Beadle's New York Dime Library, No. 239 — page 18: what you’re looking at

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

ne ee ae + CS C+ BPS: ing their heads sideways and gazing gloatingly man up over the saddle, springing up behind | the cantle himself. This done, the scout, with one arm about down upon their expectant feast. But more repulsive, more horrible is the sight | : ‘The Terrible Trio. below that will meet his vision, should it re- | Lionel’s body under his arms, reached up and turn. The spasmodic struggles, which he cannot control, will cause the pole to fall to the earth, and then, while yet alive, those fearful reptiles will crawl upon and over him, and if he moves, will dart their fangs into his flesh. No hope on any side, above or below! Death is in the very air—a_ horrible death! Well may he cry out, from his inmost soul: ‘God and man have forsaken me!” Again the flesh and muscles of the tortured man quiver, his eyelids tremble and slowly open, He writhes and struggles, his eyes blaz- ing as if awakened from a fearful dream. Once again he strives to cry out, but his tongue refuses to articulate, and the blood bursts from cracked lips and wounds, He runs out his swollen tongue with insane avidity, and laps the blood from his lips. This gives momentary relief, and enables him to speak—to frame a few brief words of prayer: ‘‘Give me life or death! take ine out of misery! than I can bear!” To hear those piteous cries would have al- most caused a statue to weep. And that prayer, so oft repeated, was heard. A clatterixg of hoofs comes from the west, and on toward the tortured being so near his death. On, in ungainly gait but with far-reaching bounds, speeding over the ground, spurning the marmots and causing the stones to fly be- neath bis huge hoofs, regardless of the danger- ous holes into which the dogs dart with yelps of surprise and fear—on comes Skip. lively! Single-Eye lashes and spurs, as if life and death depended upon a single bound of his horse, as indeed was the case; and, as he reaches favorable distance, fills the air with yells and whoops of cheer. They reach the ears of the sufferer. A hopeful expression pushes forward through the pictured misery on his face, and he turns bis head slowly. Then, as the well-known forms of the old scout and his steed are recognized, Lionel feels that he is saved, and that there is hope yet for Winnie Warrington! The change from despair to a consciousness of release trom his terrible sufferings—as it were from death to life—was so sudden, so overpowering, that again the young man be- came senseless; his head fell forward, and his lids closed over the sightless eyes. Up to the wagon-tongue thundered Single- Eye, his horse snorting at every breath, and panting laboriously, covered with foam from head to tail. Oa he came, crushing the snakes beneath his fast flying hoofs; while, all around the air was filled with the short, sharp barks of thousands of marmots, and the blood-curdling rattle of thousands of snakes! “Dog gone my great gran’. marm’s forty- second cousin’s tom-cat! Skip-lively, hyer we bees, an’ we ain’t a minit too soon, I sw’ar! ‘* By ther r’arin’, tearin; jumpin’ Jerusalem, an’ Gee-bossifat counted in, ef thet ain’t a sight ter make a white man take a afferdavy ter skin every red heathun in ther ’Nited States an’ Terrortories, from head ter heel! Ef I doesn’t feel like doin’ bit, I'll crowd down Ter- rantalers fer grub, fer ther nex’ six moons, without salt er pickin’ off legs, er singin’! Dod- gast my ole heart, ef thar war any juice inter me, I'd bu’st right out in a howlin’ ole he ory! ‘“ Howsomever, I'll wait ontil some other time, when thar ain’t quite so much biz on hand. **Dang’d ef Lionel warn’t nigh glidin’ inter kingdom come, an’ ef he hedn’t gone straight through. I wouidn’t bet on no white an’ squar’ man ag’in; no mattey what all ther Haller- looyer biz ’mong the Gospel slingers may *mountter! Ease up a leetle, Skip! Thar— thet’s O. K.” While thus speaking, as usual, to his horse, the old scout had been by no means idle. Knowing that he could not lift Lionel upon Skip-lively, if cut down and allowed to drop to the ground, Single-Eye again guided the animal close up to the perpendicular wagon- tongue, severed the ropes that bound his ankles, and then lifted the le_s of the senseless Send me succor or My cross is greater ' cut the lariats that secured the wrists of the sufferer, by a powerful effort; sustaining the young ranchero until the latter was seated upon the saddle, and reclining upon the left arm of his rescuer. No sign of returning consciousness was yet manifested, and Single-Eye tore loose his can- teen, drew out the cork with his teeth, and poured water into the mouth, and over the head, face, and breast, indeed over the whole body of the unfortunate sufferer. He then urged Skip-lively in an eastward direction, saying in explanation to the borse: ‘Git fer ther Jay-out we foun’ las’ night, Skip! I doesn’t keer ef Blackbird’s hull gang air thar. D[’m a-goin’ ter git Lionel inter that cabin, an’ nuss him back ter Texas. Then, dang my ole heart, ef we doesn’t hunt ha’r, 1’m a howlin’ liar! “Ef ther dang’d Blackbird comes floppin’ roun’, J’ll fill bim chuck full o’ lead, er carve him with my slasher, whichever he’s incler- nated toward, ‘*T hope ter be hashed, my meat wrapped up in shucks with chile, an’ sold on ther Alamo Plaza fer termarlars, ef I doesn’t! ‘Poor Lionel! Gerushe Gerry-ko! Won't he salerwate an’ scarify ther reds on ther hull- sale arter this?” CHAPTER XVIIL. SUN-HAIR. THE words of Love Wolf, spoken to Winnie Warrington, proved that he had fully decided upon the fate of Lionel; and, from directions given to some of his braves, as Lieutenant Warrington was overpowered and dragged from the ambulance, it was plain that his mind was made up as regards himalso. The latter was at once bound upon a horse, and, guarded by bulf a dozen braves, was hurried up the Rio Concho, the party keeping within the tim- ber. Near the ford was the wreck of a Govern- ment wagon; and, after ordering poor Win- nie, who was still senseless, to be bound and kept in the undergrowth, secreted until his re- turn, half of the survivors of the war party, headed by Lone Wolf, and with Lionel in their midst, crossed the river and the belt of timber on the north bank, and turned eastward for three miles to the place at which their horses had been left. The chief had directed one of his warriors to bring the tongue of the wrecked wagon along; and when their mustangs were reached, the captive was mounted upon one of them, when all sprung into their saddles and galloped at full speed to the edge of the dog-town we have described. Here he was left, in the manner we have seen, and when the braves returned to the ford, all was silent as death. Winnie, who had by this time recovered, was now bound upon a horse, and, with horror in her blue eyes, and terror contorting her face, was hurried to the eastward. Lone Wolf lingered behind to post a single spy, to whom he gave the arms that had been taken from Lionel, with orders to kill any scout or soldier who might come down the trail from the nortb. Having taken this precaution, the Apache chief galloped along the buffalo-trail to over- take his braves and their beautiful captive. He had but just returned to the Concho from araid down through the border settlements, and had dispatched a large number of his war- riors, by a more southerly route, to the Rio Pe- cos with their plunder, his object being to am- bush the stage, and then to spread his daring and renown as a chief among the Comanches, his most hated enemies outside of the whites. This last disaster, and the many deaths among his party, however, maddened him. But the capture of a United States officer was a great thing, and he resolved to torture him upon ar- riving at their village; for he deemed the lieu- tenant of more importance than a dozen such men as he had left to die in the dog-town, and that, although Lionel had been highly honored in the mode of death selected for him—none but cowards being brained upon the spot. The young ranchero had proved himself a great brave, and was thus given the privilege of a death that would tax his fortitude to the ut- most. So on they burried toward the Rio Pecos, be- | Ce EEE i ££ O— yond which towered the scoria-like mountains of Apache-land. The agony now suffered by Winnie Warring- ton was far beyond one’s power to conceive, The interest which she had from the first felt in the handsome young planter had given way toa strong sympathy for him, when she saw him suffering from the unreasoning injustice of her father. Then came the fearful shock, when all seemed convinced that ber loved, though misguided, parent had fallen by the band of the man he had insulted. Surely that could not be. Then, when Single-Eye appeared upon the ecene, and asserted that his friend Lionel, who had fled with this terrible charge resting upon him, was not the guilty party— giving proofs, too, of what he asserted—the heaviest of the load that oppressed her was re- moved. But Lionel had gone. F led to the wilderness, ignorant that his innocence had been estab- lished, and obliged to leave his beloved and only parent to be buried by strangers; then, again, Winnie’s anguish became almost uvbear- able, She often pictured her lover, for so she con- sidered him, though no word of love had passed between them, as being tortured somewhere by the same red fiends who had slain and mutilated his aged father. She had often recalled as well, the evident infatuation that Bird Blackwell had not striven to conceal for herself; and now remembered the glances of hate she had seen him cast at Lionel. This explained the object the cowardly wretch had in view when he shot her father, with the intention of fastening the fiendish crime upon the man whom he deemed his rival. And this he would have successfully accom- plished, had it not been for the opportune ar.- rival of Single-Eye. She had dispatched friends to look for the old scout, with a view of securing his services to go in search of Lionel; but Single-Eye had departed from the burning ranch, no one knew whither. At last, the life that the poor girl led on Salado Creek became irksome. Hopeless of Lionel’s return, and eventually inclined like all others to believe him dead, she resolved to join her uncle at Fort Mason, hoping still against hope, that something might be learned of the wanderer, if she went to the frontiers. But nothing was known of Lionel Lacrosse by the officers, soldiers, or scouts at the post; and Winnie was far from being displeased when her uncle received orders to report at Franklin; he also bearing dispatches to the commanders of forts and stations along the route, in regard to movements to be made against the hostile tribes, who had of late con- mitted many depredations, When the fierce war-painted Apaches sprung from their ambush, Winnie was horrified be- yond the power of pen to describe. Then, when she gazed up the steep bank, her attention attracted by the explosion of fi.c- arms, and saw the daring dash of the reckle«s rider, and recognized in him the man who was never absent from her mind and heart—fi, «+ joy and relief, and then anguish and despair took possession of her. She felt that she would be forced to witness his brutal murder; forced to see the painted demons butcher him before her eyes! But she resolved that, if he was to die, he should at least know that his innocence had been proven—that the real assassin of her fatber wasknown. It was no time for maiden- ly reserve. What if Lionel Lacrosse did see that she loved him! He had proved his love for her—proved it to the death—and he hada right to know, at such a moment as this, how she regarded him. She saw the effect her words had upon bim; but she saw him also, the next instant, torn from her sight. Her uncle also, had been cap- tured. Winnie felt sure that they were to be tor- tured. Death, then, would have been a mercy to herself; it would have been more than wel- come. Then, as Lone Wolf tauntingly explained to her the manner of the death of the white chief, as he called Lionel, she became senseless, falling forward over the seat of the ambulance, as has been already narrated. Upon recovering her senses the poor girl found herself bound upon a horse and being burried she knew not where ‘ <¢om Ebooks (eo) » ‘iad wat