Beadle's New York Dime Library No. 114 — page 8: what you’re looking at

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

civilization never knows, with savage foemen leaping up on every hand, seeming to multipi the deeper their ranks were penetrated—deaf- ened by the rattle of firearms and the blood- curdling yells voiced by those painted barbari- nos, blinded and stifled by the incessant flashes and the white smoke, and sickened by the sight of blood—Lilian recognized her awful peril, Then, incumbered as he was by the dead weight of the now unconscious commander, Judd Baker freed one hand, and fired. Dick’s Hat-band went down like a forest tree before the lightning’s stroke! But the fall of the chief did not make a victory. The little band was surrounded, their charge checked, their ranks thrown into con- fusion! The rider was shot from his horse—the horse sunk dying beneath his rider! On foot or in the saddle, a score of weapons were opposed to every breast! They who had fought so well were Overwhelmed by numbers, and still their foes multiplied about them. Another moment would bring annihilation! Stunned by a blow on the head which nearly toppled him from his horse, Judd Baker, the bravest scout in the mountains, abandoned all hope! After his adventurous life, he now stood in the presence of death unabashed, and regret- ‘ing only the girl whom his arm wes now power- less to save. But, man failing, Heaven interposed! Through that glade of death now rung a ery so terrible that it stayed the madly bound- ge om in every heart. imly Judd Baker heard it, and, half-con- me, as he was, shuddered through every nerve Then came the dismayed pee of the savages, and the sudden cessation of strife. Before the awful Ghost of the Canyon all lesser interests were merged in the blind instinct of self-preser- vation. But that cry had fired anew Judd Baker’s sinking consciousness. He dug his spurs into his borse’s flanks, and was borne forward with great bounds. As for Lilian Amberleigh, her great love had conquered even that terrible cry at which the hearts of all men quailed. Of herself, of her surroundings, she thought nothing. Her horri- fied eyes were immovably fixed on her dian; and so was she spared the sight of the aw- ful monster. From her lip ever came the cry: “Is he dead? oh! is he dead And so ascant half-dozen—not a quarter of those that had started!—burst through that cor- don of death, and swept down the mountain puss, But the Gentleman from Pike—was he dead? CHAPTER IX. ‘*HARD LUOCK’S”” HARD LUCK. ‘‘]| TELL ye what it is, gents—it’s mighty s:im pickin’s, considerin’ the resk!” “apes Luck Camp was ‘“blue”— mighty ** blue! At ten o’clock in the morning the miners were lounging before the No-tic Saloon, can- vassing the unpromising outlook. One was leaning against the door-post, with his feet crossed and his hands thrust deep in his ockets. Another was perched on the horse- rough, hacking idly with his bowie-knife. A third was balancing himself ou the hitching bar, A fourth, with his hands clasped at the back of bis head, lay at length on a board which was exam a slight incline by one end resting ona stone, So we might continue to enumerate the list- less, almost despondent, attitudes of the men. Judge Wiggins alone boasted the dignity of a sort of chair improvised from an old lemon-box, the partition in the middle of which served as a seat, After a somewhat protracted deliberation, during which he scraped the spatters of clay from his pantaloons with his finger-nail, the judge straightened up, tipped his hat a little urther back on his head, and said, decidedly: ‘Gents, thar’s no two ways about it. Hard Luck’s played. It’s git, or bu’st!” A gloomy silence followed this dictum, while the judge ran his eye anxiously, speculatively, from one clouded face to another, ‘*I reckon it’s bu’sted, anyway,” one finally roused himself sufficiently to say. ‘‘1’m down to bed rock,” announced Moxy, ving the horse-trough a vicious jab with his owie. ‘* Divil a glint o’ gold have I f’asted me two eyes on this two wakes,” said Tom O’Connor, from where he lay on his broad back. ‘I’m be- ginnin’ to hunt the praties in the pot wid a foin- tooth comb. Divil fly away wid me, av it’s a loi I’m tellin’ yea!” ‘“‘ Waal, what d’ye say?” asked the judge, put- ting the question, as it were, to the house. o definite statement was n . Every- body understood the issue only too well. No one, it seemed, liked to assume the n- sibility of what all felt must come, eir | bearded lips were compressed and—mute. ““Gentlemen,” said the judge, as if summing up the situation, ‘in the shed back o’ the house ’s 9 stuff with no he’r on its head and nigh "» The Gentleman from Pike. onto a pound o’ cold lead—fourteen ounces, to speak by the mark—in its carcage, takin’ no ac- count o’ some mighty ugly carvin’.” ‘“‘T brung it in,” said Wind River Johnny, ee the word as if it were meet that each should testify what came within his immediate knowledge. ‘I reckon everybody knowed him —Shif’less Sol. No great shakes of a handle, but good enough on a pinch, Ireckon. A restless sort of a cuss, all the time rammin’ around, hither an’ yon, allowin’ he’d drop onto somethin’ big some’rs one 0’ these days; all that. Waal, I run acrost him up on the di- vide. Fourteen bullet-holes an’ pinned to the pees with his pick drove through his bread- asket ain’t bad, for one man! ‘* * Waal,’ says I to myself, * the boys has poo- pooed this thing. [I reckon it ’ll do ’em good to see a specimen. P’r’aps they’ll allow, byme-by, that the Injins means business.’ **So I packs the thing into camp. Thar it is, gents. ou kin look it over fur yourselves. It ain’t every day that you see daylight let intoa man with fourteen — and a pick!” Having presented what he deemed an unan- swerable argument, Windy ‘‘ subsided.” Judge Wiggins resumed the case. “You’ve hyeard the evidence, gentlemen. We have the promise of hard knocks, sure, an’ a doggone slim show fur pay-dirt. Ef we’re boxed up hyere, thar’ll be some tall seramblin’ fur rations with some of nee pete all. Thar’s no use bein’ mealy-mouthed about it. We've got to face the music. Thar hain’t no more crawfish in me than in the next one; but—” And here the judge MEDD and looked about questioningly on his auditors. There was an awkward pause. ‘* Waal, what’s the word?” repeated the judge, ally., Ther big Mose Finley jumped down from the hitching-bar, shook himself together, and said: ‘‘Gents, it mought as well come fust as last. It’s up stukes, an’ git /” A sigh of relief ran through the crowd. The dead lethargy seemed to lighten. “ Air you all agreed?” asked Justice Wiggins, as if addressing a jury. ** Boss, I foller suit! “Pm in, you bet!” ‘I never go back on the majority!” “Tt’sthe best I’ve got!” And with like expressions all intimated their concurrence, One man had stood in the door of the No-tic Saloon, awaiting the result of the deliberation with no slight interest. He now spoke for the first time. ‘* Boys, you ain’t going to shake me?” **Not much, Bob. You're a squar’ man, ef ou aira Sutler; an’ that’s sayin’ a good deal, t yer life! You're solid in this camp!” Others seconded this hearty assurance; and Bob smiled with gratification. ‘*Come in an’ pit a starter, gents,” he said, throwing wide his door; “‘an’ while you're knockin’ your shanties to pieces, I'll git yea squar’ meal all hands round. Then we’ll load the No-tic on her trucks, an’ be ready to pull out on a full stomick.” Sutler Bob knew the kind of eloquence that would strike Hard Luck Camp ‘“ whar it lived.” With a cheer, which showed that the spirits of the Camp were in the ascendant the {moment it ‘*smelt liquor,” the ‘‘ boys ” ranged themselves along the bar, where Bob ‘‘set ’em up hand- some!” Then all went out to ‘‘ pull up stakes.” The migrations of Western shanty towns are without parallel. What in the a i ge in the name of a city may ere night be piled upon wagons and wheeled to another site. So, as if by magic, save for the clatter of hammers, Hard Luc your fell to pieces like a lot of card houses; and by the middle of the af- ternoon the ‘ boys ” had “‘ got outside” of Sut- ler Bob’s ‘“‘squar’ meal” and put the first ham- mer to the No-tic. ae gt ak eee gl A i ; udge Wiggins, already astride the ridge-pole in his shirt-sleeves, cried: ‘The Lord bless us and save us! what’s this?’ And into Hard Luck Camp—what was left of it—rode a handful of blood-stained and bleed- ing men, and a girl whose fair face was blancb- ed with unspeakable woe! ‘Hallo, strangers! What’s up?’ demanded big Mose Finley. ‘Bear a hand, gents. Work first, an’ talk afterwards!” said Judd Baker, slipping from his jaded horse, and still holding the uncon- scious Carleton in his arms. *‘A dead man?” asked Judge Wiggins, who, having descended from his elevated perch ‘‘on the run,” now elbowed his way to the front. ‘Oh, no! no!” cried Lilian Amberleigh, dis- tenets ‘He is not dead!”—he cannot be ea Her musical voice, veined as it was with keen distress, drew yet eye upon her, and her ex- quisite beauty thrilled every one of those rude hearts with a sudden heroism. A moment ago they would have met danger and death with the energy of despair; now they were ready to fight like gods in defense of this helpless woman, en the unconscious man had been to them “¢ ut a white man, fur | stiff” now, knowing that the blow that struck ° him had pierced her heart, they glowed with a fierce thirst for revenge. While they bore the Gentleman from Pike to the room lately tenanted by the ’Frisco Sharp, and installed Lilian as nurse, Judd Baker relat- ed in brief the danger through which they bad passed, and which yet threatened the mining- camp. The story of the opportune coming of tbe Ghost of the Canyon filled every one with su- perstitious dread, and speculation con ran riot. As for the danger from an Indian attack, Hard Luck had been ‘‘ketched with her traces down,” but in a twinkling she was under arms and assembled in fighting trim. Though the apprehension of darger was great, it was fairly rivaled by curiosity about William Carleton and his fair nurse. had nothing to say, but of the former he said: ‘*T reckon some o’ you has heard o’ the Gen- tleman from Pike. Up North they allow that he’s the biggest fightin’ man in the country. No blab-moutb, ye understand; but a gent that a rigiment o’ grizzlies couldn’t crowd. W boys, he’s allO. K. He’s got a hard knock; he'll weather it in a week, ‘‘ An’ now the first thing in order is a scout. I see that you was all ready to shake this place; but I’ll bet you two to one that ye don’t git out 0’ this valley fur thirty days.” Judd Baker’s suageea was acted upon, and the scouts returned with the report that the mountain pan swarmed with savages, Luck would have to put herself ‘‘in shape” for a siege of indefinite duration. But during their absence a new complication had arisen, The sky had become overcast with a dull gray cloud. ‘*Gents,” said Judd Baker, ‘‘I’ve seen this sort o’ thing before. Ef you take my advice, you'll fall to, all hands, and put up them shan- ties, as quick as hammer an’ nails’]l do the job!” Even as he spoke great feathery flakes of snow began to fall silent y down through the still air; and the ‘ boys,” who hadn’t lived in the mountains for nothing, set to work with an equal energy, if not with the same hearty good- will, to put up in the evening, the shanties they had knocked to pieces in the morning. The work was hastily, and therefore ron, done; but when the scouts came wadin c through the snow in the early nightfall, they pe that their homes had sprung up again, as magic. — : o explanation was necessary. All knew that it might snow for a day, or a week, or even longer, without cessation, and that the passes to the onter world might be blocked by twenty, in forty, fifty feet of those feathery par- icles. And, true to this portent, the time came when Hard Luck found itself shut in from all world, and communication between the shanties maintained only by digging through constantly deepening banks of snow. But an event of fateful moment occurred be- fore they had been buried thus deeply. On the fourth day of the falling snow, as the shadows of night were appreecsiam an object was discovered moving slowly, laboriously to- wardthe camp. It was so, covered with snow that it could not be made out; but it looked like an animal of some sort. ** A bear’s cub, most likely,” suggested Moxy to his wondering companions, ‘* Not much!” asserted big Mose Finley, pos- itively. ‘‘ Anyway, here goesfur a shot over its head; and we’ll see how it takes the joke.” And without waiting for more prudent coun- sels—for it ill-behooved men situated as they were to run the risk of scaring away anything that gave promise of food—he fired. The object sonnets squatted on its haunches, ’ rajsed its fore-limbs, and uttered a faint cry. *‘Good God! a man!” cried the sstontiehed marksman, It was indeed a man, creeping on hands and knees where it would have been impossible for him to walk erect, and thus making his way slowly toward deliverance from an awful He renewed his efforts; but with the knowl- edge that help was near, the high tension at which he had held himself relaxed, and he forward exhausted. But human eyes had beheld his strait, and human hearts beat with quick sympathy. Big Mose Finley sprung to the rescue, crying: ‘**Come on, boys!” And his strong limbs broke the path for the rest to follow in. _They reached the fallen man, Mose Finley lifted him up, gazed into his face, and—d him /—more than that, with a round ‘* Boys, it’s the Frisco Sharp!” CHAPTER X. THE OUTCAST’S RETURN, ‘ Boys, it’s the Frisco Sharp!” Such was the announcement of big Mose Fin- ley, as with an oath he dropped the helpless man . whom he had _ just raised. A moment his lips were compressed, his brews indented, with cruel hatred, , Without a word further, he turned and retraced his stepa Of the latter Judd Baker . PMICELNOOLKS (eo) (E(0)