Beadle's Dime Library No. 1 — page 26: what you’re looking at

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

lel — siege and there’s where they | eleven feet long—that would accurately shoot | the poor fools that had one 'to the top ot | clear out of t. The trouble was, however, | the lady, ‘to take » the rock, fur it had never theix heads that, whenever the soldiers who carried lishing. 26 on imo i % could not be climbed. It seems to be one per- pendicular mass of solid stone.” , “So it is in front and the rear looks the same, but there is a place, out of sight till you make a purty good hunt for it, by which you “san. raake your way to the hs ge ‘ve been to the top a half-dozen times, and when you're up there, you get a bigger view than you ever had afore. I don’t know how it is, for we've all been up onthe mountains, fifty times higher than that is, and we've all see’d a condemned lot of kentry stretched out before us; but it must be that the land slopes away in every di- rection from Blacktoot Rock, or else you wouldn’t-git such a big view from the top of it. But that ain’t the question just now, though Uve no doubt that it was on that account that this little band of red-skins that I’m telling you *bout fixed on this neighborhood as the best lace for them to enjoy themselves as a real dian likes to enjoy himself. ** You see they wasafeared the rest of their people, that per had sich a condemned diffi- llty with, might take it into their heads td fol- ler On arter ‘em, and settle up the grudge. So they made it a p’int to have a warrior go up to the top of the rock every morning, noon and night, to see whetber any of their old enemies were trying to steala march onto’em. ’Cause a winter and summer passed away, without catching a glimpse of any of ‘em, they didn’t make up their minds that they wasn’t never go- ing to come, but they kept their watch just as close as ever. ‘*So things went on till the dead of winter again, and when that comes in these pores, you know it’s winter and no mistake. There ain’t any foolin’ bout it. The Hudson Bay Company owned all the country through here then, and a hundred years before it, jist as they own it now, and it wasn’t long before these varmints found that they had a pretty good thing of it. Beavers and otters, and foxes, and martins, and all sorts of game was as plenty as anybody | could want it to be, and they got good prices for their peltries, so they wouldn’t wanted things any nicer, if they could only felt that the other | skunks wouldn’t come down to raise a con- demned diffikilty with ’em. ‘Twas in the dead of winter, when one day | just as it was growing dark, the sentinel that | oo to Be “op he the rans spies. . light | 66 Views oes he ote rei a a or act?” about ten eS e soutn a © ‘The last time I see’d him, he was disguised never see’d afore, and which he didn’t know | as an Englishman, and was carrying a com S what tomake of. He signaled to twoor three , with him and looking south for north, couldn’t ve is. | Cones Bhs nes om h we ee a get nogh to eat, and went by the name of Per- simmons! boi = of the bee mer sy thagy oe me | The; laugh that followed wae . roar, and the roc morning, without an and wi r Englishman was an astonished man, How nothing but their blankets, watching that fire oe that old wood tramp become possessed not and trying to learn what it meant. only of his name but of his very peculiarities? doch Ra's igh ten mals OE ME edsaer go | nate Shah pet toad at ne eae plan ; ; , made it a ** poin 0 @ at was p fa . im into a silence which o a © same, so they made up their minds that it was a | comic effect of the whole Tuctesadicias carap-fire of their enemies, who had started to | Oregon Sol’s eyes; if their expression of quiet amet a think that some of their runners | Seen pe aah pnp ict eS mama eouao neg | S| tra ick’s source 0 ation. would have reconnoitered the camp during the With that yarn Green ordered all men to nignt and one =~ to.a certainty he onety their blankets; and when, the maming oume, and power of the strangers,” remar vaptain and Fitz looked around for his erer, he Dick, who, like the others, was listening with . was nowhere to be seen. deep interest to the narrative of the trapper. | At break of day Old Nick had vanished, even That’s the identical. observation I made to | more silently than he had come. . Black Dick when he told me the story, and he Cn eee ee ee - oe a that that would be the way the business would be fixed. ‘‘ As it kept snowing half the time, they man- aged to keep off thirst, but arter awhile their provisions give out, and then the rough times come, They had swore not to eat each other, as white folks do, when they get cotched foul in the same way, and they kept their oath. When they found that there was no gettin’ out of the muss, one of the warriors proposed that they should all commit suicide, and he set the ex- ample ky jumping from the rock out upon the river. ‘the ice was eighteen inches thick, but he struck it so hard that he made a clean hole, and shot out of sight. The next Blackfoot did the same, aiming so well, that he went exactly into the same hole, and then the others follered, all aiming so straight, that they popped through the opening, one after another, like a lot of sheep jumping over a wall. és But they didn’t all do that. The last one that was leit was the biggest warrior of the whole lot. When he walked to the edge of the rock to foller the others, he looked over, at the hole in the ice, a hundred feet below him, into which all his brothers and sisters, and uncles and aunts, and cousins, had gone, and he shook his head, and he said he rather thought not. It was his opinion that the rest was a pack of fools, _ and he turned back, climbed down the rock, and making his way out among the other Blackteet, he ax something to eat. ** You see he’d been up there in the snow and cold so long that he was bleached almost white, _ and he looked so queer and foolish like that the other red-skins hadn’t the heart to hurt him, and so they took him and nursed him and fed him,—but they suffered for it, artd it placed them _in the condemnedest diffikilty they ever dreamt of. That chap was so hungry he couldn't get thing they could catch and shoot, and done it so alone and master of the situation.” | young Swoper. ‘* Never went under; he’s living yet in these parts. Ive see’d him often.” said he had remarked the same to the old trap- per that had told the yarn when he was a boy out he didn’t get a satisfactory answer. So I can’t give you a good reason why the Black- foot didn’t do that thing, which it seems would have been very natural for ‘em to do. There | BEAT TIME’S Ordnance Department. Wauen I was chief of the ordnance dep ment during the war, [ spent most of my time, and a good deal of my ingenuity, in perfecting arms. was plenty of snow on the ground, and they could have made the ten miles there and the. ten miles back ag’in without any trouble, but they | didn’t choose to do it, ’cause popes they was saree ‘nough Whos the condemne —e Ma without goin ‘ouble, al, when . é' mornin y ote about twenty warriars took a _ The first thing which I-did was to improve a squint from the top of the rock, and it didn’t thirty-two pounder. I improved it greatly— need a second glance to see that an amazing that is to say, I scoured it; all over and took the war-party of their enemies was coming for em | rust off—it was very black. , dead sure. Next, in view of so many guns being spiked “* When they see’d that, of course they had a> talk as to what was best todo. A good many | wanted to poe up and go further north, but the biggest lot said no,—-their pursuers could go | as far they could, and they would have to e | a stand and fight somewhere, and they couldn’t ta place as good asthis. So they concluded | S go up on top of the rock, taking their provi-_ sions with ’em, and then their foes might bang | ner, I had a battery of ten guns cast without the that had escaped my mind; so there was noth- ing left to do but have the guns condemned, or to invent a cartridge that would go off without away till they got tired. « touching. I had the guns condemned. ‘* They soak al day in getting ready, and Then i invented a carbine that would shoot _ when night come, the other B eet to the ecient along without stopping. It was a number of a hundred a peared on this side the | success. I a regiment with them, but, while they went off whenever you wanted av eaPOn per. a: A TRE ANE RENIN them to, the trouble was they also went off fin ey ae per nt py h to me ga | hen you didn’t want them to eir arrers © a rus up , when n ‘ the rear stairs, but they didn’t try it the Second afterward used to throw at the enemy, and time. were found to be very serviceable for that pur- ‘‘ They see’d that nothing could be done in the , pose—better than anything else. way of fighting, and fond they backed off, and be- | I invented a long range rifle—the barrel was 6) » urin ttle w gunners went to din- hat way |. ‘ Aas balede eet " Al ended at last in the devil to pay. vents, so there would be no possibility of their — ever being spiked. When the battery went into - action in the next battie it was discovered that — couldn’t. touch them off—a little matter | ’em to give him a chaw of tobacker and — ‘nough to eat. He put himself outside of every- | fast, that afore they knowed it, all the rest of | the Blackfeet had starved to death, and he was | The New York Library. Vol, I. got into a fight, they would shoot out of sight hemselves. It would hit a man five miles so quick he wouldn’t know it; that was the worst of it—he would never find it out. l reorganized a fuse cannon—that is, I did away with the fuse. However, it was re-fused by the Board : [ invented a very complicated gun, with a view of dispensing with so much powder, but it: worked too well; it dispensed with more pow- der than we could haul to it. I threw all my energy into the production of a rifle that would astonish the Gods of War themselves, and succeeded. A full description of this wonderful gun would fill two volumes of the size of Webster’s Dic., so I won’t describe it. It was very complex, and it was also in- volved in endless “hires Gre But, the corps which was armed with them found, after a very careful test, that the stocks were given to flying off and the balls to staying in the barrel. An order was issued for the guns to be reversed in the next fight, that is, to point the stocks at the enemy and fire, but, so many men were slaugh- tered in this way, that the foreign nations deemed it contrary to the rules of war, and it was abandoned, at their urgent request. As revolvers are so apt to go off on all occa- sions, I perfected a new style which wouldn't Bo off even when you wanted it to, and the arers could be just as careless as they pleased It was a very healthy revolver. I got up a revolving mitrailleuse, all thatwas necessary was to attach it to the nearest ee. stone and go to work turning the cra ‘It would shoot in all directions with facility and danger. The trouble about that was, it took many mento work it. Whenever one took ho to work it he would drop as if he was shot, and upon examination it was found that he certain- ly was. It would take a regiment of. men to work itan hour, and soon up. The soldiers got discouraged, and rather objected to work it; so we allowed it to be captured by the enemy, who fired at us all the next day with it, and then we | went over in the evening and buried them all. ‘‘ What become of ‘im heventually?”’ inquired I next invented a torpedo, a most beautiful thing asa work of art and a means of death, ‘You don’t say,” remarked Fitzsimmons. | _ the | | It was filled with half a barrel of nitro glyce- rine, and had a percussion-cap on one end of it, and nicely gilt handles at the sides. It was designed to be carried by seven men who, dur- ing a battle, would eieb it up, run straight to the rebel general’s headquarters with it, where ~ he would be sitting on a camp-stool, there sect it down, while each of the seven would grab neral forcibly, sit him astride the torpedo and hold him there, while the eighth man, who would be along with a hammer for the pur- pose, would strike the cap and the rebel general would go to see his grandmother. But, I don’t know now what reason the men had for not un- dertaking the job, although I told them I would send them—not lead them, mind. What I have done for my country nobody ever will know. : Prouuly, BEAT TIME. me eee THE ORIGIN OF THE CIGAR. The. devil one day ina sad, listless mood, Had laid himself down on the edge of a wood: ‘But, bent on some mischief, he cast his eyes round, ‘Spied near him a bunch of coarse leaves in the ground, And aon hey tough things, which he crushed in s fist, | Then rolled out, and worked at, and gave thems . Then . twist, rinned at his work with satanic delight! bre aa brimstone tail he then struck up & i With : Bit, Set the end of the weed with a spark all on fire, And found the result al] that man could desire! The stench that arose was so horribly dreadful, Bugs, beetles and spiders swooned off by the hand ful. ‘Ha, ha,’’ said old Nick, ‘now I'm off to the city; I'll kick up a row; if I don’t more’s the vols From that ane f forth wit there arose such a din, Nick wagged his old tail, looked on with a grin, _ While now in each household the women made war -‘Gainst Satan’s invention, the potent cigar. They were | outfit of a Black ; : ; much. He is a per They were nght; for the cash t was squandered A. DENVER journal records a case where 4 Chinaman ‘‘was frostbitten from this cold world into the rosy future.” A PERSONAL editor, two shot-guns and a flour sack of assorted type, are said to complete the > newspaper office. ‘‘See here, wife you indulge that too ect mule.” ‘‘Oh husband! lease don’t accuse our boys of having an ass or a father.” The old man was silent. A MAN who was rather rough in his manners joecosely observed to a young lady that he was Zhout to be married, but as his affections were divided between Miss Mary Brickdust and Miss Betsey Primestuff, he was at a loss which by all means,” sai to choose. ‘I advise ust—you them | po IOO <€om ‘S (E Sia (E() ‘