Beadle's New York Dime Library, No. 375 — page 31: what you’re looking at

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

a A hearty curse dropped from between Widespin’s teeth; but he made no other an- swer, and Joe went on: “A mighty good imitation he is of the original Kavanaugh, just as I’m a picture of what you were years enough ago to make you almost forget your own locks. I've puzzled you, haven't 1? Well, so I ought to. Lightnings blast you, sir! When you slew Neil you did it not for his wrong to me but to suit your own bad hand, and at the same time you killed my last chance; you murdered me body and soul. If you had been anybody else I’d have taken the law in my own hands, and sent you to kingdom come, rejoicing But I swore, sooner or later, if you lived and gave no sign of repen- tance, the law should do you justice for the crime against Kavanaugh; and I am keeping my vow. You villain, don’t you remember your own sister—Kate Ormsby?” ‘* Kate—but she is dead and buried! a lie!” Even while he gasped out the words the major staggered back, as though overcome by the unexpected revelation. His movement was only a blind. He saw, better than his men who were watching him, how completely he was in the toils, unless the whole Bar rose to his nid. There were a dozen men there that would have fought for him, he knew, but every one of them had been singled out, and at the first aggressive movement down they would go. His movement had thrown Gentle Joe ¢ little off guard. The revolvers were lowered a trifle; and just then, from behind, fell a heavy hand upon his shoulder, ‘‘] dunno ther rights ov this hyar affair, but I do know yer shot my pard frum be- hind, an’ I swore ther fu’st time I got my hands on yer I'd break yer back ’cross my knee. I’m a-goin’ ter doit now. This may be your cirkiss, but I’m a-doin’ ther actin’!” As he spoke, Baby Burt, who had stag- gered up unperceived, caught the gambler by neck and thigh, and whirled him at arm’s length up into the air, Then it was that Widespin saw his chance, First, his hands dropped to his belt, but he found it empty, while the chuckle of Ragged Rufe, a moment before, was now explained. Then he wheeled suddenly, and gave a great spring. As he leaped, there was heard the crack of a revolver, and he fell forward on his face, the blood streaming from his side. ‘*T fired that shot!” said a distinctly fem- inine voice, and Bess Stanley stepped into view, following closely after Jess Hurley, who, a shade sooner, had sprung to the side of the Baby. ‘*Hold on, para!” he said. ‘‘ You've got hold of the wrong end of the string. I’m alive and kicking, and Gentle Joe didn’t go back on his side-pards. The man that did the work has his gruel, and there he lies, Put him down easy, and listen to the rest of the story, before somebody bores you.” Jess came just in time. Another moment and either Gentle Joe would have been crushed under the Baby’s hands, or the shot that Rufe Primrose was aiming would have gone home. The little gambler—the Bar was hardly ready yet to recognize him as a@ woman— regained his feet and his coolness at the same time. ‘* Mortimer, you have the papers, if Cath- cart hasn’t. You two had better look this thing over together and take charge of Ormsby. He’s hard to kill, and il bet you ll find him very little the worse for wear. As for the rest of the gang, Blazer's Bar will settle with them. I reckon this man-hunt has about come to an end.” At that the crowd gave a look at the fallen chief, He was down on the ground, and his face was ghastly white, now that the false beard he had been wearing since he had sacrificed his own was pushed aside, but his head was pillowed in the lap of a woman whose wrath had evaporated, now that she saw the man she once had loved and who once for all had wronged her, apparently at the last gasp. Behind the two, with a contemptuous smile on her handsome lips, and a hard light in her eyes, stood Mrs. Ormsby the younger. ‘‘Nurse him if you choose, my dear,’ she muttered, ** but for ali that we will neither of us rest easy until he is hanged.” It’s CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE CLOSE OF THE CHASE. Ir was just as well that Bess Stanley had fired the shot that had brought the major down. Somehow the outsiders didn’t care to make a rush at her: and with him out of | the way the rest were fair game for the captors | that had so neatly taken them in. Of course some explanation, and some evidence was wanted; and the Bar got both; and was in- clined to be wild over the fact that they had | had so redoubtable a chief with them so long | without knowing it. The story in full, when it e¢ame out, sounded strangcr than fiction, and for that reason was not so hard to believe, though there had been so many changes at the Bar that few had any personal recollections of the earlier facts on the case, When so many were taken in and account- Royal George, the Three in One. ed for there were not many questions asked | in regard to Singular Sam. It was currently reported that his neck had been privately elongated; but the fact was that when he had fallen into the hands of Stanley, while exploring in company with Caton Ormsby the recesses of the old mine, he had saved his neck and had a little revenge by an open confession. If he did not then and there tell much that had not been expected he certainly confirmed the story of Men Hurley and let some light on the one point that was still hazy. To him had been intrusted the details of the disappearance of the child, after Ormsby had first spirited her away, and he had worked it so well in his own interest that if Hiram Stanley had not turned up he would have had the whip band of Ormsby, or made a very pretty complication. He had saved the girl’s life, and as he had managed so that she had never seen him until he found her at the school, back in San Francisco, at which he had caused her to be placed, he had no difficulty in having her recognize him as her uncle, She did not appear on the carpet when he |! first entered the Bar, as her possible guardian and the administrator of his supposed brother’s estate. The mine was of course sold to the man that then went by the name of Archie Divine, and being worked out was temporarily abandoned, and Divine disap- peared, to finally reappear as Major Widespin. Shortly after that came Singular Sam, bringing with him Bess Stanley, who had by this time grown up to young womanhood. Me had lost track of the major for some years, but their acquaintance was quietly renewed, and Sam informed him that the girl was a waif he had picked up and imbued with the spirit of the story he wished her to believe, until she actually fancied that she was the missing Bess. Caton Ormsby was a man who was cold enough in other matters; but, easily attracted by the fair sex, he took a fancy to the girl, and out of that fancy Singular Sam saw that serious complications might arise. The major was inclined to use his position for all it was worth, and succeeded in in- gratiating himself with Bess. He even prom- ised, in a grimly grotesque kind of way, to aid her in the search for the murderers of her father, He had no fear that the finger of suspicion would point his way, and for the vanished Caton Ormsby, if he was traced to Blazer’s, he had prepared a dummy—the Caton he spoke of at the Eagle—to disappear for him. Yet she showed terrible shrewdness and courage—that won on him as he _ recog- nized the danger, until, at last, in spite of Singular Sam, the major had attempted her abduction. How it failed the reader knows. The hardest thing to believe was that this Gentle Joe was not the same as the other Gentle Joe—who flourished in these regions many years before. Such was the fact, however; and he—or she, rather—had come very near to extinction while playing her own little game of ven- geance, since, for a time, Hiram Stanley, who had come back to his senses after years of a dazed condition, and Bess Stanley, each was playing a hand that ran counter to hers. {t was Gentle Joe that had really put the elder Mrs. Ormsby on the track, while Stan- ley had brought in the younger. At different times and widely separated places the two wemen had married the same man. It wasa littlehard to disentangle their histories; but neither had much reason to regret that justice had overtaken the vil- lain. Linda seemed to be peculiarly unfortu- nate, since this was her second marital ven- ture—but Rufe Piim1ose was the only person at the Bar who knew one more strange coin- cidence. The first husband, from whom she had been divorced long enough before she met Ormsby, was none other than the man known here as Singular Sam. Before either had wandered to the wild and woolly West, the two men had known each other well, and it was 10 wonder that Mrs. Ormsby viewed the once boon companion of her former hus- band with fear and aversion. There was very little trouble, however, in proving that she was the legal wife of Caton Ormsby that was entitled to the Eastern estates, and the supposition is that her child was amply provided for. As for Elena—she got as much as she de- served, and probably more. Once definitely proved that her marriage with Ormsby, in the light of the preceding one to Linda, was alla furce, and that Hiram Stanley had brought her there on a useless errand, she accepted the other satisfaction of seeing the villain in the toils, and turned a ready ear to Hen Hurley’s wooing. They left Blazer's to- gether; and if his infatuation counted for anything, they were made man and wife by the first available ‘* blacksmith.” The two tramps who had come together again, each on his own hook, though after- ward used by Gentle Joe, as their game pro- gressed, would have been part of the case had the Stanley matter been pushed; but as they had nothing to do with what had been done on the other side of the mountains, and only hearsay knowledge, they said their say and then they drifted away, and the region knew them no more. ' Gentle Joe left the Bar as Gentle Joe, though no doubt she y. as rehabilitated before once more entering the bounds of civiliza- tion. The detectives went with her, taking with them their prisoner, who had not been so hard hit that the chances were not ten to one that he would suffer the penalties of the law he had so long escaped, The balance of Ormsby’s gang got their deserts in a more or less effective way. The ci-devant Royal George had managed his work preity well, end had evidence enough to make the case clear that these men had been working the roads under the direction of Major Widcspin. The men who had been in the case with him had been well paid and had not been idle. He knew of Morti- mer’s coming and laid a rather unsafe plan to obtain his secret. Singular Sam headed him off there, though he was deceived into believing that it was the bona fide Kava- naugh. Thus he had unintentionally aided in the trap for Ormsby, who fell into it with- out a grain of suspicion. Chance put bim in possession of Hen LHHurley’s story, for he had looked to Jess rather to furnish him in- formation about the earlier. times at Blazer’s. Jess, as the reader doubtless under- stands, had been working asa side pard of Gentle Joe, and from the other side of the question, using the Baby as an unconscicus tool. Jt wasa narrow thing of it that he did not make bad work in the confusion of identity that Widespin was trying to set up. Bess Stanley accepted her father as she found him, and had no regrets that she had helped to bring Caton Ormsby to justice. They disappeared as suddenly as they came. and their after history was unknown, And the rest of the men of Blazer’s—are they not there, and as willful and as wicked as ever? Some day they may forget it; but as yet they swear by Gentle Joe, the woman that fooled them all, and left just when the camp was most ready to own her as chief. What will be her end is a question hard to answer. With such a stock of desperate acquirements, and so many years spent im nursing plans for revenge it is most likely that the old stamping-ground will see her again, if she lives, and that some day her death will be as violent and sudden as that to which she doomed her brother. The mills of the gods grind small—and exceed- ing sure, as well. . THE END, ,OOKS > ig: Be (E(0) mire i