Beadle's Half Dime Library, No. 962 — page 12: what you’re looking at

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

ce th en Bei /aark, for there may be 12 Flip-Flap Fred at Hard Pan. trail to follow. We will take it for granted that he is going to try to get some one else to take up the trail that he dares not follow him- self, If I had not been fool enough to show my- self when I thought that [ bad him foul I would mot have to be so cautious now, While the hounds are playing away their time on the fel- lows that be was fool enough to turn louse | might be teeny in my work. Now, I don’t see thatit will be safeto move until we have boosted him over the range.” ** And who is going to carry out that little part of the programme? You had him at your mercy, downin his camp, but you were too aw- ful anxious to have a whole gang at your back, and work the thing up by moonlight, with the rest of that romantic nonsense, If you had held dow and pulled a trigger he would have been out of the damp, and the girl safe enough in our hands. If he got away with half a dozen of us, what chance do you expect to have when there is no one but you alone in the swim?” ‘*Oh, come now, you are mixing things all to here and come back again. It was because | knew him so well that I didn’t care to try him alone. If you had brought the Lambs along with you we might have gone back and settled it perhaps; but as it was I preferred what | thought a certainty. Now, it’s a desperate case, and the risks must be run, Until I satisfied m y- self that the girl with bim wasreally the right one it would have been fool’s work to have chipped in; and it did not seem safe to let him get into Hard Panif it could be helped. [ sus- pected then that there were others ready to take a hand in the game,” **And now you knowit, Just whoit is that is ranning things from the other side is what I would like to know. Supposing it should be Sanford himself?” ‘* Don’t take up with any such fool’s notion. Simon Sanford is dead enough, and I’m not afraid that his ghost will rise up to take an in- terest in the affuir. The best guess that 1 can make is that it issome one who has struck the trail of Cyrus Dawling, and wants to take bim in on the old account, The money is still up for the taking of him.” ‘‘ And why hot help them along? That would get him out of our road, and no questions asked,” ‘¢ Because it is not so sure that the fool might not prove his innocence after all, and get loose in time to say cnueckmate, No, we must run it as we laid it out; and at the same time find out who is the other party that is trying*to,slip {in an oar.” ‘“* And by that time find that we are a shade too late and our cake all dough. It’s a big pile of money to play for; but the risks begin to look considerably bigger, and we are not going to have the game to ourselves, All right, though. I’ve risked my life every month of the year on chances that chouldn’t turn out half so big as this may,and it’s not likeiy that I will show the white feather now. If we have the girl, as I suppose we have, there is that much as a starter; and the rest will follow.” ‘¢ We should hear from Evans to-night in re- ard to tine girl—though the coming to town of awling alone tells the story plainly enough, We will dispose of Cyrus to-night in some-way, To-mwrrow the balance of the work can be done here, and then this region will know us no more, And ‘if there are avy inquisitive souls who want to hook for us in a.month from now they can hcunt and welcome. ‘Keep yourself hidden until some one here who can tell you in any disguise. After that the perfor- wnances will begin, and Amariah Holdfast had better look out for his necktie.” Although there was a chance that he might be seen by Dawling, Northrup did not believe that under his present disguise he would be recog- nized,and very boldly made his exit by the front door. Helooked calmly up end down the street, and then walked slowly away, with a lounging gait that was totally unlike his usual rapid step. On the other side of the town was a saloon known as the Gem, whsre various bad men had their headquarters. Toward this Nestor bent his steps, and entered without meeting any one who cared to speak with him, At the bar he halted a moment. ‘¢ Any one asking for me?” he queried, ‘‘No one up to the present time,” was the an- swer; and after having disposed of a glass of ‘* poison ” he on toa little room in the rear of the building, after the manner of a man who was well acyuainted with the ins and outs of the place. He found himself alone there, and throwing himself down onarough bunk closed his eyes. In a short time he was sound asleep, and was only aroused by the entrance of a man, who stumbled heavily into the room, through a side door, the key to which he held in his hand. At the scund of the footsteps on the floor Northrup came to his feet with a bound, a re- volver in his hand; though, before he had the bg he poised, he recognized his man, ‘*‘You, Evans? Whatt you here?” ‘‘This!” retorted Evans)hrowing back his | coat, and showing a bandage across his breast, from under which the blood had soaked, splotch- ing the grimy shirt below with a great, dark stain, ‘tome one that can sling an arrow where he wants it, laid for usin the bushes, and when we were thinking the chance had come to get ia our work he did for us both. Ben is in a worse fix than Iam; and youcan bet your life I would not have been hereif I hadn’t thought it the square thing tocarry the news if I died doing it, You will have to get some other men for the work; Ben and I are laid out for a month,” A hearty curse fell from Northrup’s lips, while he stared at the man as if unable to entire- ly understand his intelligence, ‘‘ Before you got the girl? Where, then, has she goue to? Curses onit! If we had not been so busy getting the goods out of sight, for fear they mignt fali into the hands of the hounds, I would have known why the racket failed, even if I missed the shot. Yet let him getaway with you? IJsthat your say-so?” ‘‘Tf you wantit that way. The old coon has managed to hold over pretty good men before this; I don’t know thet we ought to be so much ashamed if his cerds were too big for us, But I don’t think it was the man with the bear that did the trick. He hadn’t time to get out of town, It was more like Injun work. There ain’t many white men that can send an arrow a hundred yards and make it go through flesh and bone like this chap did; and follow it with another before the first one got to its mark. We were to scout around, and if we saw our chance sailin, We thought we saw it, and was laying out to act accordingly. Then—we didn't think about seeing anything, much, for a while. [ was afraid you would think that we had made the riffle, and perhaps act accordingly, or | never would have risked my life crawling in, Now, send out for Pete, This thing may be worse than it looks, and a pew bandage on it will feel safer. There’s a chunk of a rib miss- ing, but I don’t think it carried any of the vitals along with it. ‘¢ [1] send him in, and see that you are cared for in the best of shapes. I reckon you did all that you could, But I would give a thousand to know who has the girl.” CHAPTER XIII. MORE UNPLEASANTNESS. ‘‘ WELL, it serves my mother’s only darlin’ about right,” was what Fred said to himself, as he raised himself on his tip-toes to look around, ‘‘T had fair warniu’ what sort of a hairpin he was, and went to sleep while he was doin’ ther watchin’, 1 reckon he got tired, an’ went where he thought it didn’t need a feller ter keep his eyes quite so wide open, Now, what’s left in ther box fur Fairy Frederick? I know I haven’t ther ghost ov an idear where I be, an’ it’s a thunderin’ long ways ter water.” From the moment his eyes had rested on the spot where the horses had ‘et the night before, and where they certainly were not now, the boy had felt sure that he was deserted; and that if he wanted to get safely out of the fix he was in, he would have to paddle his own canoe with all the vigor that was in him, Otherwise, it was not likely that Amariah would have left the spot, however temporarily, without awakening him: and the absence of both horses was a cer- tificate that he hed no notion of coming back, The spirits of the boy rose to the occasion, how- ever; and he uttered no great moan over his un- comfortable and dangerous position. He was not at all sure that he would give up the pursuit; and to strengthen himself for whatever tasks might be before him, he first and foremost made a sparing breakfast out of the materialsat hand. Then he threw the haversack over his shoulder, placed the saddle behind a rock, where it would not attract attention in caso any of the men of whom he was in pursuit should bappen that way again, and turned his attention to the trails that/he hoped to find, The course the night before had been to the south, and southward he now started. It was not hard to follow the trail that lay there, and for an hour or more Fred plodded along. He was just in the unamiable mood to stick dogged- ly to whatever hs began on and despise the mos ordinary precautions, To be sure, as far as he could see, the road, if‘ road it could be called, seemed to stretch out interminably before him; and if he had not seen anything of the kidnap- rs at the beginning, it was scarcely likeiy that © would meet them before reaching tho other end, He thougkt of danger, now and then; but it was not of the present, His eyes explored the ground in front, and he took it for granted that his flanks were protected by the walls of the defile, that for the most purt were not far apart, and arose like the sides of a canyon. The result was that he was more than startled when the bight of a lasso dropped suddenly over his shoulders and he was hurled to the ground by a dexterous twitch that was given at the other end of the rope, The noose pinioned his arms tightly to his sides, and though he was able to scramble around a little, he was not permitted to rise until a man had caught him by the collur and, raising him up held him at arm’s-length while scrutinizing his face. Fred was not inclined to surrender, and as the lasso dropped from his body when he was taken charge of by this second individual his hands were again free, and he at once began a desper- ate effort to escape. His heels went up, and then back, gathering momentum in the swing. Then his feet rose again, and he turned a flip- flop that wrenched him out of the hands of his captor. Only, as he landed full in the arms of the man with the lasso, who had hastily drawn nearer, there was little made by the ex- change, ‘* Ah, the little monkey!” exclaimed the man from whose hand he had escaped. ‘* Hold him tightly, and look out for his claws. I have no doubt that he will scratch if he gets the chancy What do you suppose he is.doing here?” ‘‘ It is another one of the party—the boy I told you of. He must have been with the man last night, and somehow escaped. That would ac- count for the other horse, I don’t see how we came to miss him; but he don’t look as though he could 16 much damege,.2t the worst and now we hse ye him, anyhow.” ‘But it speaks poorly for the vigilance you displayed. If the two#were camped together, I cannot sse how you were so grossly careless as to miss him, That will have to be investigated . by and by, At pré@fent there ds..no' ing te but to take him ulong to the den. Yow will re- maip here on the watch, while J return and have an interview with the other prisoner, [ will know botter then what to do with them both. At one time in my life 1 wouilu nave known what to do without considering, As we grow older we grow either a great deal cooler or a great deal hotter.” The latter part of this was more in the shape of a soliloquy than a piece of information, and the speaker waited for no answer. From a niche inethe side of the canyun he led out a horse, and taking the boy from the hands of his companion, he placed him in front, and started along the route that Fred had been pur- su ing. A ther the failure of his one great effort, Lim- berleg remained discreetly quiescent. Itis true that the way he was being treated hurt his feelings somewhat, They said not a word to him, and took it for granted that as he was only a boy he was to be treated with silent con- tempt. On the other hand, this gave him a chance to keep his smartness to himself, and left them to believe that it was only an ordinary boy they had captured, whose feelings were not worth the ventilation. He could consider the circumstances of bis predicament at his leisure, and plan his course according to the develop- ments as they came, One thing he heard that gave him real plea- sure, Amariah had not deserted him, A\l- thouzh he had not believed that Holdfast could be caught napping, there was certainly some allowance to be made for him. He had had his rest broken for several nights, and Fred kne.,. by his own experience how sound a sleeper he might have been if he once allowed bimeel” glide through the gate of dreams, Where they were going, and who these men were, was, of course, a mystery, Hoe suxpected more than ever that Amariah might have given him a valuable hint on those points if he had been so minded, and was inclined to be more than angry with the wonder-man that he had not enlightened him as to what this was all about. It would be an extra chancein his favor, just now, if he knew who this man was who ept such a steady, yet unconscious grip on his collar. At any rate he began to believe that he COLAC oreye) eS) com h