Beadle's New York Dime Library No. 380 — page 18: what you’re looking at

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

—+ Sa = == — ae = et cod SEBS Leunetie Sete = 2? a ee Ag. ) Nal Athy ‘ iz ~ } : , The Golden Serpent. — ene —-= ‘*No, no! I’m on a square deal this time, for a fact.” ‘*T thought you was in the jug, the last I heared of you. We would ’a’ gone an’ torn out the town, if you had said the word. But as you walked in of your own accord, it looked as if you liked it better. You hain’t come the religious dodge?” ‘*No, not that. But, boys, I’ve got a chance for a clean pardon.” ‘*From the Gov’nor?”’ ‘‘Wrom the Governor!” **No! How’s that, Dick?” ** You know that their committee was cap- tured recently?” ‘‘By the galoots at Silver Riffle? Bully tor them!” ‘‘By the Golden Serpent,” corrected the Tiger. ‘*No? The leetle beauty! the sirup out of ’em!” ‘‘Tt was her scheme to squeeze your hum- ble servant out of the jug,” said Dick, mod- estly. “What? Oh, glory! Haw! haw! haw! Struck her whar she lives, ole man?” And Dick was slapped on the back and poked in the ribs, after the manner of rough, yet jolly, good fellows. ‘*So you’ve been swopped off?” cried the captain of the road-agents. ‘‘ Wish I was in your boots! Wouldn’t mind havin’ the like of her take a double half-hitch round me with her apron-string!” ‘“You're welcome!” said Dick, ‘Show, now! You don’t mean to say—” *‘T mean to say that lhaven’t been swop- ped off as yousuppose, It takes two to make such a bargain.” ‘*Put, great gods an’ leetle fishes! thar’s nothin’ in such a bargain to make a man’s blood run cold!” ‘‘ Tt didn’t suit me, at any rate. Haven't I told you that I was on the honest lay?” “Oh, yes; to be sure! But a man’s got to git his leg oat o’ the trap first.” ‘‘My, reformation dates further back than my getting into the trap.” And thereupon Dick detailed the agree- ment between himself and the Chief Magis- trate... ‘“The question is, boys,” he said, in con- clusion, ‘‘ will you throw up your hands with me and take a new deal all round?” The men looked at one another. It had never occurred to them that such a roposition would be extended to them; so in their private canvassing of the situation no one had ever sounded his comrades in this direction. Indeed, no one knew his own mind in so unexpected an issue, - Having the question sprung upon them in public, each dreaded to “show the white feather,” lest he incur the scorn of his fel- lows. ‘*Come, come, boys!” said Dick, encour- agingly; ‘‘somebody’s got to break the ice. I know how you feel. But just now, Kid- der, you admitted that this section was get- ting either too warm or too cold.” “ Both, Dick,” said the captain, a little uneasily. ‘‘The Vigilantes air makin’ it warm for us. while our game is playin’ freeze-out on us.”’ ‘*}faven't you had enough of this sort of thing? How many of you have found that anything you get sticks to you?” “There’s the fun. That’s something, urged the captain, thus tacitly admitting what Dick implied—that little, if anything, **stuck.” ‘But even fun, all of one kind, may get monotonous. Hasn't skipping about from crag to cavern about lost its charm to most She'll squeeze » of you?” With furtive glances the men read one an- other’s faces. ‘‘Remember,” urged Dick, ‘‘if you don’t like the change, it will always be easy enough to come back to this, You don’t et the chance to try the experiment every ayy “Dick,” asked Kidder, ‘‘what do you want to break us up for?” ‘*Because I think it will be a good thing for you all, as well as for the community at large.” “Waal, it’s jest as the boys say. They’ve stood by me fair and square—lI’ll say that fur’cm. Now ef they want to shake ’em up ag’in, I don’t kick. Come, fellers! what's - the good word?” ee SS EEUU URES a _ =a a I . Still the men looked at one another, hitch- ing uneasily. Dick saw that he could start the thing by dragging one into the foreground. So, clapping a sturdy fellow on the shoulder, he said: ‘* Brick, you’ve got a wife and some babies over the Divide, haven’t you?” ‘‘T have, fur a fact,” admitted the man, awkwardly. ‘How long is it since you've lived with them quietly?” ‘‘ With the old woman an’ the kids? Waal, I reckon it’s a good two year an’ a half, at the least calculation.” ‘* And how long since you’ve seen them at all?” ‘‘ Waal, not sence the last bout you had with Yaller Jack. Six or seven months, ain’t it?” ‘Do you like this sort of thing so much better than the old life?” ‘‘ Waal,” said the fellow, scratching his head reflectively, ‘‘’twa'n’t so bad, an’ that’s afact! The old woman used to floor me once ina while with a stool, when I went home wild an’ bound to tear the house out; but then, ag’in, we use ter git along purty comfortable when I behaved myself. Take it all round, I allow it wa’n't so bad.” Dick smiled at this honest summing up of matrimonial felicity and discord. “Brick, you ought to go back there and do a man’s part by the woman you agreed to stand by through thick and through thin,” ‘* Waal, I allow that’s purty near so.” ‘Of course it is, Wl you go hack? Now’s the best chance you'll ever have.” “T stan’s by the boys,” said Brick, with a decisiveness which showed that his allegiance to his pals was by far the strongest consid- eration with him. ‘* But if they all call the thing off?” ‘*Then I’m agreeable.” Dick turned to the rest. ‘Is there any man in the crowd,” he asked, ‘‘who wants to hold the rest to this bond, if it is the general wish to break it?” Of course that was not putting the issue quite fairly; but no one seemed to sce it. All stood mute. When it thus became evident that there was to be no opposition, many faces brightened. This in its turn confirmed the trend of popular sentiment. Well,” said Dick, ‘‘ that settles it, then!” ‘* Boys,” said their captain, ‘ I step down an’ out without no hard feelin’s toward any- body. You’ve stood by me like good fel- lers; an’ I’ve always tried to do the square thing by you. I hand you over to Tiger Dick, who'll lead you better than I could, though not with a better heart.” ‘‘Three cheers fur Captain Tiger Dick!” shouted one of the men. ‘‘Hold on!” cried the Tiger, raising his hand to intercept the tribute. ‘‘ First, three cheers for Captain Kidder!” They gave them with a right good will, and then cheered their new leader, who was to take them out from under the ban of the law. . A few hours later Tiger Dick dashed up with his men at his back, and seizing Jim Farnsworth’s hand eagerly, cried: ‘‘ Here we are, the whole raft of us ‘‘And meanwhile,” said the detective, whose face also was radiant, ‘‘ I’ve had my streak of luck!” ‘What luck?” asked Dick. “Look for yourself, and see what you make of it,” said Farnsworth. And turning, with a wave of his hand he indicated a bystander, CHAPTER XXIII. A VENGEFUL LITTLE ‘‘ GREASER.” Tue person to whom Jim Farnsworth re- ferred as having brought him his ‘streak of luck” was a Spaniard, who bowed gravely before Tiger Dick’s keen scrutiny. But one glance at his glittering eyes, over which the lids drooped like masks, revealed the torrent of pent emotions that lurked in his soul, ra P Giacomo!” cried Dick, who knew im. ‘“ A service de V.!’ replied the Spaniard. ‘* Well, what can I do for you?” ‘‘Tt is rather, what can do for you, senor!” ‘‘T accept the amendment. What can you do for me?” \" ‘*T can lead you to the place you seek.” ‘* Ah!” said Dick, warily. ‘“To the secret retreat of the Golden Ser- pent; to the mountain fastness were she has her prisoners in hiding,” reiterated Don Giacomo. “Bat I thought you were a particular friend of the Golden Serpent,” urged Dick. ‘*You may lead us to her in a way that will be anything but to our advantage.” ‘*Senor, you have said well, that I sas a: friend of the Golden Serpent. <A devotion unparaileled in the world’s history has proved that. ‘‘ But ’°—with a shrug—‘ what would you? Por Dios/ she is a woman!” ‘** And therefore?” ‘* Has been guilty of the basest treacher where she owed most!’ cried the Spaniard, with an ebullition of fierce rancor. ‘‘ Car- amba / is it for nothing that the Infidel Mo- hammedans hold that women have no souls, while the holy Fathers of our own blessed religion have ever believed them emissaries of the devil?” Dick smiled, at the same time keeping a keen eye on the Spaniard. : ‘Tow is it,” he asked, “that, holding women in such contempt, you Spaniards are yet so gallant, that your common form of greeting to a lady is—‘ Senora, I kiss your feet?” ‘* Mil diablos !” snarlec the Spaniard, “ we must perjure ourselves to match their ly- ing! Do we therefore mean what we say to them?” ‘It would seem not, in most cases,” said Dick dryly. ‘*‘ Meanwhile, what guarantee have I that you will not use ugainst me the facility in lying which you have gained in your intercourse with the various ladies of your acquaintance?” Don Giacomo bit his lip, while his olive cheek became livid with suppressed rage, He was not so thick-skinned as to be in- vulnerable to the keen point of the shaft of insult that Tiger Dick let fly at him with perfect placidity of face and voice. ‘*Could I betray you, except for her ad- vantage?’ he asked. ‘‘ Yet knows not the whole worid how little kindness I owe her?” Tiger Dick assumed an expression of curiosity, as if the matter alluded to would be news to him, It was sport to him, to ‘‘noke” this fiery nature ‘‘up with a sharp stick.” ‘What do you mean?” he asked. ‘‘Ah, God of my fathers!” snapped the Spaniard, ‘‘must I recall how she exposed me tothe humiliation of appearing in her vile woman’s raiment, in the hope of gaining time for flight while the avengers of her crime were in pursuit of me?” “Now you mention it, I think I do recall something of the kind,” said the Tiger, in- differently. ‘*‘ But T remember, too, that it occurred to me at the time that, if you had been eager to frustrate her scheme rather than aid her escape, you could have waited and revealed your identity to her pursuers, instead of leading them on the wild-goose chase you did.” 7 ‘‘ Madre de Dios!” cried the Spaniard, ‘should I give myself up to the scorn and, ridicule of the world, while there was a chance to escape that humiliation? Did not she count upon this?” ‘You make a very straight story of it,” said the Tiger. ‘Ts not the truth ever simple?” asked Don Giacomo. ‘So you have waited all these months for your revenge?” ‘‘It has been the study of my days, the dream of my nights! She surrounded by her desperadoes; I alone: what chance was there to strike, and strike home? But now you were against her, I knew that you woulc provide yourself with a force sufficient to cope with hers.” ‘‘ But how do you come to know that | am against her?” ‘*Does not the whole world know it?” “T fancied not. I thought that consider- | able precaution had been taken to keep the world out of the secret.” ‘Tt is an open secret now, at any rate,” ‘* How so?” ‘é Mira y And the Spaniard drew a copy of the Chronicle from the breast of his jacket, and extended it to Dick. With a glance of lightning the Tiger swept “— >. Gomichboo (E SS (G | ff 7 fF