Beadle's New York Dime Library No. 303 — page 3: what you’re looking at

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

———— —<—_— Top Notch Tom, the Cowboy Outlaw. 3 the air and bringing them down on the towns- men, with the skill and force with which they were wont to drive back a rush of refractory cattle; their horses keeping them out of the way of the men on foot; the lashes driving the crowd in confusion. When the townsmen made a fight, thedrivers struck at their faces, with a savage precision which never failed of its effect, and the four horsemen, who had come up so opportunely, did more with their sige ~ in five minutes, than the fifty or sixty men who had been fighting on foot, before their arrival. But the odds were too great to permit such a contest to last long, and the four men would have been stoned out of their saddles, had it not been for the assistance of their friends, who re- paid the timely diversion as soon as they had got to their horses, by taking a share in the bat- tle in the same style, and turning the tables ef- fectually. The townsmen had to give way; for the cavalry did what the infantry could not effect. They ran into the houses and opened a fire of istols from the windows, under which the cow- ba , in their turn, had to vacate the street. They effected their retreat, without any ap- pearance of dismay, for the simple reason that they were unarmed with anything more serious than their whips, and dashed out of the town at full gallop, shouting and yelling their derision and defiance of everything in the shape of a townsman, with no more casualties than the blood that streamed down the faces of balf their number, and the loss of Sandy Bill, who had to be left behind, in Baldy Mac’s saloon, rather the worse for wear. The Glasgow Company’s men had ridden out of the town before the others, and as the cowboys came out on the run, the rivals of their employers raised a shout of derision, evidently meant to provoke a fight on the spot, and which had the desired effect; for the cow ys of the rancbers at once charged them, when the whips began to fly in grim earnest, and there was every pros- pect of a hard fight. The tall form of nme the English over- seer, was at the head of the red-hatted men, and he could be heard giving orders to ‘‘ hit at their faces, hit at their faces,” an order which was but too well obeyed. But the ranchers’ party were no novices at such a eae of fighting, and they made their own whips fly in good earnest, so that one might have thought, to hear the cracking of the long lashes, that a sharp skirmish of pistols was going on, though there was not a pistol in the party, as far as the cowboys were concerned, thanks to the wise provision of the law that weapons should not be carried in the town, save by men who could be trusted, and were willing to give bonds for the public safety, to get a per- mit for their carriage. The English overseer had such a permit or he would not have been able to fire his signal-shot as he had; and the four ranchers had the same; but they did not attempt to use their weapons, sore as was the temptation in the case of the four, who had but one armed opponent before them. The parties were about equal in numbers, and there is no telling how the strife might have terminated, when the cattle company’s. men suddenly gave way and fled, with a precipitan- cy that would have argued that they had got the worst of it, had not their leader himself given the signal by a sbrill whistle, when the contest ended as suddenly as it had begun, with as little appearance of reason for the ending as for the beginning. The company’s men rede off one way, and the ranchers’ party took the opposite, when the lat- ter set to work to estimate the amount of dam- age sustained by their side, and found that their men had not been burt in the fight, to any great extent. “T knowed it ’u’d be so,” remarked Punch Burleson, as he rode on beside Top Notch Tom. ‘‘ That side is all blazes on the shoot; but they warn’t brought up on the whip, as we"ups was, We lay over ’em thar, you bet, Tom.” Top Notch Tom was a tall, handsome young man, with the face of one who seemed better fitted for the pursuits of peace than the role of a Texas cowboy. He had blue eyes, and long, fair, wavy hair, of the fine texture that denotes a gentle dis- position. He smiled rather sadly as be an- Swered: “It is a savage wy of fighting, Punch. I had no idea, when this little t started, that we should be involved in such a d ceful affair. That Berkeley did all the mischief. His ee were helping ours, when he called to em. Limpy Balstrop struck a light and lit a cigar, as he observed: ‘‘Reckon we sp’iled the shootén’ of some of the darned galoots, though, Tom.” ‘‘ How do you mean?” asked Tom. Limpy finished his lighting before he an- swered: “Waal, I cut the eye out of one feller, I knows on; and there ain’t many of our men that kin say they didn’t draw blood from some ef the darned cusses. The fight’s got to come, e know, and the sooner we get it settled the tter. Either they’ve got to run the caounty, or we hev: that’s abaout the size of it, Tom. Thar ain’t no half way. If we give ’em an inch, they’ll take all they kin get. Pity some of us didn’t git a chance at the head devil of the lot. He's got to be some man’s meat, afore this fight is over.” He referred to a fight; begun when the great company first made its entry on the ranges of the pom f which, up to that time, bad been open toall. The corporation had gone to work and inclosed nearly two hundred square miles of territory, that bad bel to the public, shutting the ranchers out from the Blue Fork river, their only watering-place for their stock, except by narrow roadways, till the ranchers, in self-defense, had risen in the night, and cut the cruel barbed-wire fences to pieces, by one grand concerted effort. Since that time there had been a constant war between the two parties, and the compan bad suffered the most, for the reason that it had most to lose. The fences had not yet been restored, and the company had commenced a suit against the county fordamages for the destruction wrought, while the ranchers, on their part, were ing their energies to the election of a candidate, to be their representative in the forthcoming . lature, who should procure the enactment of a law, forbidding the purchase of more than a certain amount of land by any one person, and the prohibition of the erection of fences across the natural roadways of the country. The election day was fast approaching, when the issue would be practically decided; for the cattle company bad put up, as their candidate a ap the ranchers, a lawyer of Satanstown, who rejoiced in the appellation of Belshazzar Levy, Esq., and was the counsel for the com- pany in its suit against the county. It was the exasperation of the public mind, on the subject of fence or anti-fence, that had made the recent free fight all so easy of stirring up; and the minds of the ranchers, as they went home, naturally turned toit, and the relations the contest would bear to the election. Tom Field rode silently on, after his compan- ee spoken, and at last he said, thought- ully: ‘IV's a pi men couldn’t keep their tempers. This will hurt our vote in the town.” Punch Burleson shrugged bis shoulders as he replied: ‘What’n blazes air ye todo abaout it, Tom? A caowboy will be a caowboy, any way ye kin fix him, and yecan’t no more keep bim from in’ on a tear, when he gits paid off, than ye in git a steer to stop bellerin’ when he feels the bot iron at raoundin’-up time. What’s cid can’t be helped, and we’ve got to fight it aout.” “T can’t help thinking,” said Tom in the same thoughiful way, “that the affair was n- certed, for the effect it would haveon the elec- tion, Punch. The company’s men are naturally on our side against the townsmen, although we fight outside the town; but this time they join- the other side, and did their best to fight us. the fight occurred, and that our It must mean that they are trying to join forces with the Satanstown boys, and if so, we shall bave a hard time to elect any man who hails from theranches. I wish I hadn’t hotly. They must have recogni e, an that will be used as a handJe against me in the canvass.” | ‘What of that?’ asked Punch in the same tone. ‘‘I reckon, when they come to know what the suit is fur,and what they'll have to pay, if it comes to atrial, that they'll think wice afore they go to ‘lactin’ any Levys or lawyers. You ain’t half used to Texas yit, Tom, fur all you're gittin’ to be a tearer, and no mistake.” ‘*Say, boys,” here suddenly interrupted Deaf Smith, in his usual inconsequent style, not hav- ing heard a word of what had been said, “ yon- ner comes Hank the Nailer, with the guns,’ CHAPTER III. HANK, THE NAILER. “HANK, the Nailer,” was a gentleman whose legal appellation was Henry Kimble, who had acquired his singular nickname from his skill in driving home nails with bullets, He was by right a rancber originally, though he had no t amount of stock; but he had been elected city marshal of Satanstown—a compliment that showed the citizens thought him the best fighter to be found available for arrests, where the culprits carried arms and knew how to use them. Hank was not a rich man. He had come to Texas as a cowboy several years before, and had taken charge of a herd on shares, with the result of Jeaving him with about a thousand head of bis own—small potatoes in Texas, but better than nothing. Even these latter he had disposed of lately to his friend, Judge Collingsworth, soon after the marriage of Tom Field to the ter of the - who was the richest rancher in that part ° | Th had two dat nd. ) e judge em mga og the eldest one in so was still u she Wad plenty of / suitors, for a girl need never despair of getting iwnarried in a place where the men outnumber the women in the proportion of ten to one. But Helen Collingsworth bad the misfortune, in that wild county, of being a girl of education and refinement, who bad come to Texas after she had grown up, and had little taste for the rough ranchers, who made up the male society of the neighborhood, When her sister Diana had married Tom Field, there were some who thought the wed- ding a disappointment to the fair Helen; but if so, she bad never shown it; and the other ranchers, who had envied Tom bis prize, were all busy in making amends for their former tardiness by suing the remaining daughter of the old judge with redoubled ardor, in sight of the happiness that had fallen to their Top Notch comrade. Hank, the Nailer, had sold out his stock to the judge soon after the marriage, and had gone to town, where be bad run for the office of city marshal, with the success we have indi- cated. He was a very quiet, reticent man, who rarely spoke, and never joked. Not bad-look- ing, for he stood six feet in bis stockings, and. had the air of one who has been in the open - from his boyhood and lived a temperate ife. He was, for Texas, a wonder; for he never drank anything stronger than water, and openly avowed bis principles with a frankness that would have cost a less skillful] shot a crop of duels in a week. But the boys never quarreled with Hank, the Nailer; and, when he requested their weapons. at the entrance to the town, they gave them up to him, with the meekness of lambs. Now Hank was coming out to meet them, see- ing them in the moonlight, and be was accom- panied by a man, with a cart full of the weapons that had been confiscated. He was welcomed with a shout, and the cow- boys crowded round the cart, selecting their weapons, and proceeding to fire off and reload them, with a recklessness that savored of devil- try, while Hank sat on his horse conversing with the ranchers, oblivious of the fact that the bullets were whistling round bis ears as thick as if a battle had been going on Hank was a dark, ed man, with the dig- nity of an Indian cbief or an eastern prince, who was accustomed to be obeyed when be spoke, and it was rather curious to hear him, when one of the bullets went through the side of the cart, startling the horse, say to the rollicking men around him: ‘Come, boys, this has gone farenough, Fire in the air after this, and then go home.” He did not raise his voice: but he did brin his Winchester rifle, which lay on the pomme of bis saddle, a little more to the front, and rested the end of the barrel on his arm while bis right hand was on the lock. That was all; but the wild cowboys took the hint; stopped their reckless firing, and proceeded to reload their pistols in a more orderly fashion, Then they rode away, and Hank bowed to the ranchers, whom he saluted as equals, and said to Tom Field, who was the nearest: “T heerd a lot of firin’ in taown, Mr. Field. Hope the boys didn’t git the wu’st of it.” His ay mpathees were still with the class from which he had come, and not with the townsmen, on whom he rather looked down, as not having a man of their own who would run against him, for the office of city marshal. ‘* Yes,” answered Top Notch Tom, soberly. ‘‘There was a foolish quarrel, as usual, about nothing, and I rather think our men got the worst of it, though the only man we lost was Sandy Bill, who isin Baldy Mac’s saloon, where he will probably be kept till they are ready to take him before Concha for assault. At least, so the boys say.” ‘Waal, ’'m sorry for that, right sorry,” said Hank, with an accent of real concern. “If any of gee gentlemen is willin’ to him, I'll see that he gits home to-night.” “Hank, I allers said you was a good feller,” Punch Burleson inte with a tone of great gratitude, ‘I'd like to git the pore cuss aout of the calaboose; fur I’m afeard he’s a-goin to git the jim-jams, right soon, and Id not like em taownies to have the laugh one of my men. [ll go the bail, if ye say so.” ‘Then I'll git him aout fur ye, Mr. Burleson,” Hank replied, in the same quiet way he had spoken all along. “If ye don’t like to come with me, owin’ to the trouble, I'll tell the jedge e was agreeable to goin’ bail, and I reckon ll take my word fur it.” : Punch seemed to be relieved at the offer, for he said at once: : “ Thankee, Hank; thankee. It ain’t the goin’ into taown as I'm afeard of; but the boys is kinder on their best muckle, t t, as ye see, and I got to look arter ’em a bit. be daown in the mornin’, shuah, as soon as the co’t Hank nodded, as if the matter was one v Conners’ nature, and was about tori noe ols with his comrade who drove the car when Top Notch Tom, who was next to Burleson, said; (E| 90K) com cS (Ele) 1 - . . f 3d it> f ~ > “wa: mn 2 heh ee - ne “ i