Beadle's Dime Library No. 204 — page 27: what you’re looking at

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

— — a i > —=— Eee a os o~ — 2. — — - — - ~~ Bie Foot Wallace. erous eyes darting hate—most murderous hate | derer and spy, had gone to answer for his —the expression of it being unmistakable. | many dastard crimes, Ames strove to speak, but his tongue seemed paralyzed, and his breath came in dry gasps, as | the horrible eyes of the half-breed glared | fiercely into his. George Adler watched the scene in amaze- ment, for the face of the Mestizo was no longer withiu his view, and the expression on that of Ames was perplexing to him. Neither | of them were, however, left long in sus- pense, for the half-breed, his teeth grating | like a maniac, sprung with his glittering knife uplifted inte the patch of moonlight, his hideous face being thrust close into that of his helpless victim, his snake-like eyes gazing gloatingly into his. A. blood-chilling hiss shot from the lips of | the Mestizo, then he spat. in the face of | which his. own irresistible vengeance had cre- the wretched Ames, his knife. still uplifted, as | ated, the awful stillness of the night, which if he enjoyed the terrible torture he was in- | caused him to think that even Nature bowed flicting. At this. moment the, flapping of | to his superior will, filled the young man with wings, followed by the hoot.of an owl afar | a new. madness, with a frenzy.of pride, he overhead, caused the cowardly assassin to start. thinking himself now to be “‘moyarch of all with apprebension, and he drew his knife | he surveyed,” which, by the way, owing to back, then, throwing bis whole strength and | the darkuess, was not very much after all. weight, into the blow, be plunged the deadly | However, he had met and overcome his two blade forward, missing, in his left-handed awk- | greatest enemies, and in doing so had created wardness and sudden alarm, a vital part, but | a thirst for blood that had hitherto been un- burying the cuchillo in the shoulder of the young man, who, with,a ery of horror and despair, now fainted away. At this instant; with a bound like that of a panther, George,Adler, bis: heart filled with hate, his form, filled with ,the..strength of a madman, sprung upon the assassin and buried his knife in the Mestizo’s back, the steel crush- ing through the shoulder-blade... Leaying his knife in. the wound, he jerked the euchillo from the body.of Frank Ames, and quickly cut loose a part of the Jariat not in, use, with which the latter, was bound to the tree, _—— ror ow —— iC lC( —— -- Adler had, in such a little time, been called upon to pass, the suffering brought upon him by the severe blow he had received upon the head when hurled from his horse, the terrible | anxiety of mind and soul that had been his since he reached the motte, and his discovery of the criminal traces of, the bandits which proved that his Joved one wasin their power, together with the horror that had filled him later, upon seeing her hurried into the dark shades of the San Miguel by a horde of fiendish, war-painted Comanches—all this had so de- moralized his brain that he did, not appear, nor indeed was he, so. to speak, the same being. The scene before him,. so full.of horror, him... Thus possessed, he darted here and there amid the dense thickets, all the while slashing with the knife of the Mestizo, which he clutched in. his hand, wandering about thus in his madness. .After.a time this feeling sub- sided;,a. listless apathy followed, and in that state he made -his,.way slowly up, the river through the heavy timber, unconscious of his course or, object. Thus he wandered for some distance, when hersuddenly came.to a halt, for the impatient stamping. of horses..of, the Indians fell upon . When the Mestizo felt the steel crash through | his ear from a point but a few yards ahead, his frame, filling him with, an agony most ex-| Once again he fell upon his hands and, knees, eruciating, and deathlike faintness, which in-.| and with the: cunning, of, insanity hastened creased, as the blood, flowed,profusely,.he began | through. the thick; undergrowth, but without beating the air with his hands; then, as George | making. any noise, that, would be noticed, out- Adler sprung, past, him. for the lariat, and he | side of that which was caused by the restless recognized the man who had on three occasions |. mustangs. ; ) escaped him, now to tura up, when and where Af this time, very providentially for George least expected, to be his..slayer—when this | Adler, nearly all the Comanches were collected knowledge : flashed upon bim, he was like all of | together, buta pistol-shot distant, listening to his kind, filled with a superstitious dread. that the report of a spy, who,had returned from an left no hope; of life, and no intention to strug- | examination of the bandit camp. gle against fate; and with prayers. mumbling George crawled onward, and upon peering frour his repulsive lips,.and. the blood welling | through the branches of a thicket into a small from. his wound and pattering. upon the dead | clear space in the timber, he discovered a man leaves, his hideous face filled with;a horror of | lying prone upon the sward, face upward, and death, -his palsied tongue refusing to utter the | upon the gray hair and anguish-drawn features screams of agony and, hopeless despair that,| played a ray of moonlight, revealing vividly gurgled in his throat, he, fell forward to the | the well-known. face of Colonel Bowen, who earthen: alt torte was bound hand and foot, . Quickly did George Adler attach a rope’s end The mind of Adler had, through his recent to each of, the wrists, of the Mestizo; then, | dread experiences, been led to dwell more par- before the Jatter bad fallen to the ground, he | ticularly upon avenging himself than aught secured the other ends of the rope to limbs of | else, and his recent success in that line had im- the tree, the same being some four feet apart, | pressed. him greatly; consequently, when he | thus leaving the dying half-breed suspended by | first saw the old colonel, the bitter enmity of the latter, in forbidding his daughter .to asso- ciate with him, was at once brought to the front in. the young man’s mind. In his insane state, forgetting the one who should have been uppermost in his thoughts, and for whom he should have b2en searching, he stole stealthily forward, with. the knife between his teeth, to the side of Colonel Bowen, whose bonds he in- stantly severed, No sooner had George accomplished this feat in the very heart of the Comanche camp than | he raised the stiff form of the old man and leaned him against the trunk of a large tree in _ the dense shade, , Colonel Bowen had suffered greatiy in body and mind, and when. he realized that he was free he was so dazed that he knew not whether the arms.directly in front of the still senseless Ames, whose head had fallen forward upon his breast, his face like that of a corpse, while the blood slowly trickled from his wound, and down bis breast... With a feeling of insane triumph, George stepped backward, and stool viewing the horrible scene.. There were , now his two most bitter and deadly enemies, slowly dying together, in. the dark murder-pregnant woods of the,San Miguel. Truly, retribution had begun. The eyes of, the Mestizo, glazing in death, were filled with a. soul-racking horror at. being secured near to what he supposed was a corpse, having thus to pass. his last moments on earth in the company of a dead man, filled his super- stitious soul witb the most terrible dread. The | pattering of his life blood upon the leaves at | be had been rescued by a friend, or had been his feet seemed like the | hasty footsteps. of | cut loose to be carried to torture. . The flitting fiends, speeding to bear him to never, ending | glance he had caught of the face of the man torment. No human being ever gazed upon a | who had severed his bonds was not that of one more repulsive sight than that which was | that would create confidence; for, notwith- presented by the dying Mestizo, hanging, with | standing that he had known Adler since his filming eyes fixed upon the exultant face.of.| early childhood, be did not recognize him. his slayer, even when the bonds that bound | But before he could collect his thoughts the him to earth were snapping, one by one, bis | young man, all blood-stained and with eyes head sinking slowly forward, his. wild tangled | glaring like coals, led one of, the balf-wild hair; mingling with the soft curly loeks' of | mustangs of the Indians up to the tree, and Frank Ames, and the breath seemed at last to | springing upon the animal’s back, leaned over, have gone from him. and with a strength that was miraculous, drag- Then his wiry form, of a sudden, began to | ged him upon the steed, tremble and ‘quiver spasmodically for a mo- Colonel, Bowen strove to; speak, strove to ment, the blood gushed from his mouth and | ask bis preserver, if.such, he was, to let him nostrils, and Ignacio Valdez, the Mestiz>» mur- ' go, and to save his daughter, who was close at ' The dread experiences through which George —_ —— CY m ee _ - a - . - - _ 27 hand; but when words did form upon his tongue, the sounds were drowned by a series of yells and whoops, and he realized that the horse, with its double load, was galloping through the thickets, and through a horde of savages, while bow-strings twanged, and cries of fury mingled with the hail of arrows that cut the foliage on every side. A wild, exultant yell burst from the man whom he now knew had preserved. him from a terrible fate, but for which he could not thank him, as he preferred death with bis child, to life witbout her. The cry of the man seemed unnatural and inhuman, and his strange silence, together with the painful force of the grip with which he held him, caused the colonel much uneasi- _——— 'ness, as the madman, for he was little less, dashed wildly through the thickets, and amid | the drooping limbs, tearing his clothing and scratching his flesh unmercifully. But. the snorting and affrighted mustang was soon jerked to a halt, and springing to the earth, the strange being, who had evidently risked life to rescue him, supported his trem- bling steps toward a patch of moonlight, pass- ing along a path; then, the colonel, as he was about to gain control oyer his, feelings, and thank his preservyer, found himself in another 'moment bound to a tree, known to bim—that indeed was abhorrent to | Filled with the utmost surprise and concern, Colonel Bowen gazed in front of him, as the strange man sprung aside; then his eyes stared in horror; his form trembled, as if struck with an ague fit, for, straight before him was a blood-stained form, and a face—Great God! yes, the same steely eyes, the same bloody froth upon the lips, the same expression— each, all, as vivid as upon.that dread night when he drove the knife. through flesh and bone. There, just before him, lighted up by the pale _/moon—oh, so ghastly !—with a background of blackness..that was typical of dread and despair, was—yes, surely it was the same— Jack Ames, whom he had. slain on the distant | Trinity! | With, a gurgling cry of horror and dread, the corpse of the Mestizo, though so near the other, not being observed by him, Colonel Bowen’s head fell forward, and his frame hung limp and senseless upon the bonds that held him, George Adler’s eyes blazed with insane delight. He was having great success in thus rapidly disposing of his enemies, CHAPTER XXIV. THE BANDITS ROUTED. As George Adler went dashing through the Comanche camp, and the savages saw their captive thus borne away in the clutches of the maniac rider, they became furious, especially when the hoofs of the flying mustang went through the breast of a recumbent warrior, and the escape was made amid a_ volley of arrows fired in pursuit. | The piercing death-yell of this brave just as the hoofs of the snorting steed were over his form, and he realized that he was doomed, awakened the Indians to immediate action; but as they were on foot, and could not expect thus to stand before the mad, plunging adyance of the mustang, their efforts were of no avail, and the sudden appearance of this single foe in their very midst so excited them that their arrows flew wild, and the darkness beneath the timber contributed to the success of the dash made by Adler through the woods. When the madman and captive disappeared, the braves were furious; but, one, a brother of the warrior who had been crushed to death, was frantic, and demanded the immediate tor- ture of the remaining captives, before they too should be rescued. They all thought that, George Adler was one of the bandits, and that the men in the bend might possibly run in on them, and gain the battle. However, spies were kept going and return- ing, reporting every movement made by Cap- itan Caramba and his men, and thus a sur- prise was rendered impossible. But, with all this precaution, the brave we have mentioned still clamored for the blood of the captive women, and many other warriors joined in the demand for torture. Rolling Thunder, the chief, had decided in his own mind that both Maggie Moore and Belle Bowen should be taken to his far-away village. He. bad never before seen such beau- | tiful squaws, and from the fact that Maggie had been taken from the ranch of Post Oak Bill, he believed her to be the daughter of that famous scout who bad killed so many of his GDOOKS wr eom