Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 768 — page 6: what you’re looking at

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

6 Eagle Ned, the Boy on Guard. away and forgot all about the woman he had followed to the place, If be had followed Selina instead of letting Doodles claim all bis attention he might have witnessed certaiu scenes which would have opened his eyes still more, He might have seen the dark-eyed woman en- ter a small chamber, the door cf which was eu- riously set in the wall. He might bave seen her proceed toone corner where she found a wooden chest of old-style which she opened with a smal) key. Selina took from the chest a package which she opened and held before the light she had made. Her eyes were all aglow with a singular light, and her hands see.ned to delight in opening the package in them. Selina uttered a cry when she had accomplish- éd this and when she saw glittering in her brown palms something thac looked like diamonds, There was a necklace of gems and they shone with dazzling luster in the gleam of her lamp, She looked at them some time when she put them back, relocked the chest and went back, She left the mine perhaps unwatched by Doodles and retraced her steps to the palace. If Phocion could have seen her he would have thought more of Selina’s cunning than ever, for the door in the wall she had found in the dark as if she had the eyes of the owl, Doodles wasasleep in his chamber when the womun came home, She stole on tip-toe to the room and looked in upon the half-breed boy, “You don’t want to follow me,” said she, showing the hilt of a dagger while she looked. **The moment you play spy ut my beels that mo- ment you are doomed, and the Spider will sting you tothe death. The Spider? Ha, ha, 1t bas already fastened its fangs on the otber one, and ere long there will be another dead person in camp,” Like a cat, Selina stole back to her room, but the moment she closed the door the boy sprung from his couch and listened at the portal, Doodles’s eyes were full of eageruess and he had all the cunning of a trained bloodhound as he listened there for the fading feet of The Count’s sister. Instead of going back to the couch in the chamber to which he had been assigned on com- ing into Jack Jargo’s bousebold, he slipped from the house and made his way down the street. At the door of Phocion’s hut he stopped ahd appeared tolisten. He seeined to take an inter- est in jthe man with the red beard and it looked as if he was playing spy on bim. From Phocion’s shanty he went over to Alta’s bumble home and there he stopped some time with bis eyes ou thealertand his ears glued to the pane, All at once the figure of The Count crossed the th of the half-breed boy. He caught sight of ack as he came from Black Burt’s den and fol- lowed him, but at respectful distance, He did not want to be caught on the track of the lord of Ragged Robin, nor was he anxious to feel the grip of the big yellow bands, oodles swung himself from a ledge near the main mine and remained crouched in the shadows some time, Everything was still. Not far off lay the mountain graveyard where the body of Lazarus had been “ planted,” and beyond it stuod the tall pines that lifted their heads above the mounds, Suddenly this silence was broken by a cry and then all was still. It was sostartling that even the cool-headed Doodles sprung to bis feet and listened. He knew it was thecry of a man, a man in his death- agony, and be seemed to wait for the return of the slayer. Doodles did not have to wait very long fora figure tocross his path. Presently hesaw one coming toward him and in a second he became as arock on the ground. Noonesaw him, The eye of the nighthawk would not have found him there. Down the trail moved the figure he saw and when it bad vanished, Doodles rushed away but not after it. Half a minute later he was bending overa form on the ground and be was looking onto a face Pug vee | growing white with the strange hue of death. Another victim of the Camp Spiders! The half-breed boy stooped until bis face al- most touched that of the man on the ground, The closing 7 saw bim, but their owner seem- ed to sbrink from the dark face of the Comauche's protege, . A hand red and huge came up and fell heavily upon Doodles’s shoulder, ** ‘You know who did this, but you won’t tell, gwill you?” said the dying man, **T have been killed by the same band that found Lazarus, but you belong to tbe prince of demons and of course you won’t tell what you know,” With a gurgle the man turned over and seem- ed to bury his face in the ground, ‘* Who did this?” asked Doodles. ‘*Who? Ah, you know, for you are his slave!” That was the last utterance that came from the lips kissing the dark soil of the mountain camp. The man gave one shudder, his shoulders were drawn up and when Doodles looked again he had stretched himself out likea giant and was dead, The boy rose and looked all about him, He had a secret, but what would he do with it? Would he go and raise the alarm? Would he run into Black Burt’s and tell the night owls there that on a certain spot lay Red Mart stabbed as Lezarus bad been and probably by the same hand? He did nothing of the kind. Instead of rais- ing the alarm, Doodles, as if be bad the fear of Jack Jargo before his eyes, went back to the palace and crept to his little room, Let some one else find the dead man, Let an- other than he discover the second victim of the Camp Spiders. He was but a boy and lived with the boss of the camp, and was not the person to put his own bead in danger, or to throw himself into the death web of the moun- tain terror. It was a long night for Doodles. The next mornivg he looked toward the grave- yard with the scenes of the past night fresh be- fore him and wondered who would be the first to find the victim, He came down and caught the eyes of Selina in her room. The woman looked searchingly at him and Doodles wonder- ed what she would say if she knew that he had been at her heels and had followed her to the mine? All at once there ran across the Plaza a man with broad shoulders and a flowing beard, Doodles saw bim balt in front of Black Burt’s and as he left the house he distinctly heard what he said, ‘““Red Mart’s follered Lazarus!” cried the miner, who was frightened as with a nameless terror. ‘I’ve jest found him on bis face near the clump of lightnin’-struck pines. He’s as dead as a mackerel, an’ in his neck is a hole,” Those who heard these words looked at one another, and by and by a line of men crossed the Square and followed the discoverer to the tragic spot, Sure enough there lay the body of the mur- dered man, but this time the event did not cause wnuch comment. Men looked a moment and then turned away, some without remark, and all with their thoughts at work, Doodles, who had followed the crowd, looked into the faces of all, and when he had seen the last one enter the saloon, as if all roads in Rag- ged Robin led to it, be turued away. ‘*That makes two,” said a voice so near the half-breed boy that he turned and looked at the speaker. The red beard of Phocion waved in the wind, and thé boy saw that bis teeth were hard shut, The old man seemed to bave aged much since the vanishment of Kagle Ned, and while Doodles eyed him heseemed on the eve of going to where he stood, but he did not. ‘Come here, boy,” said the red-beard, Doodles looked a moment longer and then went forward, As be approached Phocion, be saw the keen eyes of the tall man riveted upon him, and when the hand touched bim be was drawn to the miner’s side. ‘** What do you think about this thing?” asked Phocion, ‘‘You must have an opinionif you are balf Injun.” ; ‘IT know notbin’,” said the youth, ‘**T didn’t ask you for what you knew, I only asked whut you think. There have been two men tilled within the last few days, an’ both have been wiped out in the same manner— stabbed in the neck with a blade long enough to reach their hearts. First it was Lazarus, now it is Red Mart, They call you Doodles, Was that yoar name in Comanchedom?” ** It was,” said Doodles, drawing back until be was released by Phocion. ‘** Well, you either don’t want to talk or you won't, one or t’otber,” grinned the tall miner, and in another second Doodles was running off, followed by the eyes of the man who had re- leased him, “Hang it all, the eyes of that boy have a familiar look when you get right onto them,” muttered Phociov. ‘‘ They remind me of Eagle Ne«d’s, they are sokeen and clear, But I can’t get that last sting of the Spiders out of my head, I wonder if the insect won’t turn on me soon, as I am ratver anxious to discover certain secrets,” Yes, Phocion, the eye of the Spider is upon you, and already you stand in the shadow of the terrible death felt by Lazarus and Red Mart, As for Doodles, the mysterious, he had van- ished, and Phocion stood looking after him, as if he thought he had dismissed him too soon. CHAPTER VII, IN THE FATAL WEB, Tux half-breed boy went back to the house occupied by The Count and his sister, All was still and for once he did not pass under the keen, suspicious eye of Selina, hen he came to look for The Count be discovered that he was not to be found in the house and this somewhat surprised him. Did he know that Red Mart had been murdered and was he out somewhere tryiog to sift the mystery of the death to the bottom? , All at once Doodles knew that there was some new excitementin the camp. He heard a commotion in the Square and looking out he saw a number of men bavipvg in their grip Stirrup Steve, The youth was calm and his eye sought out the men one by one and looked them coolly in the face. Doodles watched these events for a little while when he was disturbed by the en- trance of Selina, She came in without much noise and when the boy turned and saw her her eyes seemed to blaze. ‘“‘They have the young gentleman in the grip of the court,” said she, leaning toward Doodles in her eagerness to impress the fact on bis mind. ** What is up?” **Tbey’ve found the man who killed Red Mart.” **'You don’t mean Steve?” ‘*T mean .no one else,” and Selina went to the window which commanded a view of the Plaza, ‘They have it solid on bim and we shall have a hanging before to-morrow night.” The youth turned once more to the window and saw Stirrup Steve taken off by the mob. He knew what was iu store for the young miner if the hands of the Spiders were upon him, He knew that he would be hanged without mercy, that if the least evidence,.even circum- stantial, could be held against him, he would be carried to the merciless noose of Ragged Robin and strung up in the light of the sun, For a moment Doodles watched these proceed- ings which were seen by the light of the moon which painted the Plaza in white and when he heard Selina glide from the room he stole from the house, The first man be ran across was Tbe Count, ‘‘ Have you ccme out toseethe young pris- oner?’ asked Jack. ‘*They seem to have a death-hold on bim and if they can prove what they say, there will be food for the birds for we won’t let bim lie on the mountain.” Doodles saw in the eye of the speaker a fierce, eager gleam and when he passed on the boy stood like one petrified in the moonlight. Stirrup Steve, Alta’s friend and lover, arrest- ed for murder? Nearly everything seemed possible in Ragged Robin and Doodles with a good deal of intelli- gence in his eyes for a half-breed, seemed to re- flect while he watched the vanishing figure of The Count of the Black Mesa. He slipped down to Black Burt’s and glided into the bar-room where the crowd was, There he found the subject of the murder and arrest discussed by all, and with his ears open the youth took in everything that fell from the lips of the mountain toughs, ‘Ain't the knife enough to fasten the whole thing on him?’ cried a man whoran his band through his long, sandy beard, ‘' It war found near the body and when he came back to Jook for it, why, we caught him, for Bill yonder had found the blade an’ everybody knew it for bis,” Doodles seemed to start at this, What, Stirrup Steve’s knife found near the corpse of Red Mart? Thet was bad, The sentiment was wholly against the young miner. In the first place, they had never taken kindly to Steve because be would not mix in the wild orgies of the dens of Ragged Robin; then, he owned a mine which made bim some money, none of which he wasted at the faro tables of the camp, but kept it for a sister he said who lived somewhere in the East. Doodles heard a good deal while he listened in the saloon. He eagerly drank in every word, betraying by nothing that his sympathies might be with the man who seemed to have no friends at ali, and as he lived under the same roof with micboo - ie 7 a 2 % —s o° ; > Jt. SM Al") “-< se ; Lvl. a) ‘ 4