Beadle's Dime Library No. 204 — page 29: what you’re looking at

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

Upon due reflection, he decided that the small party of Comanches who had tortured the friends of Frank Ames to death, and then galls! up the river bantering him to follow, woul! not have acted in the manner they did, | had there not been reinforcements near at ban! to back them; he therefore very pru- dentiy returned to his stronghold, resolved to get bis men in order, and prepare for defense | | or attack. However, he did not believe for a moment that a war-party of sufficient numbers to cope success®‘ully with bis well-armed band cou!d be | in the neighborhood; and, if so, they would Big Foot Wallace. - - ——— ee — $$$ broken cover; then, the front having reached a point south of the entrance to the bend, all, at a signal from their chief, twitched their mustangs half about, and facing the same. There they sat their horses, a crescent of red | fiends, for once having a foe in their front who deserved no mercy from them, or from any — one. Capitan Caramba laughed long and derisive- | ly, waving his sombrero, for he did not sup- | pose that the Indians would dare charge, with their inferior Weapons, upon his splendidly armed force. The Comanches, however, took no notice of not dare to attack him in a position so easy of | the laughter and gestures of derision and ban- defense as the bend, ter, but sat their steeds silent, and more terri- Not for an instant did he entertain the | bly impressive for being silent, and perfectly thought of giving up Belle Bowen, without a hard struggle to repossess himself of his beau- tiful captive. Tbe very fact that she had been torn from him caused him to prize her the more highly; and her beauty and daring, became magnified from the same cause. So it was that he made a mental vow that she should be bis, even should he be forced to risk his life a score of times to regain her. With well selected words, spoken to act upon the revengeful dispositions and ths avarice ef bis men, he influenced them into the same train of thought, until they were eager to attack the Indians; fully believing, as their chief had asserted, that it was the Comanches who killed the driver of the wagon, and carried off the fifty thousand dollars in gold, Capitan Caramba had not spoken of this, however, uotil he hadi gotten his followers greatly excited and furious for revenge; as he knew that, in their calm moments, they would reason, and c rrectly, that neither tue murder of the driver nor taking the captives from the wagon could be the work of Indians; for the latter would have scalped the man, stolen the horses, and packed the animals with the blankets and other valuables in the wagon. As soon as the bandit chief arrived at the beud, he sent the Mestizo up the river as a spy, to ascertain the force and position of the In- dians; and also the state and location of the captives. He had seen, as well as his men who were with him at the scene of torture, that there were two female prisoners in the midst of the Comanches; the nen supposing that one had been captured at some ranch previous to their having discovered the wagon; but the presence of this second female explained to Capitan Caramba the mystery of the escape, and the killing of the teamster. He felt sure that one of the slaves had been secreted in the Dearborn, and had released the colonel and Belle; that the former bad then knifed the driver, and then all escaped to the plain, where the Indians bad discovered and cap- tured them. Nothing of this, however, did he bint at to bis followers, for the very obvious reasons that we have mentioned. After his men had been furnished with am- munition, and were ready for fight, Capitan Caramba galloped his horse back and forth, cursing with fury at the delay of Ignacio, the spy. Had he been able to pierce the darkness and foliage, and see the terrible sight at the tree up the river, the curses would have died on his lips. But, as it was, every moment the outlaw chief grew more furious, until at length the yells of the Comanches, as George Adler galloped through their camp, broke out loud and clear, causing the bandits to look upon one another in amazement; a feeling which also began to rule their leader, Here was another mystery. The question now was, who could be attacking the Indians? True, no guns had been fired, but notwithstanding this, Capitan Caramba knew that enemies were, or had been, in the Comanche camp, Again he cursed the Mestizo into the bottomless pit for not relieving his anxiety. This feeling was now doubled by his hearing a series of the most piercing shrieks that told of some one~— and a female at that—being tortured. Quick as a flash, the thought came into his mind that it was Belle Bowen! That he was now being robbed of the only one who had ever made an impression upon his stony heart. So he spurred at break-neck speed toward the neck of the bend, close followed by his desperate crew. He halted suddenly, for, out on the moonlit plain, in all their parapbernalia of savage war, dashed a long line of warriors. One close after the other, out from the dense shades they came, near two-score in umber, as all could see, when the last had | —— EE motionless, Thus they sat, while the shricks of agony, that tortured all ears except those of the red- men of the plains, sounded on the still night air, although growing weaker and weaker. Keeping the same position, the bandits twisting on their saddles, nervous and impa- tient, the silent and motionless Comanches un- manning them more by acting in this way than if they had been charging in wild war- whoops, and amid a hurtling shower of arrows and glittering lances into the bend. So the crescent of red warriors remained, until from out the timber the shriek of a pan- ther drowned for an instant the feeble screams of the to:tured woman in the distance; then, as one man, with loud, far-sounding war- whoops waking the echoes of the night, the line of braves, with lances in reserve, and arrows fitted to their bows, dashed at headlong speed upon their snorting mustangs, the hair of horses and riders flying wild, the braves bent forward, their black eyes glittering in the moonlight, and a savage thirst for blood dis- torting their paint-smeared visages, No sooner did the Comanche war-cries cut the air than Capitan Caramba whirled his horse facing his men, and yelled: ‘Into line, all! Wait until you see the bows bend, then each o1 you pick his opposite red! Sling rifles after first fire; draw sixes, and give the red devils hot lead as fast as you can cock and pull!” On came the yelling horde, The thundering tramp of the steeds, as their hoofs struck the earth in concert, sounding like far-off thunder, the Comanche chief leading the savage charge! Suddenly, as the bows of the horsemen in the front were brought up from the shoulders of the mustangs, ready to bend and send the terrible shafts on their mission of death, and as the rifles of the bardits were being jerked to shoulder, the twang of many bow-strings sounded from the rear of the outlaws, and be- fore the latter could catch sight on the warriors in their front, dashing like an avalanche upon them, a score of arrows hurtled among them from the bushes that bordered their grazing ground, sending nearly as many to earth, with shrieks of agony; the horses of the slain and wounded dashing here and there in frantic fright, stamping their fallen masters with their fast-flying hoofs. Then followed a scene that neither pen nor pencil could describe or paint. The bandits, never having expected that they would be called upon to contend with In- dian foes who would perform such a strategy as to cross the river through the limbs of the trees, and under the protection of a threatened charge in front when the attention of all was there drawn and held, were appalled and thoroughly demoralized, and although those who were not killed or wounded pulled trig- ger, their bullets for the most part flew wild, and the next moment a murderous volley of arrows from the main war-party caused the bandits to jerk their horses about to avoid the next and quick following flight of steel-pointed missiles. This movement was their ruin; for, although they drew their revolvers, they were too late in bringing the weapon into use. Too late; for in a moment’s time after slinging their now useless rifles, the outlaws found themselves struggling amid a mob of warriors, whose blood-curdling yells could not drown the pierc- ing, agonizing cries of the wounded. Striving in vain to keep his men in order, and breasting the savage charge with a des- perate daring that, as he shof down braves as fast as they presented themselves, commanded the admiration of the Comanches themselves, Capitan Caramba at last drove spurs and fought himself away from the horrible bend = that seemed suddenly turned into a pandemo- nium, a fighting fleld for fiends. No sooner had the outlaw chief cleared himself from the battling horde, than, as he cast a quick glance around in quest of a place of refuge, he saw vpon the plain another war-party of Indians, speeding like dry leaves before a ‘‘norther,” to the scene of the conflict. The end was not. ret. Filled with horror unspeakable, his followers all either killed, wounded or reserved fcr tor- ture, or alse fugitives in the bottom-timber, Capitan Caramba, with death staring him in the face on all sides, urged his horse madly into the thickest shades; there, panting from exer- tion and struck with a deathlike horror, the bandit chief waited the progress of events. At the very moment that Capitan Caramba thus succeeded in making his escape from the bend, the Comanche yells of victory rung loud and clear, while here and there braves were té be seen springing from their steeds and tearing the reeking scalps from Mexican and whites, now and then, however, being themselves wounded by bullets from the few bandits who had escaped the massacre. These now strag- gled through the bottom thickets, striving to collect together, by signals, and thus to defend themselves against skulking reds who were now hunting them like blood-hounds. It was while thus occupied, and totally un- conscious of danger to themselves, indeed not dreaming that foes were near them, that the Comanches were suddenly startled at the sound of thundering hoofs, and the next moment the Wacos, their wild war-whoop sounding shrill, dashed in an overwhelming charge into the bend; while galloping through their flank to their rear, shooting down all before them, rode like the wind Big Foot Wallace, Post Oak Bill and Sharp Eye, by this movement placing themselves in the rear of the foe, to cut off the retreat of those who had on foot crawled through the branches to attack the bandits from behind, the scouts having seen at once that there were a score of braves who had no horses, Rolling Thunder began to perceive that his war party was doomed, and with half-a-dozen of his most distinguished warriors, made a dash at a lance charge, and himself with three braves escaped to the timber above the bend. Then followed a massacre, The wild, exultant whoops of the Wacos, the rattle of fire-arms, the dying groans and shrieks of agony, sounding on the still morning air. The moon, asif hcrrified at the dread scenes of the night, sinking below the western horizon, as the gray streaks of the morning shot up to the east. When Capitan Caramba saw that all was now lost, and that his only refuge was on the Rio Grande, he guided his horse slowly up the San Miguel, beneath the cover of the timber, resolving to ascertain if Belle Bowen still lived, and if so, and guarded by a few braves, he determined to recapture her, and bear her away to Mexico, thus averging himself in some measure for the disaster that had been brought upon him through her, and plunging Gearge Adler, the man he had robbed of his fcrtune in the beginning, into hopeless despair. He bad detested his foster-brother from the very first, The studious habits of George, and the favoritism very naturally shown by Major Adler to bis son, had first caused the feeling. But, in bis own heart, he knew George to be more truthful and honorable than himself—in fact, more of a man in every way—and he exulted in defrauding him and his father of such a large amount as would leaye them comparatively poor, But, with all this, he had been compelled to feel a great respect for Major Adler, who had given him a home and an education; who had, indeed, been as kind to this unworthy son of his adoption, as any man could have been to a child that was not his own. When Dudley Duncan absconded with the property of his benefactor, he had, in reality, taken but a small sum with him. The great bulk of the money he had possessed himself of, he had secreted in a hollow tree on the Adler estate, dropping the gold coins, one by one, down a hole made by a wood-pecker, This was a great satisfaction to him now, as he resolved to diguise himself, go back to the Trinity, secure his treasure, and then fly to Mexico. But best of all would be to rob George Adler of the maiden he loved. This would be a sur- feit of revenge for all his boyish grievances, S) . comichoo = —— eee _ (E(@)