Beadle's Dime Library No. 309 — page 15: what you’re looking at

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

‘ s 4 Se a. d * I gi’n him ther leetle gal’s hoss an’ started him fer ther wagons, run ag’in’ one o’ ther spies 0’ ther cantankerous Big Foot; an’ he bein’ so worritated, an’ not keepin’ his peepers open, ther red crawled onter an’ jist drapped him from his boss. ‘*Thet war how'thar ha’r-t’arer gut straddle o’ him—bet yer scalp!—an’ then ther knock on ther cabase, what ther scarifier gi’n him, jist sot his idees on a wile whirligig stompede. “sa so he c’u’dn’t see yer et all, when be stud thar, ‘*Howsomever thet may be, bis brain-box hev gut some loose screws inter hit; but we’ll tighten ’em, ef ther cantankerous cusses o’ red heathen doesn’t jark ’em out altergetber.” ‘*Come, Old Rocky; I am ready, I believe. It makes me feel worse to talk. We must act, even if we lose our lives. I have suffered tor- ture to some extent, but | swear that Bud Blos- som and Jim shall be saved, as well as my father, if I can do anything toward it.” ‘‘Thet’s pure Texas talk, leetle pard! Ye'’re aman, every inch on yer, an’ I'll go befty on yer help. Le’s glide towards ther ford.” Both started, entering an ‘‘open” in the wood but twenty yards from the place Paul had been bound, when, crashing from the under- rowth on the opposite side toward the ford, ashed Rattler, the Ranger, One glaucs was enough for his two friends. The Rattler was alone ! He had not found Pearl, More than this—the young ranger was as pale as death. ' The moon’s rays fell upon him, showing one like an avenging god, mounted upon one of the most magnificent steeds that man ever be- strode, No eye ever gazed upon a fairer, nobler sight, with one noted exception. This was that the handsome face of the young man was so drawn with mingled anguish and fury—a look of reck- less daring, that would stop at nothing until it met the cold hand of death—that it seemed un- natural and not the well-known visage of the brave Texan. | Like a thunderbolt he shot forward to the side of Paul and Old Rocky, ani then, pointing toward the timber-cove, from which rung ex- ultant yells which the cld scout hed not noticed, he said, in a hoarse and husky voice terrible in its very expression: ‘* Pards, Pearl is in the power of those Co- manche devils! Remain here—I will rescue her or die! A thousand red torturers shall not daunt me!” ‘Help ther ole man, Paul!” Old Rocky had uttered these words before Raybold ended, and then, dropping his rifle as the ranger was about to drive spurs, he made a anther-like leap upward, clutching the young exan, and the next minute the two were roll- ing on the ground. aul, who bad instantly understood the old rg clutched an arm of Raybold, and held it ast. It was a strange scene, and had any of the Comanches come upon it, they would have been thunderstruck, to see two of the most noted scouts, their most terrible enemies, in seeming deadly conflict, O'd Rocky was a man of steel, old as he was, and he had given the Rattler a heavy fall pur- posely; the very suddenness of the assault, so totally astonishing and unexpected, served to lessen much the struggles of the young ranger, who believed his old friend had gone mad, ‘* Are you crazy, Rocky?” This he asked, as soon as he could speak, in a voice that expressed the utmost wonder. ‘*Dang my dorgs, no! Hit’s yeou, pard— gone plum lunified wi’ worritation! Say yer’ll not stir a flicker without ther ole man an’ Paul, er lll skulp yer eyebrows, dead sure an’ sar- tain! ‘Tm gittin’ purty bilious an’ keerless, Does yer s'pose ye’re goin’ ter git ther leetle gal out- en thet outfit erlone by a dash inter thet roarin’, ragin’ mess o’ hellishness? Not by a jug-fuli! ‘‘ Now, lay easy, an’ ‘low me ter sling gab! Rf hit’s*a lunge inter ther outfit o’ ther cantan- kerous critters, why, we'll all lunge et one’t. They’d jist laugh all over, though Ill ‘low ther heathens ain’t given ter showin’ when they’re glad, ’ceptin’ by lookin’ ugly es hell. They’d laugh though, | kin asseverate an’ afferdavy, ter see the Rattler glide in, fer they’d scoop yer, boyee, an’ then barbecue yer afore purty Pearl’s eyes, or rene bit! Will ver bide Racer, an’ glide easy-like with me an’ Paul, an’ put up sly pints ag’in’ ther scum scarifiers; er shell I split yer load mersheen, jist out 0’ pure marey en’ friendship? I sw’ar, jist hyar, I'll salerwate ver afore yer’ll git inter thet lay-out o’ Big Foot’s, ter be tortur’d! What's ther game?” ‘Let me up, boys! I was mad—I see it now! But, so help me Heaven, if I see one of those murderous red devils lay a hand upon Pearl Pemberton, I'll goin, and go in to win or die, and all the world shall not stop me!” “Thet’s Texas talk, Rattler! I’m with yer in ther lunge, but yer sha’n’t go alone, I sw’ar by ther bleed o’ Crockett! Let bim up, Pau). Good boyee, leetle pard. I goes one better on in this byer thing, but yer head’s level. **Come on, boyees, an’ put Racer in a cosey bole ’mong ther bushes, an’ then I'll show yer ss pull circus from a front straddle of a imb, The three then entered the thickets, Raybold leading bis horse, while Paul clasped bis band, the old scout bringing AD the rear, his rifle cocked and ready, his keen eyes shooting glances here, there, and everywhere, while he squirted tobacco juice more viciously than ever toward the Comanche “ lay-out.” A great satisfaction was on Old Rocky’s face as he looked at times upon the Apollo-like form of the young man whom he admired more than any other, and whom his prompt action with- out doubt, saved from torture. ‘ CHAPTER XVII. AGAIN A CAPTIVE, AFTER the ranger left Pearl Pemberton in the gulch by the ford, with his noble horse to keep her company, the poor girl sobbed hysteri- cally. And it was no wonder that she did so, after the fearful experiences through which ste had passed, and the dungers that yet surround- ed ber; to say nothing of her deep anguish of heart, in connection with the ignorance she was in with reference to the safety of ber father, and that terrible picture she bad seen, with starting eyes, from the mouth of the cave in the cliff-side—namely, ber darling brotber Paul, bound in a torturing el ig and captive to a hideous paint-daubed Indian, who danced, with demon-like weapons in hand, around the seem- ingly doomed youth, o mortal would ever know the terror, hor- ror, and dread, that poor Pearl bad suffered in her lone wanderings after leaving the cavern of horrors by that providentially-discovered, but dark and forbidding Passage when the blood and paint-smeared omanche, Black Fox, crawled over the floor of the cave-chamber after her—a craving for revenge and blood in his wild black eyes, that stared, beast-like, into hers, curdling the very blood in her veins. Tremblingly, waveringly, casting appreben- sive glances behind her, and into dark side- passages, expecting from each to behold that horribly-repulsive savage crawling toward ber, with bis baleful glance—-thus the poor girl had passed on, in a continuous waking nightmare; at times making a halt, as the torch, which was her Only hope, grew dim; holding the burning end dowaward, to allow more of the fat of the pine to flow into the fainting flame. On and on, along the chief of the many pas- sages, not knowing if she would ever emerge from the labyrinth, poor Pearl had proceeded; at times frightened nearly to fainting, at the phosphorescent glow from moldering bones, which lay in some black cavity of the rocks, the abandoned lair of some wild beast. And indeed she dreaded nothing less than to meet some of these monsters of the mountain, which, she felt, must frequent the subterranean chambers of the bluff; but, in her mind, she de- cided that she would much ratber face.the wild beasts than the merciless savages who had eap- tured her, and had been vanquished by ber brave and daring hero, the Rampant Ranger! Ever present in the hapless maiden’s mind was her lover, from whom she had been parted for what seemed so long a time, and whom she had met so strangely and so providentially only to be again perted frcm him in so cruel and tragic a manner, and amid horrors such as appelt the very soul, . ittle hope had poor Pearl that Raybold was alive, but she clung to that little hope, as a drowning man clings to the frailest spar. She cou!d only find no reason in her mind to explain his absence from the entrance to the cave-chamber, where she bad seen hiin stricken down by the Comanche brave. She could not bring berself to believe that the blow bad killed him outright, but thought that the Indians had carried him away, He had slain, it was probable, all who were in the cave, or badly wounded the one by whom she had been menaced; but others, it was almost certain, must have found him, and they were intending to return for herself. Thankful, most thankful to Heaven, she in- deed was, that she had evaded the savages who were in search of her, and she prayed most fer- vently that the brave young ranger might be spared to her, and that her father and Paul might escape the merciless red torturers, But who can imagine the heartfelt terror of that poor maiden, when, in the dark bowels of the cliff, she tripped over a stone, fell at full length, and her torch became extinguished, ‘Oh, God!” she cried out, in an anguish of soul, so strong that her utmost strength pro- duced but a gasping whisper, ‘‘ Oh, God! save Thy child!” Then she crawled along in the darkness. Her prayer had been heard, She saw a faint grayish glow ahead, which grew brighter and brighter, and eventually she came to an opepicia in the cliff-side, some fifteen feet above the waters of the San Saba. There was no way out of the cave, except to bound into the river! Raybold, the Rattling Ranger. | yer! I thought, dead sure, yer’d go ag’in’ me — a OT aye ay <8 ot OG Te ow -— lO gait, Mage ee ~- — oe eee - That wild leap we have seen her take, . But even that desperate act was forced upon er. On the cliff she would have remained, had not that terrible scene burst upon her view, be- Ege the river, it being but a few feet from the bank, ; It was no wonder then that, half-crazed by that fearful subterranean journsy—ibat ter- rible journey and the subsequent borrors througn which she had passed—that, upon" ve- holding the awful situation of her brother, she sprung, with a piercing shriek, into the waters there being no doubt, in her half-deranged state, that she thought of rushing to Paul’s as- sistance, even though shecould do no more tham die for him. But she stopped not, for a mo- ment, to reason upon it. : aa return, however, to the thicket at the ord, Poor Pearl Pemberton would never forget, to her dying day, the sight of her fondly-loved brother, bound in that painful manner, and in that savage Comanche dancing around im! Me: Rattler reach Paul in time to seve his’ ife? That was now the question. And, if so, would the two whom she loved so dearly, return to ber in safety? The ranger had asserted that Old Rocky had caught and secured his horse for him in the thicket, This gave her bope that the old scout might be with her father, and that he would care for him, in this mest terrible of all times that had come upon them, Without doubt the train bad been destroyed, and the brave teamsters bad all been murdered,, or worse than that, captured, which was awful to think of, Indeed, the poor maiden’s brain burned and seethed, from dwelling on the hor- rors of the San Suba; until she felt that it would burst from its bone casket. She bad suffered a hundred deaths since she had first discovered the young ranger ride from around the bowlder in the gulch, His coming seeming to be the signal of an avalanche of horrors, that were strange and mysterious in the extreme, The Fates seemed to have suddenly hurled all that would appall and destroy upon the house of Pemberton. And yet poor Pearl was destined to very scon realize that the dread experiences. through which she had passed, were as nothing to those” still in reserve—that the whole savage world ; had apparently combined to concentrate all its fiendishness upon her devoted head! _In the same ivsane state, that was born of her dread experiences, Pearl could not long remain passive, Time seemed to drag while the Rattler was absent, so apprehensive was she that he would ‘not succeed; that be himself would fall into the a nee ee TEI EEE Ee hands of the enemy, She arose, drank a quantity of the brandy, as the ranger had recommended, and, as much as was possible, wrung out her saturated clothing. Then she put her arms about the neck of Ra tler’s noble steed, and laid her head lovingly against the same, the horse manifesting the greatest delight at her attentions. It was while she was thus occupied, that she heard the splashing made by horses 1 ossing the ford near at hand. Her mind had been picturing the happiness she would feel,.should Rattler, Paul and her father return together, and this pleasant mental picture caused ber almost to believe that it was true, when she heard the sounds we have men- tioned, Without a second thought, Pearl] stole through the thicket to its outermost border, nearest the gulch bed, the sound of horses’ hoofs, clattering directly toward the thicket, almost convincing her that her imaginary picture was about to prove real, The next moment the foot of the poor girl caught in a vine, and she fell head-foremost through the bushes, and into the clear ground and moonlight! A series of exultant yells at this instant pierced her ears and brain like shafts of steel at white heat, while with them were mingled the sounds of the on-dashing mustangs. The yells, she knew proceeded from the hideous red fiends whom she so much feared, and she groaned in > an agony of soul, as she cried out: p Ob, my God! Hast Thou indeed forsaken me?’ ' She struggled to her feet, as the snorting, wild eyed steeds bounded nearly upon her, She saw the frightful, painted faces, the wild _fiviny bair, the flaunting feathers, the gloating glances shot from serpent-like eyes, and all the parapbernalia of savage war, of borse and red raider—all these she saw in one flashing look. Then sbe felt herself clutched roughly, jerked from her feet and into the arms of a Comanche brave! f The next moment the maiden heard that same sound that had lured her to her fate—heard that sound ever after, though she should live a bundred years, which now seemed bigbly im- probable, and which, although musical and Eomichooks.com