Beadle's New York Dime Library No. 294 — page 7: what you’re looking at

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

Broadcloth Burt, the Denver Dandy. - fon-plate in kids all ther way from Denver. He’s a cool one ef he is a dandy; but,” setting his yellow teeth hard, ‘‘Tll show him thet my hand holds the most trum Bury yer Mor- mon pard, Broadcloth, an’ live ter find out thet when Paradise Paul war born, every wildcat left the kentry!” The men who surrounded the maddened speaker began to remonstrate with bim on the | folly of rermaining where he was, and hunting alone for his ward; they volunteered to remain and help him, but no. When Paradise Paul set bis head it was no use - reason with him; he never changed bis mind. So they rode away toward Deadwood, look- ing back often to see bim sitting like a statue in his saddle, with horse and man outlined against the star-studded sky in weird silhouette, ‘‘T war alone when | made thet famous cam- paign ag’in’ my enemies in the Cheyenne hills,” he said, speaking aloud to himself, ‘‘l am alone again, with all my pards goin’ back ter | Deadwood. Paradise Paul, you hev to accom-| murmured. ‘An’ I ask Thee, Heaven, if Thou plish one thing or forever leave the Black Hills, | ever remembered Timothy Tenwives, to keep an’ thet is to restore Alice to her home, an’ to | him out of the clutches of that infuriated de- por to all thet oppose ye, that a tiger came to | mon!” dwood when you got hyar,” Not more than fifteen feet separated the pair; Slowly he turned his horse’s head toward the | the Mormon elder in the shadow saw the wo. tragic spot where we left Broadcloth Burt and | man in the starlight, and held his breath and the Mormon elder at the conclusion of the fore- | almost stilled bis heart while he stared at the going chapter. | apparition. _ Dll go back an’ see how the pards, one liv- or a moment her piercing eyes seemed to ing, t’other dead, got along,” he remarked, | single out the man she hated, but she passed on with a smile, and directed his steed down the | and left him alive and alone. trail, ‘*Great Jehosaphat! I’ve been in pickle be- It was dangerous for Patadise Paul to go back there if the Denverite had not left the spot; but what did he care/ A short distance from the scene of the lynch- in pe slid from the saddle, and throwing the fa e-rein over a bush, crept forward on foot, with every sense on the alert, and a revolver in each hand. His figure cast a dark shadow against the rocks and whitened tree-trunks, but he saw it not as he advanced. A few feet from the hanging-tree the Dead- wood desperado hugged the ground, while he surveyed tke place and listened. Nota living object, and not a sound! ‘* They’ve pulled out, er one ov ’em hez,” he muttered, ‘ Ov course, only one war in a con- dition ter navigate, an’ thet one war not the Mormon serapb.” After a while Paradise Paul crept, snake-like, forward, Sure enough, the ground was deserted, but one witness of tbe thrilling scene which had lately transpired there still remained, This was the lariat, which lay where it had been thrown after being taken from the Mor- mon’s throat. ‘Ye did yer duty an’ no mistake,” chuckled Paradise Paul, as be picked up the rope and submitted it to a brief inspection. ‘ 1’ll just take ye along. Who knows but thar’s another neck for ye ter break afore we go back tw Dead wood?” The night was not light enough to show the Deadwooder any trail, and with the deadly coil he went back to his horse. If he had gone down the trail a short dis-| tance he might have witnessed would have raised his revolvers, | Leaning against a huge flat rock was a man | whose face was white, and who appeared al- | most totally exhausted. “ That's what I got for sleepin of that wolf-den called Deadwood,” said this in- dividual between gasps. ‘‘They caught me nappin’ an’ pulled me up to a limb with as little | ceremony as 4 man hangs a dog. He told me that I would die with a lie on my lips, an’ I did touch the fringe of the unseen border-land. Noosed by a lot of Gentile toughs—unconverted American toughs! An’ saved by another—for what?” rae The speaker stopped as if bis own question in- volved a mystery which he could not fathom, ‘*When more than half-dead, Broadcloth Burt made the Deadwood dogs lower me, [ | tried to kill that man a few hours ago. I puta. revolver at his head, but a defective sey saved him. 1 ought totbank him for what he did, but I don't. He came up from Denver to baffle me—to prevent me from makin’ Alice my eleventh wife. told me on the porch of | Colonel Sandbank’s hotel that I was a dead | man if I attempted to win the girl. After ail Mormon toad it all!’ this individual ex- this, he saves my life. There’s something bere | claimed in audible tones to himself as be stood Ican’t explain. But let it go. Lcame to Dead- | behind the cashier’s desk of the Setemup, and wood for a wife—for the loveliest gir] in the | gazed ever and anon at the last blurred page of Black Hills, and I haven’t given ber up yet. | the register that encumbered the greasy coun- Somebody stole her to-night, an’ I know it | ter before him. ‘It looks as if I’m out a guest wasn’t Timothy Tenwives. Who did it? Ab! | or two, but that doesn’t matter much, as I’ve no there comes in another mystery! hankerin’ after such fellows as Broadcloth Burt The Mormon stopped suddenly as if a suspi- | an’ the man whose name is all initials. Gurl cious sound had fallen on his ear; and he moved | gone, eh? That’s about the way I thought it down the trail by keeping the rock at his side | would end sometime; binted that much to Para- hand, Fortune, an’ I will yet show the Gentile dogs that when they touch Timothy Tenwives, — stir up a Mormon tiger!” vidently the disciple of Brigham Young had not recovered from the effects of bis late terrible experience; for he trembled in every limb, not for fear, but from nervous exhaustion. When he reached the end of the rock he stop and listened as he held his breath, | ‘*My God! I was right!” he ejaculated, as there fell against the surface of the rock the figure of a human being. **Can it be that I have mistaken him?” said a voice which made the Mormon hug the shad- owed rock all the closer. ‘ Broadcloth Burt would not deceive me in a case like this. He told me that he had rescued that fiend from the rope that I might pay him fora part of my past. I pray thee, Heaven, to deliver bim into my hands to-night!” Timothy Tenwives saw the speaker while his eyes almost started from his head. ‘*Merciless Maud, the Mormon wife!” he ES fore, but never in brine like that,” said Timothy Tenwives when he found his tongue. ‘‘ That she-devil made trouble enough when she was om of my family, an’ she knows how to keep er hand in wherever she is. She would have annibilated me on the spot if she had discovered me, an’ that would have ended my business into Dakota. Why, I would. have been a baby. in her hands, but there was a time when 1 was master over ber. May I be everlastingly horn- swoggled, if I get fooled ag’ia by a woman like that. I kin feel the cold chills playin’ checkers on my back yet. Timothy Tenwives, thet’s the second time to-night you’ve escaped bein’ put on the calendar of saints,” Cold perspiration stood out in great drops on the Mormon’s forehead. ‘* Pye got to get away from hyar,” he said. ‘*Them Deadwood demons are liable to come back. I haven’t ree the girl up yet. By hea- vens! I never will!” He attempted to reach the middle of the trail, nae doing so he was compelled to leave the rock, As he took his hands away he staggered like a drunken man, tried to reach the wall again, but missed it, and, with an involuntary cry for help, fell headlong into a dark crevice! he next moment the figure of a woman was at the place, and in ber right hand was a knife that reflected the gleam of the stars, **T missed him a while ago,” she said. ‘‘ That was his voice! I would know it among the voices of a thousand men. Can he have fallen into this opening? What kind of a place is it?” The avenging woman listened for several minutes at the dark opening, but not a sound a sight that came to her ears. Her eyes, sbarp as they were, could not pene- trate to the bottom and see the insensible heap of humanity that lay on the rocks, completely at her mercy if she had but ventured down. Timothy Tenwives had fallen a distance of twenty feet, and, if not dead, was liable to give somebod y a great deal of trouble. The way of the Mormon transgressor was hard enough, but he was to see better times. His day was yet to come. CHAPTER VIII. THE MAN FROM IRON GRIP SHOWS UP AGAIN. THe return of Paradise Paul’s toughs to Deadwood without their leader created a ripple of excitement in that celebrated town. By this time it had become generally known that Alice had mysteriously disappeared, and all put the crime of abduction with many an | — saa epithet on the Mormon’s shoulders. ¢ No; there was one person who took a differ- ent view of the matter, but he did not proclaim his opinions from the hofise-top. “ Smash my phabogrs ! if I believe thet LLL Nt ett tt ttt ttt: ‘tlm atta mm five miles out | for support. ‘ dise last summer when they gave the Mormon ‘Dm almost defenseless now,” he went on. | the grand bounce. She’s too good-lookin’ to “What if the accursed Gentiles should close in | live byar, an’ not get found out away from oft me in? My dandy deliverer left me rE tare he among those who want home. Don’t I see that thet Denver sport an’ ! Ipless my blood, Give me time, put a weapon in my Timothy Tenwives have a bond of affection be- tween ‘em? If such a thing didn’t exist, why did the dandy make the Deadwood toughbs lower the polygamist for? Then thar’s thet she- alligater who calls herself the Blushin’ Daisy of the Mountain Top. She’s a fragrant flower, by Jove! Don’t we all know thet she’s nobody but | Paradise Paul’s wife—the woman what left ’im 'sometime ago an’ went down an’ married a | | | Mormon? I didn’t recognize her at first, but it’s as clear as mud now. If the Mormon toad didn’t | git Alice, then thet daisy knows whar she is,’ These were the sage reflections of Colonel Sandbanks, proprietor of the “ first and only” hotel in Deadwood, and he had ample time to evolve them from his massive brain as he en- ete: a Villainous-looking but fragrant cigar in is reception-room, The colonel, as we have already said, was a citizen who had seen all the ups and downs in wild border life; he had been miner, proprietor, Indian-fighter, gambler and regulator, and had drifted to Deadwood where, for want of some- thing better to do, he had set up the “ first and only,” an investment which, while it was not very profitable afforded him plenty of ‘* elegant leisure,” which be valued above gold itself. On a number of occasions the colonel had seen Alice whose beauty was of that kind which naturally excited him. He had not passed that age when woman no longer fills the heart with delightful emotions, and his cracked mirror told him that he was still “* passable.” e thought of this behind his counter the night after the return of the toughs from their hunt. for the Mormon elder. ‘“By Heaven! I see my chance now,” he sud denly exclaimed. ‘‘ Paradise Paul wants the ir). He’s not particular how he gets her. ‘hat if I should rescue her? What if the band of Simon Sandbanks should rescue her and be the rneans of restoring her to him! Wouldn’t I be in a position to demand almost any reward? This may be fate, Simon; the comin’ of those people to Deadwood may be fortune playin’ a ull hand for you! Girl gone; Paradise Paul nearly crazy; wants hr badly; willin’ to do anything to get her back. Heavens! what a chance! Guess I'll take it.” Colonel Sandbanks shut the register with a slam. “I’m a wife-bunter, too!” he cried, ‘I guess I know the Black Hills kentry as well as the next one. I used to be a bad man on the trail in California an’ I’ve lost none o’ my cunni~” standin’ behind this counter. Thar won’t another om A in fer three days an’ my gue: won’t come back. Thet galoot with the alpt bet name is mixed up in this plot somehow, « he'll never call fer hisroom. I’m adurned fe ef I stay hyer when thar’s a wife like Alice be won. lonel, we’ll just close the shanty ics a few days.” Seizing a pen as if.a brilliant idea had flashed like a geam of sunshine through his brain, he tore a blank page from the register and wrote across it in large letters this significant an- nouncement: NOTICE! THIS HOTEL IS CLOSED DURING THE TEMPORARY ABSENCE OF THE PROPRIETOR, COLONEL SIMON SANDBANKS, Then he looked at his work like a man well pleased, and proceeded to fasten the poster to the outside of the front door. , ‘“ While thet isn’t very explanatory, itll me,” he remarked. ‘‘I’ll be back hyer ready to receive the congratulations of my friends at the end of three days, Blast if I don’t raze the Setemup an’ build a palace that'll make the blush- in’ Mrs. Sandbanks holler for joy. l'm not daisy in looks; I don’t sport the duds that Dei verite does, but I’m equally as fit ter be a lovi: husband an’ affectionate father.” Ten minutes later, to be somewhat precisi the proprietor of the Setemup reappeared o the porch equipped for the adventure he ha decided on, He was fully clothed now and looked quite unlike the indolent landlord, inasmuch as he was armed with a Winchester and two revol- vers, besides a formidable bowie which looked capable of doing bloody work at close quarters. ‘I’m the walkin’ arsenal ov the Setemup!” he ejaculated, surveying his get-up in the starlight when he had locked the door bebind him. “Armed aslam, [m more than a match fer anything, I'd like ter tackle a grizzly just fer amusement, er git into a tussle with a harem ov mountain lionesses solely to recall old times. I'd just like ter whisper in yer ear ere I depart on my mission, Paradise Paul, thet Alice will soon Pe Mrs. Simon Sandbanks, ov Deadwood, you bet! ; The valiant colonel turned to leave the porch when he suddenly became conscious of the pres- ence of some ore, and he stopped with a sense of sudden and indefinable terror. ‘*Goin’ fer ter leave the shanty, kernul?” said JOO (ECON AMC cS: —_ wn | i - . - al ." , ee My: a ’ * wale * ne : 4 Lad = Wy ‘ ‘fay ’ ; a. * ‘ oe ) te 5