Beadle's New York Dime Library No. 1003 — page 13: what you’re looking at

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

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Gold Dan. “That fallow killed the mah.” “®o I think, but I couldn't prove it.” “J know him of old!” the Texan cried, hastily, his eyes Gashing wildly. ‘It was always a common trick of his to carry a derringer in his pocket and fire through the cloth without drawing it; he discharged it with his left hand; he is as good a shot with his left hand as with his right.” “The deuce he is!” the Danite exclaimed, in amazement, “Well, I never knew that before.” : ‘*Oh, I know the man so well—almost as well as I know my- gelf.” ‘Why, I understood that you were a stranger in these parte.” “ And so Lam.” ** How is tt that you know Gold Dan, then?” “I do not knowhim under that name but under another.” “J never knew that he was called anything else, and Ive known bim—not intimately, but well enough to say that I know him—ever since he first came here, about five years ago.” ‘‘ Five years ago!” exclaimed the Texan, in astonishment, ee Yes.” * And has he been here that long?’ “ Oh, yes.” “ But not all the time?’ . “Pretty much so, excepting of course when he has been off as @ guide and scout to soine train, but never absent over two or three months at the outside.” ‘“‘Ympossible! there is some mistake about the matter. I knew the man in California about a year ago, lived in the same town with kim for over eight months, and he was never absent a week at a time!” ¢ The Danite shook his head, ‘*Oh, you’ve made some mistake, for just about the time you mention he got into a scrape down in Salt Lake City and was jailed there for nearly five months—jailed long enough for his opponent, whom he had cut pretty badly with a knife, to get well, ; The Texan looked bewildered. “J am either crazy and have lost my memory, or else there are two Gold Dans!” he exclaimed. “Well, I never heard of but one, and he’s enough to have round loose,” the Danite replied, in his grim way. ‘¢ He killed that man!” the Texan protested, abruptly. “J think so,” and the Danite gathered up the reins of his horse, preparatory to mounting into the saddle, ‘‘What are you going to do about it?” ‘(Ts that a riddle that you’re giving me?’ “You are not going to tamely submit to have one of your brethers killed and the slayer go unpunished?” “¢An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,’ is our motto,” the Danite aaswered, ‘‘and our elders have a saying, too, that ‘he that taketh up the sword shall perish by the sword,’ but it must come all in good time; we can’t carry matters now with the same high hand that we used to. The Gentiles are too strong, and when we smite them now, theysmite back. The fellow has had a fair trial, and we couldn’t prove he did the deed. He’sa marked man, though, for all of that; he might as well get bis coffin ready; he'll need it.” “Clark, either that man or myself must die; we can’t breathe the same air and live!” cried the Texan, his eyes blazing, and he trembling all over with nervous excitement. ‘‘Hallo, hallo!” exclaimed the Danite, surveying the speaker in astonishment; ‘ what’s come over you? Have you been drink- ing?” fe No, no! it is fire in my veins, not liquor!” the Texan replied, quickly. ‘I tell you either this man orI must die. His pres- enee poisons the air for me!” ) “You mean Gold Dan?’ the Mormon asked, unable to under stand the meaning of this strange excitement, and still inclining te the belief that the Texan had been drinking too freely. “Yes, Gold Dan, as you call him, but I know him under another name—under two other names, and neither one is rightly Isis own. He has as many names as any horse-thief on the berder, and as many lives as a cat, but P've marked him for my prey, and by Heaven, I'll kill him before he is a week older!” “You had better be careful that he don’t kill you,” the Banite observed, gravely. ‘This man is no greentorn; I’m got in the habit of taking water much, and the time has been when I’ve run this town, but I’m not over-anxious to tackle - this fellow single-handed. I’m not on the look-out for 8 tomb- stone at present. We've terribly underrated this man.” ‘(Ts he more than mortal, then, that he cannot die?” the Texan ried, in contempt. ; “Ob, no, but the man that makes trouble with bim might thats make his will beforehand so as to be prepared for acci- “Listen to me!” persisted the Texan, in his quick, excitable way. ‘I know you Mormons well; the Destroying Angels still exist, and report says that you are their chief. This man has de- Sed your laws, tampered with your women and killed one of your brothers; you have decreed his death! I am as sure of it as thougk 1 sat in council and heard the sentence. I will take wngs to rae! I have fled from him, put miles of solid earth the job off your bands, for I hunger for his blood; his life be- stween us, ieagues of rushing water, and yet still he follows me, vill fy no more! I will turn upon and rend him asthe bunted ave in the jungie turns upon and slays the bloodhound follow- without mercy upon his track! All I ask of youis protection! to kill this man secretly if 1 can, openly if I must; and red-handed I fly, where can I find shelter?” structions for you tothe flap of the saddle, and make ments so that you will be provided with fresh horses at the pro- per places. The password will be ‘John Lee,’ and once safe at his ranch, in Southern Utah, not even the United States government could reach you!” “Prepare all, at once, for I shall strike the blow at the first opportunity.” And then the Texan glided away. “The fellow is crazy, but there’s method in Bis maanesa,” Clark muttered. CHAFTER XVL A SHREWD SCHEME TE setting sun was slowly sinking behind the far-off wesvers to its bed in the great Pacific Ocean. Its last red rays feil full upon a little group seated by the door of the Bear ‘River Fairy’s shanty, that is if two humans cas be with correctness termed a group. Seated upon a projecting bowlder, busily engaged in sewing, was the fairy in person, pretty Polly Pickles, while resting upon the sward close by, his arms caressing his legs, with his knees drawn up to meet his chin, was the odd, peculiar old man known far and wide as Old Joe Cripples. For a long time old Joe had tived in the Bear river region; he had seen the town of Corinne grow from a single house inte its present metropolitan dimensions. We use the word “metropolitan” in its Californian sense, for in that wonderful golden land every thriving mining-camp that promises fair to outstrip its immediate neighbors is termed a metropolis. : And old Joe had always looked the same in the memory of the earliest inhabitant. Gaunt in stature and thin in flesh, white-haired and gray- bearded; the hair thin and the beard scrubby; the face a peculiar — one, the nose broken and curved like an eagle’s the small - gray eyes deep-sunken in the head and balf-hid by projecting eyebrows, His right leg, misshapen and deformed, af first sight seemed useless, and this infirmity had given him his nickname of Cripples, which had completely swallowed up his own original name, that ie if he had ever had any, a fact which he bluntly denied when questioned upon the subject. ‘‘Cripples is my name,” he was wont to say when questioned by some inquisitive stranger in regard to the subject. ‘‘Old Jos Cripples, an’ nothin’ else. Ain’t it good enough, hey? W’at de I want with another name? Ef it don't suit yer, yer ain’t obleeged to use it; so tote yerself somewhar else!” And all this uttered in a peculiaz shrill squeal strangely unlike _ the usual tones of a human voice. Cripples was strangely reserved, too, as to where he had come from and how long he had lived in the Bear river valley. As far back as the memory of the oldest Mormons in the neighborhood extended, the men who had folloswed the lead of the prophet, Brigham Young, across the trackless wilderness, after the bloody business at Nauvoo, to the “promised land” beside the Great Salt Lake, Joe Cripples had eristed. Then as now an old man crippled und living—no one knew how. But the old max was not half so badly disabled as he pretended to be. When he chose to exert himeeli’ he could get over the ground at pretty rapid speed, and keep it up for a considerable distance too; and then, as far as riding was concerned, he was a © regular Indian. He owned a sorry little Indisn pony, a poor enough beast to look at, and which no sane man would have been willing to give ten dollars for, but like a singed cat the horses was far better than he looked, and was in reality s wonderfully tough little animaL < And so, thanks to the horse, old Joe Crippies was far from being a stay-at-home. Most people who were acquainted with tha olf gan believed that he was slightly touched in the upper wtory; if not really crazy, yet not altogether in his right mind; and then, again, there were a few sage men who would shake their heads wisely whenever old Cripples became the subject of conversation, and intimate with considerable force that they belisved the oid may to be more knave than fool. And these men who believed this were chiefiy Mormons, whe suspected evilin the old man because be had ne particular way ef gaining ua living, and yet managed to exist And how the girl Polly had come to live with the old maz was mystery two. | In the old time during the early settlement of the Salt Lake valley, the old fellow had had no companion, but the gir! had appeared during the last ten years, and Cripples, when questioned in regard to her, had bluntly told the questioners to mind their own business; ‘‘the gal” was ‘‘his’n,” and that wasenough. _ But since the advent of the girl, and her growth to woman- hood, it was noticed that the old chap had a great many more visitors than in the past. Men—generally youpz men with an eye for a pretty girl—would go a mile or two ovt of their way in o.der to pass the solitary cabin “ the river, and since Polly had set up for a doctress, thanks to the knowledge of herbs and such like simple remedies imparted to her by the old man, she had no reason to complain of lack of patronage. Sea Lae oe eee With his little keen eyes the old man had been intently watch ing the face of the girl as she bent over her sewing, It ad ae SS 4 ¥ ie: ee aS i the * replied the Dani tly. ieee gate baopes. ho Ned always rendy for yo ~ * - 4 ~Y e 2 —- a ¥ : . * > = ~. - ~ ~< - a+ pa Ps, 3 id a . * . * oo’ : “ ass , es eee a “4 © * ag wa Ce, + ee “or, > > eee i 5 ap? at - a4 ¥ a, wd » as >» “ » Reeteice ea