Beadle's Dime Library No. 387 — page 16: what you’re looking at

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

Dark Durg, the Ishmael of the Hills. ————e EE eee EEE ! puzzled to account for the disappearance and | riedly gasped the speculator as he stooped to aid the renovated condition of the room, he felt no | the desperado in rising. doubt as to their being stiil within the house, ** Le’s git out o’ this afore them cussed blues and if for thet reason alone he stood aside to | come back!” panted Sawyer, who really seemed yermit the policemen to follow the lead of | to be injured. amon Wingfold, now leaping, almost tumbling ‘* Hasy—cuss the devil!” ‘*In here we’ll te hidden enough,” muttered | down the first flight of stairs in his mad haste to | Damon "Wingfold, leading the way through a reach the outer air. * Kick ’emdown! Onze for me! but—seat/” came in short, explosive puffs from the darkened chamber devoted to Nettie Mal- colm, the maid of Precious Wingfold, Tit You fat brute! Pll tell—I°ll holler murder, Doctor Shipley came hurriedly out of the | to foot chamber, his fat face bearing more than one deep red mark, very like those produced by the weapons of the animal he apparently addressed, **Good Lord! Mad! Red-hot! Won’t stand it, I tell you! Throw up the case. Madmen first. Criminals next. Now—cat with fifty claws! Look nice to go back to wife of bosom— 7 ' Despite his great anxiety for the result of the strange adventure into which he had hurried without time for thought or reasoning, Rex ‘Stuart could not help laughing at the comical picture thus presented, to say nothing of the utter disgust which accompanied those explosive -Sentences, ‘Laugh. Lotsoffun. Idiot, sir!” ‘¢ A brute, you mean?” snapped Nettie, flushed sand in unusual disorder for one remarkable for her demure smoothness and propriety. ‘‘If there’s any law in the land for a poor, abused, insulted girl—” Seat!” and Doctor Shipley turned upon the maid with an upward flourish of his short arms. *‘ Hold your tongue. Go to bed. Go to the— ahem! Will you speak to the—the lady, dear boy? ZIcan’t. [I’m worn out. She would holler and kick at the door. I wanted her to be still, but wouldn’t, Wentin. Coaxed. Threatened. Look!” and, bending forward, he tapped his lit- tle pug nose, from which the blood was trickling, “A cat. Thousand cats, wrapped up in one hide! Scat!” ‘4 goat, more like it—and that’s you, Doctor Shipley!’ retorted Nettie, for once in her life showing her real quality without disguise. ‘Tl make you smart worse than my ten fingers have! T'll make you pay through the nose, if there’s any law for a poor, unprotected girl.” Rex Stuart stepped quickly in front of the doztor as Nettie advanced, his face stern, his finger lifted warningly. ‘Think twice before you go to law, my good girl, Lawyers ask some pretty awkward ques- tions, once in a while. Instead—go back into your chamber and stay there until you are ealled.” : -“*T neyer—I won’t stay to—oh, dear!” and, with a hysterical sob, the maid beat a retreat, turning the key in the lock with a spiteful em- phasis. Leaving Doctor Shipley to eagerly assure the rouug man that he had only acted as he deemed Cox for the safety of the wounded cripple, and that the little cat kept him far too busy to af- ford time for taking notes as to what was going on in the other room, we will follow Damon Wingfold and his allies out of the house to the scene of the disturbance which he, right or wrong, at once connected with the flight of Ster- ling Coin, alias Humpy Dick. Througb the dimly lighted hall, down the _ steps and around the corner to the rear of the house he ran, and only for an awkward tripand fall, he would have outstripped even the eager yolice. As it was, he regained his feet and hastenea forward just in time to see the chief pounce upon a struggling figure lying in the alley-way. “Hold him! Don’t let him get away!” he snarled, making a savage grasp at the prostrate fizure, only to utter a fierce curse of mingled surprise and chagrin as he recognized—not Humpy Dick, but Lop-eared Mose Sawyer! _ * Air—I’m chokin’!” hoarsely gasped the rough, with a hollow rattling in his throat that sounded so much like death that the officer at once relaxed his professional grip. Lop-eared Mose retained life enough, however, t> roll over, thus bringing himself close to Da- mon Wingfold, who caught a warning hiss and instantly stooped over his employee to catch: ‘Game up! Gitmeaway! Dark Durg done it!” For a moment Damon Wingfold stood stupe- fied, but it was only for aninstant. He realized the peril which threatened, and catching at the well-known name muttered by Mose, he cried out hastily; ° ‘‘ This is one of my men, and he swears that Dark Durg knocked him down as he tried to stop him! No doubt he is aiding the criminal to es- cape! Follow—find him—a thousand dollars for each one, if you kill or capture! Off—Tll - follow as soon—” He did not complete his sentence, for that - would be wasting breath for no good. At that lice darted away in the direction name, the ose was pointing, almost instantly Lop-eared - disappearing from view as they left the alley for the wider street. ‘* Where is he? Your men got him, eh?” hur- Do it myself, | | ‘“Where are they? Where is he? gate which led from the narrow yard to the alley. Smothering a groan, Lop-eared Mose stag- gered after him, | have to shoot him down?” | Damon Wingfold hopped nervously from foot rubbing his bony hands, his eyes glow- ing redly as he glared at the ruffian. “Gone, durn ’em both!” growled Lop-eared | Mose, leaning against the fence, giving a painful gasp as he spoke. Damon Wingfold staggered back as though a heavy fist had been dashed in his face. The truth flashed upon him, and for a moment it sickened him, causing his very heart to cease its functions. But he would not believe it. He rallied, with a fa nt, rasping laugh. **Gone—with you gallant lads, of course! But where?” ‘*'To the devil! With the devil! an’ that means gone fer good this bout! Dick an’ Dark Bae devil roast him!” ‘“* You lie!” snarled the old man, trembling like a leaf, but crouching as a savage wild beast crouches when on the point of making its death- leap. ‘' You want to cheat me! You think to play the cross! Whereis he? curse you. If you've let him escape—” The mere thought drove him wild, and he leaped at the throat of the burly ruffian, snarl- ing and growling viciously, his bony fingers try - ing to close about that bull-neck. With a low, grating curse, Lop-eared Mose Gone, I say, Humpy drew back his heavy fist and struck the madman | down, seeming about to follow up his vantage to the death. But then he checked his passion with a short, hard laugh. He stood over the prostrate figure, but hear- ing the opening and closing of a door, and catch- ing sight of a figure coming through the yard, he grasped Damon Wingfold and crouched low down in the deepest shade, holding one hand firmly over the mouth of his employer, the other clutching the butt of a revolver as he recognized the tall, athletic form of the young man who had so bravely risked his life in defense of Humpy Dick a few hours earlier in the evening. It was Stuart, coming to investigate the cause of that wild yell and the pistol-shot. Luckily for himself, he passed on through the gate with- out detecting At crouching figures, Had he noticed them, and made any effort to see who and what they were, Lop-eared Mose would have had another life on his soul! Breathlessly ths desperado listened, still hold- ing Damon Wingfold prostrate and powerless only relaxing his grasp when his keen ears told him that Rex Stuart bad passed through the alley and on into thé street. Still, it was highly probable he might return the same way, and ignoring his injuries, which were more than enough to lay an ordinary man flat on his back, Mose lifted Wingfold to his feet and hurried him into the alley, taking a direction opposite to the one in which their enemy had disappeared. ‘¢ Hold your hush ontel we git out o’ the wil- derness, boss,” he muttered guardedly, yet with a return of his usual manner. Damon made no response, even when Lop- eared Mose cut across an unoccupied lot and paused in a sheltered spot where they could see without too much danger of being seen in re- turn, ‘‘ Ax your pardon fer bein’ so rude es to knock ye down, boss,” muttered Moses with a faint grin, ‘* but you would hev it!” ‘* How was it all? Howdid he escape? Curse you for an idiot!” and his enferesd composure again gave way before the flocd of chagrin and frustrated hopes. Lop-eared Mose tapped his arm meaningly, and there was a warning note in his voice as he made ee “Go light on that, boss, ef you please! I done even more then the ’greement cailed fer, an’ cusses is mighty tough pay. J think!” ‘* He escaped—you let him slip through your fingers, when you knew how much depended on his capture!” ‘**Go slow, boss, an’ you won’t be nigh so apt to trip over your own heels, What was I to do? Says you, lay low ontel we fetch out the critter, then bovnce the blues an’ freeze onto the cripple. That was what we was to do. You was to fetch him out. Wael, did you doit? Ef you did an’ we slipped up on it, then, you’d heva right to jaw an’ sling cuss words in our teeth. Eh?’ Damon Wingfold knew that Mose had the ec TE, | closely. Forget it, my good fellow, and—how ag it happen? You are sure you made no mis- take? It was Humpy Dick you saw?’ ‘“An’ Dark Durg I felt, boss,” with a sickly grin, pressing one hand to his chest as though in sore pain, _ * That demon, too!” gasped Wingfold, shiver- ing as though an icy gust had swept across his heated skin. ‘*Ef [Pd only knowed the critter, fu’st cff!” | * . . | grated Lop-cared Mose, with a vicious snort. Did you | ‘‘But this was the way, boss. We was on the watch, ready fer work when the right time come. But when you was so long in gittin’ in- side, thinks | thar’s a monkey in the woodpile, an’ so I took a walk ’round the back way, to make sure they wasn’t iy in’ bugs onto you. The odds was ag’in’ it, | thought, but mebbe they might try a slip-out one side while you was hammerin’ at t’other, an’ ’'m a howlin’ liar ef they didn’t, too!” ‘* You saw them leave the house, then?” ** Not jest. that, but when I got to the alley, I hearn a door shet or a winder let down, back o’ the house, an’ I lay low. <A bit later, I see a man comin’ out the gate, totin’ a big bun'le in his arms. Fu’st-off I didn’t think o’ Humpy but then I ketched a clearer sight, an’ knowec he was that same bun’le!” Damon Wingfold uttered a groaning curse, ‘** if you’d only sent a bullet home!” ‘You didn’t want too big a bebbery kicked up, an’ then I thought I could easy skeer the cuss into drappin’ his hold. Ef I'd even dreamed o’ its bein’ Dark Durg—but I didn’t, wuss luck!” ‘*'The devil’s own luck!” grated the specula- r. ‘‘Wasn’t it? An’ when I jumped out an’ kivered the critter, tellin’ him to wait a bit, durned ef a cyclone didn’t knock me ten feet! Didn’t hev time to pull trigger, even! Lot the gun too quick! An afcre I cculd tell which end my head was on, the dirty whelp was tromplin’ me with hoofs that weighed two ton apiece!” ‘‘T heard a pistol-shot out—” ‘‘That was my other gun. Dut afore I could pull it an’ git my eyes well open, Dark Durg was critter-back an’ totin’ Humpy Dick cn one arm like he was a nussin’ baby!’ ‘“You hit one of them? It was his yell we heard?” ‘* Hit or no hit, they Cidn’t stop. I yelled fer the boys to take him, an’ I reckon that’s what you hearn, Iwas too bad mixed up to remem- er they was on the other street.” Lop-eared Mose caught his breath sharply, pose his chest He was injured, how scrious- y even himself could only guess. Damon Wingfold stood for a brief space, his head bowed, his voice growling and snarling in his chest. To have all sosnugly in his grasp, only to meet with defeat at every point! Iltwas doubly hard! Though Lop-eared Mose had told such a plain, straightforward tale, 2andseemed so positive that both Dark Durg and Bumpy Dick had won clear, he would not altogether abandon hope. ‘*D’m going back to the house and make sure!” be muttered, with a sudden rousing from his gloomy thoughts, ‘* You look up your fellows, Mose, and be ready to make a cash if I give the word.” 4 He did not wait for a reply, but strode rapidly to the street and along it until he reached the house oceupied by his half-brother. He half- expected to find the front door fastened, but it was ajar, and he entered without stopping to rap orring. As he rapidly ran Hp the stairs, there was an ugly, vicious devil in his greenish eyes. At the top of the flight he hesitated, glancing swiftly around him as though ata loss just what course to pursue. It might be possible that Humpy Dick was still an inmate of the house, hidden away in one of thechambers. Should he attempt to search them without making his resence known? This doubt was solved for him y the appearance of Doctor Shipley, who open- ed the door of the sick-room and stepped into the hall, stopping short as he caught sight cf Damen Wingfold. ‘* Infernal scoundrel! What you doing here? Get out! Scat!” There was little love lost between the two. Doctor Shipley was the family physician, and as such could hardly avoid discovering the real state of the case. He knew that this man was persecuting both Maurice and Precious Wing- fold, the last named being to him much as a dear daughter, Damon was not in a humer to be readily bluffed off, and advanced with a dogged front, saying: “Get out of the way. I want to see my brother.” “Won't. Sha’n’t. Getout you! Sick—cra with the infernal row you’ve kicked up. Kick best of the argument, and he began to see that | you—do me good!” exploded the irascible he was acting anything but wisely. If Humpy | physician, looking as pugnacious as a turkey | Dick had escaped, all the more reason for him | cock. to keep on good terms with a man who was as ready to do dirty work as this rough. It was hard work, but he managed to smother | angrily ‘‘Put the weight of your little finger on me and I'll lay yeu_out too cold to quack, even " grated hfe ties thrusting one hand his rage for the moment, and caught the hand | into his bosom and advancing. of his tool in both of his own, muttering: After all, the doctor, as worthy a soul as ever ‘*] was wrong—l was too excited to reason drew the breath of life, was not cut out for a ah “ Eomicboo