETTING Sun’s rifle was dashed from his grasp and the chief sprung back with a tigerish cry of rage. In his red right hand he held a knife whose long blade glittered in the light of the moon, Gopher Gid, unhurt, stood bewildered in his tracks; but he did not see the Sioux chief alone. From a clump of tall bushes, not far from the spring, a human figure bad bounded like a pan- ther. This individual was now approachin the Indian at a rapid gait, and the hand whic he stretched out held a formidable *‘ navy,” “Stand!” a stern voice said to Setting Sun, who, hardly recovered from his consternation, was waiting for the attack, knife in hand. ‘ An. other step, and by the gold of Ophir! the Sioux ’LL have to elect another chief!” The savage obeyed the summons. Wonder- ment beamed in his eyes, but he did not move. s joyful cry burst from the little trapper’s throat. He now knew the man whose bullet had dash- ed his would-be-executioner’s rifle to the ground, The voice—the well-known expression ‘* By the gold of Ophir!” had fixed his identity. Setting Sun braced himself more firmly as that deadly pistol came nearer. He, too, knew the man who held it; the paint could conceal the road-agent no longer; the flash of the Sioux’s eyes told that Running Water was not a Teton re but Midnight Jack of the Deadwood trail, Instinctively the glistening knife crept men- acingly back; but the road-agent’s eyes caught the motion. ‘“None of that!’ he said. ‘*If you don’t want the moonbeam fairies to get into your head, chief, you'll keep that knife still. Pve got you, and this is the pistol that has never missed its target.” The chief glanced at Gopher Gid, who was standing an amazed spectator on the spot where he had first halted. Then he turned to Mid- night Jack and made a singular motion with his left hand, which caused a halt. ‘By the gold of Ophir!” was the response. “You don’t mean it, chief?” The sign was repeated, It lowered the revolver, and the boy was sur- prised to see the two men shaking hands on the spot where he had expected—even hoped—to see Setting Sun fall in the agonies of death. ‘*Come here, ofl ag At these words the boy-trapper bounded for- ward, and halted before the pair. ‘The dogs didn’t devour you!” exclaimed Midnight Jack; ‘‘ but their teeth have rent your clothes. The Indian boys lied.” _— - — ee -o (EO@AANICEl eKeo KS (E(@)