Beadle's New York Dime Library, No. 197 — page 11: what you’re looking at

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

——— ee -—< firing the shot which cut short the string of brutal epithets, but this belief was quickly dis- lied, 7 a arms still rested on the edge of the table, her white hands clasping the polished silver box just as they bad been when she first noticed the insolent speaker. For an instant thus, then she raised a fine cambric handkerchief and with one corner daintily wiped from the filmy lace which filled the bosom of her low-cut dress-front a drop of mingled blood and brains which had fallen there from the bullet-shattered skull of the dead man. Then her soft blue eyes were raised and her pearly teeth barely revealed themselves in a gracious smile, as she bowed ber head and said: ‘‘ A thousand thanks, sir, for your kindness in taking a disagreeable duty off my hands.” ‘“No thanks are necessary, my-dear lady,” quickly returned a deep, manly voice from near the hanging curtain. “ Pons only sorry that I had not come sooner, to spare your ears the vile speech of that dirty scoundrel.” _ All eyes were turned in that direction, and more than one bronzed face geo pale, while the crowd instinctively parted and shrunk to either side as the new-comer was recognized, ‘* Ay!” he added, his voice sbarp and cutting. ‘*Sorry for that, and ashamed to see that among all who bear the shape of mankind here, there was not one to choke off that filthy-mouthed hound! Come! has that dead dog any friend or relative in this room? If so, let bim or they re- move the carcass, or else Til cause it to be cast out for the buzzards!” Erect and defiant he stood, still clasping the revolver, from which had sped the death-shot, in his right hand, his eagle-eye roving swiftly around the room, ready and even eager for some one to take up the cause of the dead man, But a trifle, if any, above the medium hight of man, the champion of beauty nevertheless presented a model of manly strength and sym- metry. In his neat, closely fitting suit of black broad- cloth and veo ite linen, tt could be seen that he possessed a frame of perfect mold, with thews of steel and sinews of finely tempered brass. The masses of muscle that rounded out his form to the perfect contour of manly beauty, though not so —— to sight, were to the touch like layers of hard metal, the seat of a strength almost er Ny belief, and certainly far beyond the comprehension of such as had never witnessed its exhibition. His complexion was dark, but of remarkable clearness. His hair, worn close-cut, was jetty- black, lustrous as the plumage of the raven, while a long, drooping pair of mustacbes shaded his firm-cut mouth with its red lips. But the feature of his face which attracted the attention first and most forcibly was to be found in the eyes, so large and piercing, so full of fire and power, that few indeed were they who could meet their gaze, even in friendly in- terchange—but when aglow with a deadly rage, as now, they were more terrible than the gleam- ing orbs of an enraged rattlesnake. A low murmur ran through the crowd, and then the mystery wassolved. That daring man was Revolver Robinson, the Red Handed, the most reckless desperado of modern aq A low, mocking laugh parted his lips as ho glanced around the room and noted the almost universal consternation which prevailed. It was a sweet tribute to his prowess! ‘* Not one to speak a word for the dead dog? Not a friend or partner in all this crowd?” he asked, slowly. Foranother brief space there was silence, then one man stepped to the side of the slain, restin a hand upon the shoulder which bore the cross, and faced the desperado. Swift as thought the revolver rose, but the man flung up one — hand, and Revolver — as quickly lowe his weapon, undis- “Tain’t fightin’ I want now,” said the man, in a husky tone, ‘but I never went back onto a livin’ mate, nur I won’t do it on a dead one.” » He is your friend, then?” He was, when livin’, an’ he’s still more, now he’s dead.” . “Yet you don’t seem inclined to take up bis quarrel?” “Not jest now, furder then to say that it was a dirty trick not to give him the ghost of a show—to shoot him down from ahind his back, without word or warnin’!” Those who heard this bold h held their breath in expectation of a coming tragedy, the more especially as they could see the black brows of the desperado contracting, and the dangerous light deepening in his eyes. Even the speaker turned a shade paler, and the look in his bloodshot eyes seemed that of a cornered wolf, but for all that he never flinched his band still on the shoulder of his dead friend as he confronted Revolver Rob. Though seen by but few in the crowd, there was a swift motion of Dashing Della’s white hand, and like magic the face of the desperado changed to a more peaceful expression. “You talk bold enough, my dear sir,” he said, his voice sweet and mellow, a pleasant ee Revolver Rob, the Red-Handed. ~——--. — ——$__ smile curving bis red lips. ‘‘It would be a pity to kill one who dares to defend even a dead mate. Surely I have seen your face before. May I ask your name?’ ora moment the fellow hesitated, but then replied: ‘Sandy Lithgow, my friends call me,” “And you deserve an army of them, too! But let us hope that they are not oll of them of the same stripe as that cowardly cur whom 1 was forced to punish.” . ** No livin’ man ever dared to call him that!” sullenly muttered Lithgow. *‘ Which is the same as to say that I can talk bolder of the dead than the living?” laughed Revolver Rob, but with little of mirth in his tones. ‘My dear sir, take a bit of friendly ad- vice. Keep a silent tongue in your head while it is in the lion’s mouth, and your days im this good land of ours will be greatly lengthened. ‘* Since you claim that carrion, remove it and dispose of it according to your own sweet will. If you think he is worth the trouble of seeking revenge for his death, you know to whom to apply. I am not hard to find, by those who oak me on business of importance.” “7’ll bear it in mind, an’ mebbe the time ’II come when I kin make the call,” said the fellow, with a sickly smile, but with the hatred of a fiend glittering in his sunken eyes, Drawing his gaunt figure erect, Sandy Litb- ow allowed his gaze to slowly wander over the ae of those gathered in the hall, and then, with a sudden lighting up of his rugged face, he raised his right hand and mace several swift motions. As if in obedience to these signals, three men moved toward him and assisted him in raising the corpse and bearing it away. The red lips of the desperado suddenly grew together so firmly that they turned white, as the blood was forced fromm them, for upon the shoulder of each of the four men was a red cross, in the same spot, and precisely the same in appearance as that with which the dead man was marked! Already the League of Six was broken, and by the very man to compass whose ruin and death it had been formed! Was it the work of a capricious fate, or was there a Seep urpose beneath the seemin chance whic fed to tho removal of one o Revolver Robinson’s sworn foes? With the taking away of the corpse, the chill which had rested over the congregation seemed to pass away, and Revolver Rob took a seat at the faro table presided over by Dashing Della, a pleasant smile upon his handsome face, look- ing more the polished courtier than the des- perado, whose wild and reckless deeds had gained for him the sub-title of Red-Handed. ‘Call on Madam Fortune to smfle her sweet- est upon you, Miss Delsarte,” be said laugh- ingly, ‘for lam going to fight the tiger for all I am worth, and you will make a fortune or the bank will owe me one ere the stroke of midnight summons youaway!” The fair dealer smiled sweetly—so sweetly that the Wall-eyed Pike o’ the Peak heaved a mighty sigh of mingled despair and disgust and rus away to the saloon in quest of liquid consolation, with the Reverend Pericles Par- ha sticking to him as closely as aleech—and said: “There is no limit; may fortune favor the deserving! The deal begins anew, so make your game, gentlemen!” To all appearance, Revolver Robinson was as cool in play as he was in war, and stacking a goodly pile of mingled gold and notes on the table before him, selected his favorite cards and backed them freely, disdaining the us. of chips. Meanwhilo the Wall-eyed Pike o’ the Peak was swallowing a mighty dose of tanglefoot in the saloon, in company with the few who still remained there. His order was promptly honored by the barkeeper, on the strength of the gold he had exhibited so recently, but when the drinks were disposed of, Barnacle Bill made no movement to liquidate in the all-important seuse of the word as the waiter understcod it, but leaned with his back against the counter, and sighed heavily. ; “You see a melancholly wreck afore ye ents! The great an’ only ’riginal Wall-eyed ke o’ the Peak gives in fer good an’ all! No more’ll he rise his back-fin an’ chase the little minners fer a squar’ meal! wiggle his double-gear'd tail ontel the waters bile up in a mighty maelstrom o’ death an’ annibilation! The glory o’ bis shinin’ scales hes bin forever rubbed out, an’ he’s lost the power o’ his front teeth fer keeps! The low-down sucker kin cock its hat in his face, an’ the festive crawfish nibble at his tail, without fear 0’ bein’ sucked in to gloryamen! “ An’ all this along of a female heifer which don’t know a good thing when she sees it!” “Ef you’d only ’a’ tuck my advice!” groaned Pericles Parbuckle. ‘‘But you wouldn’t! You ed eyes only fer the dealer, an’ more’n once you played both ends to lose—” ““Durn the dust! Who’s thinkin’ o’ that?” and the giant turned fiercely upon the grumblin bummer, grasping him by one shoulder an Never ag’in ’ll he. raising him clear off the ground, giving him a contemptuous shake before flinging him half- way across the room. ‘“‘ Durn an’ double-durn the money! I'd give it all ten times over fer jest the sweet smile which that anngelifferous madam throwed away onto that kid-glove sport —an’ he a-suckin’ of it in as though it come to him by good rights—the owdacious, varnished- up alligator-gar!” “You was a leetle too slow, stranger,” laughed one of the othérs, ‘‘Ef yon’d taken the chance when Paul Chapricreer cffered it, that smile would ’a’ fell to your share, ’stead ’o to Revolver Rob.” ‘An’ wouldn’t I ’a’ done it, too? only that cuss pulled trigger afore the words was fa’rly out o’ the critter’s fish-trap? What show was they fer anybody else?” ** It’s a way the boss hes,” said another, with an ugly laugh. ‘‘He shoots whor any other feller ‘d be thinkin’ about drawin’, an’ tha’s what give him the name he now w’ars.” ‘**Mebbe he won’t w’ar it much longer,” said Barnacle Bill, with an ominous shake of his lion-like head, ‘* When ary other fish flaps its tail in old Wall-eye’s face, the scales is bound to fly right smart—you hear me /” **’Twon’t be a bard job to git all the fun o’ that sort ye want, ef ye was big as a mount’in!” retorted the fellow, with a malicious sneer on his bard features, ‘*At your shop, mebbe?” and as he uttered the words, Barnacle Bill took a half-step for- ward, his pop-eyes aglow. But the other retreated, hastily crying, with a sickly smile on his ugly features: ‘* No—from a mighty sight better man then I lay claim to bein’. Bless ye, stranger, do I look like a man to tackle a double-geared mount’in like you be?” Barnacle Bill surveyed him from head to foot and back again, with a deliberate stare, his huge mustaches curling. — “Come to look ag’in, don’t reckon ye be. Ef I was a glass o’ whisky, now, then I mought look out fer snags. An’ that makes me think; set em up ag’in barkeep’!” | Tbat worthy held his hand over the counter, wrigeling his fingers significantly. ‘The slate was bu’sted when we cleaned house the last time, mate. An’I hain’t gota mem’ry no longer’n your thumb.” The Wall-eyed Pike stared at the speaker for a moment as though at some monstrous curiosity, then reared back with his thumbs stuck under his arm-pits, his long fingers beating the devil’s tattoo on his broad chest, and his elbows akimbo, “Kin I believe my two ears? The p’izenly owdacious cuss actilly refuses to hang me'u an’ I jest ouf more then a round thousen’ good dojlars.on the blessed game in yender! Gents an’ feller-citizens, did ye ever hear the like?” A general laugh ran around the room, more af the ridiculous demeanor of the Wall-eyed Pike o’ the Peak, and the bot anger of the bar- keeper, than aught in the words, but it served to send the ugly temper of the fellow up to boiling pitch. In a yoice husky with rage, he cried: “That's enough o’ your lip! You've beat me out of a round dczen drinks, but you don't do it no more, An’ the quicker you peel out o’ this ranch, the longer you'll keep a bull hide onto your back!” Barnacle Bill turned to the men who had just rank at his expense, and said, in a shame- faced tone: | ‘*Gents, I dropped a cool thousan’ on the me in yender, this evenin’. Lend me ten dol- ars to satisfy this onmannerly shark, an’ to take a good-night swaller—what, not one o’ yer?” and his tones grew still more lugubrious as no one seemed inclined to grant bis modest request, while more than one of those who had been most forward in walking up to the bar at bis invitation, slunk away out of doors or into the other room, ‘You can’t take them in as you did me,” and the scowling bartender began to rub up @ revolver and to try its lock after a significant fashion. ‘* Come—s you take a little walk? It’ll be a heap healthier fer you in the end.” - “Then you won't give me a drink—jest a mouthful to keep off the snakes?” > Not a drop—onless you take it through this funnel!” and as the fellow spoke, he cocked and leveled the revolver full at the breast of the giant. _ Just how it was accomplished, not one unless it may have been the Wall-eyed Pike himself, could bave explained, but an instant later the undischarged revolver was wrested from the grasp of the bartender, while the left thumb and finger of the giant was twisting his long nose all out of a0 : ‘‘Shcot old Wall-eye, will ye? Pull a g onto a leetle suckin’ by like me, eh? Won't give the old man jest one swaller o’ p’izen fer to rive away the snakes? An’ the 0’ you ‘count suckers ain’t got no more use fer a feller vine ie gente gone, hev ye? Bah!” er with a final twist of the barkeeper’s nose that brought both blood and be bim, than swiftly extracted the cartridges from the pistol, tossing the weapon back on the counter., GoOmic SL (eley IOO