Beadle's New York Dime Library No. 114 — page 5: what you’re looking at

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

4 ‘s The Gentleman from Pike, 5 the whirling currents, Again and again in that icy flood he suffered tho agony of death, to come back to a.dimly conscious life, where only instinct guarded hi: hold upon his uncertain support. ut through it all there was an anguish of horror that did not spring from present peril. He saw Captain Gunnison, and shouted faintly tohim. Afterward he caught a glimpse of the man who had made so brave an effort to save littlo Lilian ate tae ie Then an angry wave dashed upon his head, bearing him down! down! into that hell of waters already strewn with the gaanily corpses of his late companions, When e emer on again, his eyes were wide and staring, foul with the impurities of the flood; on his face was stamped a horror as terrible as that frozen on the immobile visages of the dead! From that immersion he brought no rational thought To his distraught fancy it seemed that from rayless blackness the world suddenly urst into an all-enveloping conflagration. Above, the brazen heavens glowed with the fiery cP asame § of a furnace seven times heated, while from horizon to zenith it blazed with blending flashes of incessant lightning. Below, the earth stretched a vast plain of molt:n iron, lashed by furious hurricanes into wrathful bil- lows, whose toppling crests were livid flames. Strewn on this infernal sea lay the ghastly dead of all the earth, not writhing in wild-eyed anguish, but motionless, bloodless pale, with livid wounds, and half-closed eyes showing the bluish glaze of death—all the more horrible by reason of this strange ena ae \ Aud for every corpse there was a flend of horrid shape and devilish malignity. ; As he arose to fly—-whither ho knew not, for this hell of horror extended on every hand as far as the eye could range—the demons espied him, and sprung upon him in countless leions, making the heavens re-echo with their diaboli- cal cries. Now he fought them hand to hand, with a savage fury that outrivaled that of his demon assailants, snatching stran weapons trom their hands, and dealing all about him, with lightning rapidity, irresistible blows, before wen they went down like grain before the e! A wild exultation seized him, seeming to dis- tend his body to gigantic proportions, until his foes were as pigniies by comparison. He yelled in delirious triumph. He drove them before him like chaff before the wind! And now from the nethermost depths sprung up asbape more hideous than the wildest conjur- ation of a maniac’s nightmare. Its awful cry drowned those of the lesser demons, and tho ferocity of its assault was commensurate with its horrid aspect. Before it they scattered in every direction, with cries of terror. The man who had con- quered them, frezoan with horror, was powerless to evade the attack. The shock was terrific! He felt the arms of the monster close about bim like trip'e bails of steel, crushing the life out of his body. With a sense of loathing unut erable he felt the cold, clammy contact of serpents! Their hisses pie his ears; their fetid breath filled his nostrils; bis eyessaw nothing but their wriggling bodies, quivering tongues, and glittering eyes! A moment of such sickening horror, and tho man must have expired in a shudder of loath- ing!—but he was lifted from his feet and hurled to the ground with a violence that nearly bereft him of consciousness. But even in that frenzied moment Jules 8‘. Auburn did not lose the instinct of the trained athlete. As agile asa cat, he tripped the mon- ster in whose grasp he was as helpless as a child, then sprung to bis feet, ready for flight. At this instant a larger serpent, which the fallen monster carried in his hand like a wand or staff, sprung a coil about the ankle of the would-be fugitive. But a furious stamp on its head with his other foot relaxed the detaining fold, and the man darted away like the wind! Was all this the conjuration of a delirious brain; or had Jules St, Auburn met the Ghost of the Canyon, and lived to escape? Let us see! Its dread work accomplished, the tempest fled away as suddenly as it had come. The black cloud-pall was swept from the face of the sky, discovering the sun resting on the western peaks and flooding the glad earth with warmth and brightness and beauty. Nature wore her fair- est smiles, yet on the leaves hung pendent drops of crystal, like tearson the lashes of a coquettish beauty who woos you into forgiving and torget- ting her momentary petulance. ut to one funereal spot there came no glad- ness! It was the debouchure of a mountain gorge, paved with water-washed sand, and strewed with the ghastly debris of an overwhelm- ed wagon-train. There lay motionless the bodies of men and women and little chiidren, with sand and weeds in their hair, in their glazed eyes, on their livid lips—and about them lay the wreck of things that told of home and happiness! In the midst of the silent dead, one woman eat, the head of a bearded man on her ark, ond, a2 the gwayed te and fro, from her lips rose in plaintive accents that lullaby with which all our mothers bave soothed our troubled spirits to repose— “Hush, my babe! Lie still and slumber, Holy angels guard thy bed!”’ Then came dusky forms from the neighboring rocks, and gathered round to gaze upon this piteous spectacle. ‘ And bideous in war-paint, with their hands and weapons yet unwashed from carnage, the deadliest foes of her race and sex stood round, their savage instincts for the time in abeyance, and from lip to lip passed the word: ** Medicine!” . Among all Indians, the insane are held to under the especial pty gti of the spirits of the unseen world; hence “‘ medicine,” or mys- tery, was an amulet which would protect Mrs. Amberleigh from personal danger. Not so with Capt, Gunnison, if he proved to be alive. Mrs. Amberleigh evinced no fear of the Utes; but as their chief’ bent over Capt. Gunnison to ascertain whether he was alive, while his braves scattered to despoil the dead, she cried: ‘Oh! do not touch my baby! Hush—you will awaken it!” Then, bending over the clammy face and kiss- ing the sodden hair, she resumed her piteous lullaby— ** Heavenly blessings, without number, Gently fall upon tay head! With firm, yet not harsh hands, tho Ute chief unloosed the clasp of the poor deluded mother, and said in guttural Engiish: ‘*Ueh! Pappoose heap sick! Injun fix ’um ali right, No make ’um squeal.” ‘What! my baby sick?’ cried the mother,, with a startled look. ‘‘Is that why she lies so still and is so cold?” ‘‘ Powerful close call! Bully boy! Pull’um trough all right,” was the somewhat enicmati- cal, yet withal kindly, assurance of the Ute, Thien, pinching the hard muscles of Capt, Gunnison’s leg, he made this rather startling announcement: ‘Tough old tuck! Injun have high old time! Make ’um good roast! Ugh! O.K., you bet!” And be laughed a blood-curdling chuckle, But now arose a great commotion. Tho sav- age robbers and mutilators of the dead come upon one whom the flood had spared. With their barbarous cries they gathered around him, assailing him from every side, like dogs that have brought a stag to bay. And ho fought them like a pallid demon, with a fury more intense, with cries wilder than their own, until they fled with superstitious terror before the maniac giitter of his eyes, Then rose a cry that curdled the blood of every one that heard, and in their very midst sprung up a monster that had crept upon them fromthe mouth of the gorge, unnoticed in their preoccupation—a Rhing so hideous that the sav- ages forgot al! else in thcir precipitate flight, The f erzied white man and tie snake-demon met in a ti rrible encounter, in which both went down. Then tho men reso and fled. Tho mon- ster was deterrcd from pursuit bya swectly sad voice raised in a plaintive lullaby. A moment later, the Thing stood besido the woman who crooned the song of infancy toa rrown man, while she rocked his unconscious Fead on her bosom—stood with a strange hush upon it, as if that plaintive music soothed its demon nature. oe the night fell, and the darkness shrouded a Then from the mountains came a long-drawn howl, which was picked up and echoed and re- echoed on eve de; and through the gloom crept skulking forms, with eyes that gleamed in the darixness like living coals. And the howls were interspersed with savage snarls and the click of sna ping teeth. The terrible cry of the demon scattered the mountain wolves for a moment; but scon the returned, and while they wrangled over their horrible feast, the ery of the Ghost of the Canyon: sped further and further up the gorge, bearin chat?—through the ieakneee ah why CHAPTER VI. ¥ NOTICE TO QUIT. ‘Gents, thar’s no use talkin’—somethin’s got tobe did!” Judge Wiggins—the *‘ boys” called him judge rhaps for no better reason than that he was fald-tieaded and something of a demagogue— spoke decidedly. The ‘ boys” sat around in frowning silence, aiming tobacco-juice projectiles ct the sawdust- filled spitbox with a sullen, dogged ferocity that ke their determination, i Sutler Bob, the *‘ boss” of the No-tic Saloon, watched the proceedings a little anxiously, though he did not venture to interfere. The man up-stairs, on whom this informal court was sitting in judgment, had certainly contributed largely to “* make things lively ” at the No-tic, and, by ‘ goin’ the hull figur’,” that is to say, paying for everything like a prince— money down and no questions—and ‘‘settin’ *em up all hands round” whenever the boys be- gan to “look down in the mouth,” had kepta -og’in’ anny sthranger; 650 stream of “dust” flowing into Sutler Bob's money-till. But the sovereigns of Hard Luck Camp had come to perceive that the interests of the No-tic and the community at Jarge were, at least in this one case, inimical, and in convention assem- bled were deliberating what step would most conduce to the general welfare, **Waal, gents,” said Moxy, taking his im- mense quid of tobacco from his mouth into his hand and tossing it thence threugh the open docr- way, “‘ I’ve tramped this byar mountain coun- try from Virginia City to Los Angeles an’ from Denver to Frisco; an’ as far as J kin seo it always comes to the same windin’ up—theso flash gents runs to the end o’ their tether, an’ then it’s pit ur swing.” *‘T reckon thar hain’t no galcot in this hyar community what goes back on tlhe pasteboards in the hands of a squar’ man,” said big Mose I'inley, with an air half-apologetic, kalf-deflant; ‘* but ef a doggoned clever slight don’t come in some-whar in the operations o’ the Frisco sharp, hang mo if I wouldn’t like to havo his luck! I’d guarantee to rake every camp from hyar to sundown!” And, by way of impressing his conviction on his auditors, he brought down upon the rude table at his elbow a fist as ponderous as one of his sledge-hammers, with a force that made the glasses behind the bar jingle. “Tt’s small matther to me,” said Tom O’Connor, pulling bard at the stump of a clay pipo inte which he had cut plug tobacco. ‘‘ Divil an ounce have I had all winther to put up en the swate desavers, whin mo wake’s praties an’ bacon was laid in—wid a toothful o’ the cray- ther, @yemoind! But I always back me mates say—‘Give the dirthy blaggard his walkin’ papers!’ It’s no loss he’d be to anny dacent camp.” After this there was some bluster and pro- fanity indulged in by men who had met the Irisco Sharp ard come away with lighter pean and heavier hearts. <A)l declared stout- y that the loss of their gold-dust was a matter of perfect indifferenco to them—no truc Ameri- can will ever admit that ho cares anything for morey |l—but still tho senso of the assembly was that the obnoxious party be served with a notice to a ' “IT move that the judge pick out his own ga and fire the scalawag out!” said oxy. This somewhat unparliamentary prea os receiving tho equally informal assent of tho as- sembly, Judge Wiggins expressed his willing- ness to “give all the boysa show fur tke fun,” aud leftit to such as chose to follow him, The result was that the ‘‘ committce ” comprised the whole body-politic of Hard Luck, ‘You'll find the gent up-stairs—asleep, I reckon,” said Sutler Bob, his looks but Epesly disguising his lack of sympathy, though his tongue was too wiso to run counter of public sentiment co pronounced, The “committe” went fer tho carpetless stair, that creakcd an inefleciual protest Leneath their heavy tread. Jucge Wiggins pounded a rousing fummons on the coor of unplencd ccal boerds, woich, to cured imperfectly by lcoso Lingcs and latch, shock and ratiled as if about to fall to picccs. From within came the involuntary s und of somo one suddenly awakening from s.umber, a slight rustle of straw, then a voice: **Eh! Who's there? Como in!” Judge Wiggins raised the latch—tho door was not bolted—and walked into tho chamber, fol- lowed by as many of his committee as could crowd their way in. They found a small, square room, with uncar- peted pino flocr, unpapered pipe ber and sloping pine ceiling, evidently tho uncer sido of the roof, This was lighted by a window con- taining four small panes of glass. ‘A rough pine bunk in one ccrner, a wooden- bottomed chair and half a dozen nails criven in- to the wall to serve as clothcs hocks, ecmprised the furnishing of th's far from Syberitic cpart ment. On the bunk a straw tick did servico as a mat- tress: but over it were spread whito theets—a lucury in Hard Luck Camp ! -Between the shects, with one arm thrown in- dolently above his head, appearcd a dainty gen- tleman in aruffled night-shirt of fino cambric. Over the back of the chair were carefully ar-: ranged clothes in keeping, the outer garments being of the best quality of imported goods and most fashionably cut, tho underclcthes of the finest fabrics and most delicate workmanshi A pair of French boots stood besido tbe chats, their morocco ] falling limp, not standing stiff like the stogie boots common to a mining camp. Commodious leather saddle-bags lay ane on the floor, disclosing ruffled: and fluted irts and dainty toilet articles. From what appeared to them rather effemi- nate wearing-ap 1, the miners turned with mingled contem and anger to glower at the nonchalant contlonnt who lay among his pil- lows with no appearance of surprise or uneasi- ness on his face. The face was spare and sallow, with delica Gvely tarmed (ar see P= oe Fear