Beadle's New York Dime Library No. 338 — page 24: what you’re looking at

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

ee oe 4 _—_——-— ——— 24. OT — ee ee ee ee a Jack Sand, the Boss of the Town. as you’re the man to do—I know that of old! —and I will give you loyalty!” ‘‘What revenge?’ asked Bob, piciously. ‘‘ There’s a woman in this shanty whom I want to see die by inches!” ‘‘ Who else is there in thar?” suspi- It was then that Blue-ruin Bob, ae ae made out a woman’s dress, seize ell. ‘lve got ye, my beauty!” he cried. ‘‘And something more with me!” she re- torted. But he pinioned the hand that menaced For an instant the widow's heart came into | him, crying: her throat. Could she sacrifice Jack Sand to secure her own safety? But she found an escape from this ugly way of putting it. ‘* Bob will get him, anyway. Then why should I sacrifice myself uselessly?” Even while she so excused her treachery, she knew that this was not the reasoning of a woman who truly loved. But an instant’s hesitancy, with Blue-ruin Bob's suspicious eyes scanning her face, would peril all. Ifthe pause was percepti- ble, the frankness of her tone neutralized it, as she said: | ‘* Jack Sand.” ‘‘ Jack Sand!” almost yelled the exultant brute seizing her by the arm, ‘‘ Dead or alive?” ‘* Alive.’ ‘Alive! I'll forgive you everything if you give him into my hands alive!” The fiendish gloating of his triumph, as she felt him tremble with excitement, made her blood run cold. But she said nothing. At sight of Bob the wily widow had slip- ped round the corner of the shanty, and he had followed her into the shadow before overtaking her, so this interview had passed unobserved by his men. He now hurried her forth, leading her by the arm. ‘‘See that you take good care of her,” he said, as he placed her in charge of a couple of his confederates. ‘If you let her aS SE ‘Oh, no ye don’t! I’ve dealt with tiger- cats like you before!” And with a quick wrench he nearly dislo- cated her arm, causing the weapon to drop from her nerveless grasp. Then she shrieked with pain and fear, and tried to bite him, so that he was fain to throw a fold of her dress over her head. In his iron grasp she was powerless; and he bore her out of the shanty. An instant later the minister rose from the floor, flinging an assailant from him, and His thought was of Mrs. Clymer. He had missed her, and supposed that she had either escaped or been carried out while he was as- sisting Nell with Jack. He shuddered at the thought of herin the power of these desperate men. To him she stood for all that is refined and womanly. But the only chance of. rescuing her lay in securing his own freedom. ‘‘Ho! light! light!” yelled Blue-ruin Bob, | leaped through a window. frenzied with the delight of murder. And having tied Nell’s hands securely be- hind her so as to render her helpless, and placed a man on guard over her, he rushed off to a burning shanty, tore off a blazing board, and with it applied the torch to the shanty they had just captured, yelling: ‘Down with their nests! Smoke ’em out!” As the dry boards ignited Nell uttered a shriek of horror. ‘‘Stop! stop! you monster! There is a ship through your fingers then look out fur | living man in there, who will be burned to me!” | death! Oh, where is the hand of heaven, to So she stood in the attitude of a prisoner | permit such wickedness?” against her will. By his very suspicion of her he was playing into her hands, if the op- portunity offered to play him false. She recognized this with satisfaction, and at once busied her mind with plots to secure her re- venge and then escape him. She had no no- tion of ever being the slave of such a brute again ‘* Follow me, boys!” commanded Bob, And with a rush they burst into the shan- ty where the marriage of Jack Sand was in progress—on his death-bed, as he supposed Over the heads of the intervening crowd Nobody’s Nell saw the brutal visage of Blue- ruin Bob, who was at the head of his men, and her heart sunk, But her love made her strong, and there came a rebound of desperate courage that was ready to fight to the last gasp. With a downward blow of her open palm she struck out the candle, and then seized the startled divine by the arm. CHAPTER XXIX, BY FIRE ‘‘HELP me to put him under the bunk! Quick! quick!’ cried Nell, in a hoarse whis- er. ” She fairly dragged the minister’s hands in- to place; and ee ge they drew Jack from the bunk and rolled him under it. Then Godolphin Averil sprung into the thick of the fight. He was no coward, and in a righteous cause he was ready to strike home as firmly as anybody. But the known violence of Blue-ruin Bob and his ery of ‘‘no quarter,’ added to the | flare of the conflagration without, daunted | in the | over to where Jack’s trial had taken place. the courage of the little company shanty: and after a vain effort to fight their | way to the door, they took to the windows, in headlong flight. sake have him got out! alive!’ ——— Sn But Bob did not hear her. He was inter- rogating his men. ‘* Has any one seen Jack Sand?” No one had. He swore at them for letting the man whom more than all others he was after es- cape them. Then he went to Mrs. Clymer. ‘* You haven’t been givin’ me astiff? You air sure that Jack Sand was in the shanty?” ‘Yes! yes! and helpless! For mercy’s He will be burned ‘* What's that?” ‘He is wounded, perhaps fatally. He is lying in the bunk, unable to help himself.” ‘‘He is, is he? Ho! ho! We're toastin’ his bacon fur ‘im, air we? Ha! ha!” And with ghoulish glee the monster began to rub his hands. From Mrs. Clymer he went over to where Nell was appealing in agonized shrieks to her guard and writhing vainly to free her- self. ‘‘Ho! ho! my dear!” he laughed. ‘‘ The tell me your lover is inthar. Is that so? Js that so? Ha! ha! ha! ha! ho! ho! ho! We'll roast him; we'll toast him; we’ll friz- zie him; we’ll fry him! Ho! ho! ho! that’s a famous barbecue!” The girl lay panting and glaring at him. There was no use appealing to such a fiend. She looked about on the other men; but no one dared to move against Bob’s will. Then she fixed her eyes on the blazin shanty, and watched the flames roll roun it and lick it up. It burned like a tinder-box, and almost in an instant was a roaring hell of flame and smoke, Without a sound she swooned away. But Blue-ruin Bob had left her, going There lay Major Balfour and faithful Pat Croghan and unfaithful Schaeffer and Mur- | dock, stark in’ death; and there, almost side As a result, the minister was soonthe most by side, lay Injun Sid and Tony Baxter, conspicuous of the defenders; and coming neither dead, though both were severely within a bar of light, he was recognized. Then rose the cry: ‘* Kill the parson! slingin’—”’ But the cry was cut short, and ended in a groan. Then some one fell against the door, slam- ming it to, and the room was again wrapped ' Red Dump, yf in darkness. wounded. fs r’s one of ’em, anyway!” cried Bob. a Down with the gospel- “We'll give him an extra high swing, by way of hpnor.” In wanton cruelty he kicked the prostrate man, - ‘* Rouse up hyar, I say! Who’s alcalde o’ want to know? Ha! ha! ha! hem as is opposed kin git, eh? Waal, I Jj reckon most o’ them as ain't opposed will git —over the range!—before mornin’!” He turned to his followers and went on: ‘‘ Boys, I'm proposin’ to run this camp on a new basis. I’m goin’ to make it the head- center of a band o’ sports that'll be heard from. An’ so’s not to have any mistake as to what sort of a crowd we air, I rechristen it ‘Robbers’ Roost!’ How does that sound?” The proposition was received with a yell of approval, though some, less carried away than Bob, doubted his ability to make his boast good. ‘* Now scatter,” he went on; “‘ an’ the man that first brings in the Fool or any big gun of the other side is goin’ to be my deputy, an’ dont you furgit it! We'll hang ‘em allin a row, hyar, fur a warnin’ to them as crows before they’re out o’ the woods!” He reserved some of the men to do his bidding, and the rest went in search of the leaders of the opposite party. Sy Sam now tried to reason with his prin- cipal. ‘‘Look a-hyar, Bob, you can’t carry this thing through.” ‘‘What’s the reason we can’t?” ‘*Because thar air men enough in this camp to h’ist us out of it so quick that it ’u’d make our heads swim, ef they once git or- ganized.” ‘‘ Whar air they? You don’t see none of . ‘em lyin’ round loose, do ye?” ‘You may hyear from ’em any minute, I tell you! Come! come! don’t be a fool, Bob. Ef you knock in the head what you’ve got, an’ git out, you're all O. K.; but ef you stop an’ play hog, they'll jump you sure, first or last!’ ‘*Let ‘em jump! Meanwhile, we might as well git ready fur the show by standin’ these a galoots up in a row. Fetch ropes yar!” ‘‘Hyar you air, boss,” said one of the men. ‘‘ Hyar’s rope enough to hang all you've got, ‘an’ more too.” Indeed, the supply to hang Jack Sand had been bounteous. ‘String up these hyar stiffs along o’ the rest,” ordered Bob, pointing to the dead major and his man. ‘‘They’ll help out the show. Them two”— indicating Schaeffer and. Murdock—‘“‘ ought to be shot anyhow.” ‘‘Pardner,” asked Tony Baxter, faintly, ‘*have you got Jack Sand?” ‘You bet! an’ we give him a taste of what he’s to git on t’other side!” laughed Bob. ‘* What's that?” “He laid wounded in a shanty down yon- der, an’ we burnt it over him.” ‘That knocks my calcalations! I wanted the fun o’ puttin’ the rope around his gullet. You couldn’t git me a drop o’ water, could e? I’m powerful dry with this blood- ettin’.”’ ‘*T suppose you’d orter be tied up.” ‘‘ When you kin spare the time, pardner.” ‘Winkler, git him some water. An’ you, Sutton, do ye know anythin’ about wounds?” The men set about the tasks assigned; and Bob returned to the more amusing occypa- tion of putting ropes about the necks of the men he had killed the night before. In the midst of this brutal pastime, a man came running up to him. ‘* Boss,” he cried, ‘‘the lady has give you the slip!” ‘* What’s that?’ shouted Bob, with a furi- ous oath, ‘‘The lady from the post, you know, that give you away so bad at the trial—” But a roar of profanity cut short even the hardened wretch who was a worthy follower of such a master; and Bob bounded away to the spot where he had left the subtle widow. ‘“Ourse ’em! [ll cut their hearts out!” he fairly yelled, drawing his bowie as he ran. 7? But he found both guards unconscious, one of them only stunned, but the other with a gaping wound in his neck through which his life was fast ebbing. ‘‘How did this happen?” he demanded. But no one had seen the struggle. ‘‘T was jest passin’,” explained the man who had brought him word, ‘‘an’ I hyeared Hank groan. Then I remembered that him an’ Dave was left to guard the lady.” ‘She couldn’t have fixed ’em herself,” — said Bob, sorely puzzled. ‘‘ Scatter, boys, an’ see ef you kin pick her up.” But the search proved fruitless, <S ——— ge ee = Eomicboo