Beadle's New York Dime Library No. 379 — page 21: what you’re looking at

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

ri black eyes filled with the glow of murder as they roved swiftly around in quest of the man who had shattered his good right hand with a bullet that afternoon. ut Iceberg Dave was still absent, no one apparently knew where, and a savage curse broke from his thin lips as he real- ized that one more chance had slipped him by. Of a verity the habitues of The Mint were not to grow rusty for lack of excitement and sur- prises, on this night! ‘‘ Not you, durn ye!” snarled Ugly Dan as the double ranks before the bar turned to break and scatter precipitately. “It’s bigger game I’m huntin. Where's Iceberg Dave?” ‘*Not in at present,” promptly replied the barkeeper, his face pale as death, but bis right hand going down below the bar and clasping about the butt of a revolver. ** Crawled into his hole to hide from a man!” cried Ugly Dan with a laugh that was even more savage than his curses, ‘‘Go on with your drinking, gentlemen. I’m with you in spirit, but ve taken an oath to touch no liquor until I can drink it over the corpse of Iceberg Dave!” ‘* Jest a’p’int me your depity sponge ontel the circus is over with Dan’el, an’ Pll go bail you'll be drunker’n a b’iled owlafore two hours more!” chuckled the Terror, promptly ‘‘surrounding” his own dose and refilling the glass with a low bow toward the desperado. ‘* Your drink, pard, an’ my feel-um-good!” Ugly Dan gave asurly growlas Howling Jona- than tossed off the liquor, and then spoke sharp- ly, addressing the crowd in general: ‘‘Tt’s no more than fair | should tell you why I’m out gunning for Iceberg, gentlemen, and if you'll hold your hush for a bit, Pll do it.” ' He cast onemore keen glance around him, into the gambling-room where only the two dealers remained at their stations, the players having flocked to hear what Frank Spartan had to say, then he strode to the corner of theroom as form- ed by one end of the bar and the partition wall. With his back thus guarded, and the gathering all in his front, while it would be impossible for any one to enter the saloon without his catching the first glimpse, Ugly Dan added: You all know that neither Dave nor I have lost any sleep through our love for each other. I was satisfied to go my own way, as long as he didn’t try to crowd me too hard. I knew he was a mizhty good man at bottom, or I thought so until now! And thinking so, [ was content to keep my own walk, only giving back such crows as he chose to send over the line fence. ‘* But to-day Iceberg played me dirt of the nastiest description. You see this hand, gentle- men?” he cried, his voice taking on redoubled viciousness as he shook his bandaged right hand in the light where all could see. *‘ Iceberg took a pot shot at me from under cover and behind my back this day, and when I have spare time, this hand will have to come off at the wrist— hell’s bitterest curses forever blight the cowardly eur!” There was a stir and a buzz perceptible and audible as the men interchanged swift glances at this bitter charge. Frank Spartan alone seemed unmoved, though such would hardly have been the case had he even suspected how that wound had been received—in whos: defense it had been inflicted. But Amelia had said no- thing of her experience at the hands of Ugly Dan, partly because the lovers had had no chance for close communion as yet, and partly because she knew Frank would lose no time in secking the desperado to avenge her wrongs, and she loved him far too dearly to knowingly ex- pose him to danger. : “ He played me dirt, and when I was crippled, under his gun, my right hand useless, my left hand empty, he rubbed that dirt in until it came out on the other side! All this—and then he was fool enough to let me go, to get even! And even "m going to get, or youll have a chance to at- tend the funeral of a man !” His voice choked with rage, and fora brief space there was silence throughout the room. Ugly Dan leaned back against the wall, his left hand clutching a revolver with muzzle covering the entrance. His face was purple and swollen with savage rage and hatred. His eyes were bloodshot and glowing like balls of living fire. His thin nostrils quivered as the hot breath came through them in sharp puffs. Not a pleasant picture just then. Now, if never before, his title of Ugly Dan was fully justified by facts! . ‘““That’s my story, gentlemen,” he said, his voice low an strained from the effort he made to control his furious passions sufliciently to speak at all, ‘* You know why I’m out gunning for Iceberg Dave. And if there is one present who knows where the cowardly cur is hiding, I will give him fifty dollars to go and tell the dirty whelp I’m here and waiting for him! Will you go, Tom—” : He broke off with a snarl as a rapid footfall echoed just outside the door, and his pistol went up as a human form crossed the threshold, only to lower again with a vicious oath as he recog- nized his error. It was not Iceberg Dave, but the same ragged, wretched creature who had begged for a single glance at the face of Perry Blair not long before. Howling Jonathan. ee ooo Tall, if standing erect, and of a figure that looked as though it might once have been athietic if not graceful, but now bowed and warped as though through disease or long and terrible sufferings. A head that was covered only with long, tangled hair, bleached by the sun and weather to a dull whitish hue. A face that was bearded, but not heavily enough to | hide the wan cheeks, the pinched nose, the sunk- en eyes in which gleamed and glittered some- thing that seemed close akin to insanitv. Hands bony and claw-like, now raised to his head as the wretched creature stared about him like one dazzled and bewildered by the bright lights. A mass of tatters and rags for a garb, leaving his arms bare to the elbow and legs uncovered to the knees, while his bruised and scarred feet had no protection from the earth. ‘*T heard him!” gasped this wretched creature, his eyes roving over the curious, pitying or amused faces about him. ‘I heard the voice that mocked my ayony in the ages gone by, when [ was in hell! If I could only see his face! I would know that, I think! He printed it on my poor brain, and—was it you whose voice I heard but now?” and he paused as his glowing orbs reached the face of Frank Spartan. **The man who spoke last is standing there,” and the young man pointed toward Ugly Dan, who was scowling fiercely at this interruption. With a swift movement the ragged creature stepped before the desperado, bending forward, shading his eyes with one bony hand, his gaze seeming to scorch the face they rested upon. Ugly Dan growled viciously as he tried to beat back the strange being with his fiery gaze. But instead, the creature seemed fascinated by it, slowly moving nearer, his breath coming hot and fast, muttering: , Speak—let me hear if the voice is the same! The dark face looks like that of the devil—speak, though only a word!” ‘*Curse you, get out of my light!” grated Ugly Dan as he swiftly raised one foot and kicked the stranger half-way across the room. A cry of angry reproof broke from the crowd as they witnessed this brutality, but only Frank Spartan spoke in plain words: ‘‘ That was a coward act, Ugly Dan, and for if you should be booted all over Good Leather! Tackle a man of your own size, if—” ‘*Wait until P’ve laid out Iceberg Dave, and then blow, curse you!” A wild, unearthly scream rent the air, and the ragged figure leaped forward, a bright blade flashing in his right hand. He landed fairly against the breast of Ugly Dan, and struck hard and sure! ‘“You devil! at last ve found you!” hesnarl- ed, savagely. CHAPTER XIII. THE MAN WITHOUT A BRAIN, So swift the action, so flerce and deadly the onset, that not a hand could be lifted to check the maniacal slayer until all was over! So swift the assault that Dgly Dan himself could not strike a blow in self-defense, the armed left hand with which he was threatening Frank Spartan being driven across his body as the strange being leaped at his throat, the re- volver exploding and sending its lead crashing through the glittering pyramid of glasses piled on the shelf back of the bar. So swift the blow that almost before one of those present could detect the gleaming of ee steel in the lamplight, the avene ine lade had fallen, to rise again with red blooc dimming its luster! Rose to fall for the second time. Again—and then Frank Spartan twisted the knife from the hand of thesnarling, grating, foaming slayer, hurling it across the room wit the same motion that pinned his arms and tore him from the sinking body of his victim. And Ugly Dan, with never a word or groan, without a sign that told of life or consciousness, dropped in a limpand nerveless heap to the floor, his red heart’s blood pouring out and form- ing a pool just where the slanting shadow of the bar drew a line across the corner. The slayer never looked at the man whose strong arms held him helpless, never cast a elance around as a dangerous growl ran through the crowd, distinguishable even through the ejaculations of horror born of that swift tragedy. He glared at Ugly Dan with his eyes ablaze, and not a word camefrom his foam- tinged lips until he saw the desperado fall to the floor without life or motion. ‘‘The devil—the devil is dead! And I killed him, even as he murdered me in the long ago!” he cried, ending with a shrill, maniacal laugh that caused Frank Spartan, stout-hearted and steel-nerved though the young sport was, to shiver and feel hisflesh creep! ‘Plum’ crazy, or I’m a howlim liar right from headquarters!” came in loud, clear tones from the Terror as he stepped a little nearer the assas- sin and his captor, facing the swaying, mutter- ing crowd, And then, in low tones that alone met the ear of Frank Spartan, so cunningly uttered that the closest observer could not have detected the motion of lips or throat, he hastily added: ‘Ef you don’t want him lynched off-hand, a a 8 es boss, show your grit! Call your fri’nds to back us, or we’re gone up in a holy minnit!” Frank Spartan heard and comprehended, acting promptly. Those first words had so wholly expressed the thought—conviction, rather —that flashed across his own brain. This crea- ture was surely insane, and if so, he should not, be murdered without a trial. With a swift movement he swung the slayer around and through the open cles leadir & into the gambling room proper, his left band still grasping the mass of rags, his right filled with a revolver as he held it up with a warning gesture that checked in its birth the rush that. would almost surely have ended in the death of the stranger. ‘Don’t be in a rush, gentlemen! The whole night’s before us in which to settle this unfortu- nate affair. Im open to hear reason, and I trust you all are in the samesweet stateof mind. But. whatever you do, don’t crowd!” Not so much the words or tones as the stern face and the dangerous light in those jetty orbs. They warned the excited crowd that any such crowding must be at their expense. Before they could get at the slayer, they must first down this sport, unless they chose to break down the frail partition and so make recom to act in too great for any one man to guard against. And almost before they could think of this method, the Howler stepped midway be- tween, his back to Frank Spartan, his face to them, both hands armed and fight written in every line and feature, ringing out in every tone of his deep voice. ‘Fer crowdin’ is onperlite, gents, an’ them’s what I never could stan’, nohow an’ noways! No crowdin’, or they’s goin’ to be jest the holiest. picnie right here that ever Good Leather see’d in the bull course o’ her pussonal ’sperience— amen!” The fierce, unreasoning lust for blood which, so often finds birth in the sight of blood, was checked but not quenched. looks; deep and savage growlings that might, at any moment, burst forth into a roar that would be stifled only in death; nervous hands cripping deadly weapons, waiting only for a leader—only for a movement that would break the peculiar spell which nearly always marks the first moments of such an uprising, Swiftly the eyes of Frank Spartan roved over the faces before him, He showed no signs of fear or dismay, though he.saw that even those: on whose blind aid and backing he could usually count without asking, were to the full as muc affected by that strange, unreasoning lust for. blood as the most intimate friends and mates of the desperado who lay weltering in his bleod at the end of the bar. And only now did he fully realize the difficulty of the task he had taken upon himself. But not a sign of all this ap-. peared in his face or voice as he spoke up, clear and firm, but with the air of one who asks only a reasonable argument before coming. to blows. ‘*Time enough and to spare, gentlemen, since- you see I have taken ey of the man who. killed Ugly Dan. He cannot escape if he was to make the attempt. I will be responsible for’ him, while you and I try to decide whether or no he was justified in the act.” ‘He killed Dan—kill him to make it even!’”’ growled one of the mates of the slain desperado, . a vicious-looking knife glittering in his gratp as he made a forward movement, only to recoil in- voluntarily, as it seemed, before the pistol of Jonathan, who indignantly cried: “JT like a hog, but youw’re a bull slaughter- bouse full, you air! Aint one cold corpus enough fer to make you a squar’ meal? ant to depopylate all Good Leather in one night?’ Cain’t leave even a free lunch fer posterity?: Billy-be-darned ef you ain’t heap wuss than a John Pigtail at a rat barbecue—you be!” If Howling Jonathan expect@d to make a point by raising a laugh at the other’s expense, he was Dark and ugly — ~ disappointed. The affair had passed that stage, — and sterner arguments were needed to check the - longing for blood. Frank Spartan saw this, and though he still’ guarded the entrance to the gaming-room with: unflinching nerve, his voice grew still more: placable. *T don’t want to have trouble with: you,. gentlemen, but simply to get at the bottom facts. Wecan look at the matter soberly and) come to some equitable decision surely!” ‘* Ain’t it plain as the nose on your face, say?" ’ indignantly added Hebrew, his red face turning still redder. his eyes flaming vividly as he ges-. ticulated with his armed hands. “ Didn’t Ugly Dan lend him the lean o' his boot right whar he { lived? An’ fer why? Was the crazy critter trompin’ onto any o’ his pet corns? Was he do- in’ ‘any harm? Nct a durn bit, feller-citizens!. Jest takin’ a look at the sweet mug of him to: try an’ recognize a long lost brother! That's: what! An’ a kick—think of it, gents! A k-i-c-k, boot-leather!” and his whole form seem- ed to shrink and collapse with utter humiliation at having to utter the shameful words. Only for a moment, then he drew his form erect, swelling out with hot indignation 1n voice, face and every member. ‘¢ A blow fer a kick! An’ who’s to stan’ up in. * ae EONNICELNCOL KS (C con