Beadle's New York Dime Library No. 4 — page 23: what you’re looking at

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

) | | — ——- ene No, 4, word in leave-taking, she threw herself a her mother’s bosom and wept piteously, while Mrs. Burbank afforded her such consolation as | a mother’s heart can prompt. But they were > interrupted by Swanton, who appeared with | horses, and informed them that they would be | The Kidnapper; or, put to the inconvenience of moving a few miles in charge of a second party of Indians before camping for the night. | en the sation with were gone, he entered into conver- uffalo startled by Mrs. Swanton’s voice raised inangry | tion close at hand, followed by a | ex iercing shriek and the thud of a body falling to he ground. Sidney, we have said, had come into camp | despondent. He remained buried in his bitter | thoughts until startled from them by his mother’s | voice, crying: “You painted heathen! dew ye think yew’ll be let rob. the dead? Gim’me that shaw] here!” Instantly, he was upon his feet, with a picture drawn in lines of fire on his brain. In the hurry of the search for Blanche, and in his eagerness for revenge, Mary Edwards had not been buried, but laid out on the green turf, be- neath the murmuring trees, her piteous plight hidden beneath the bright scarlet shawl] she had worn. Sidney asked himself—was his dead being desecrated? Before he had scarcely time for thought, he | was thrilled by his mother’s scream, followed by | a dull, grinding sound, which made his blood run cold, and a fall. | With great bounds, he burst through the in- | tervening thicket, to come upon a sight which, | for an instant, froze him to a statue of ice. Be it known that Jerusha Swanton had cast covetous eyes on the scarlet shawl, calculating | how it might be purified and made to adorn her — own person. She was troubled by no sentiment | which would mar the pleasure of such an ac- uisition. When, then, we say that she sud- | enly came upona ‘‘ painted heathen,” in the | person of the Speaking Rifle, in the act of sur- | reptitiously appropriating the shaw]—perhaps as a memento—her natural indignation is ex- plained. Emboldened by her husband's power | over the savages, she had come to look upon them with less fear; and her cupidity now : —- -—— ——— 1 SE ' oaded her into forgetfulness of all caution. ith as little ceremony as if he had been “ Bill | Swanton,” or Sidney, she snatched the shawl from his hand, addressing to him words whose opprobrium—if not their exact meaning—was | unmistakably intelligible. The Speaking Rifle was not used to being thus | bearded by a squaw; and one sweep of his toma- | hawk silenced her querulous voice forever. It | was while he was stooping to regain the shawl | that Sidney appeared upon the scene, closely | followed by his father and the other savages. Ata glance he took in the whole sittlation. He had loved his mother, much as a wolf’s | whelp loves its dam. His rifle lea to his | shoulder, and wi out blood with blood. The Speaking Rifle f and exhausted; the hunter, whose thews seemed roof against any tax, was trying to cheer up his companions; the moon shed its serene light over all. ‘Thera is no use in our waiting any longer,” said Mr. Burbank, starting up. ‘* Our friends are unable to come to us, or they would have been here by this time. And who can tell what tortures the poor child has suffered during the orn, from which they were | long hours of our absence, even if she has es- caped the terrible dangers by which she was surrounded?” ‘‘The time we’ve waited hain’t been thrown away, ’squire,” said Ben. “I reckon you an’ the Great Shanghai of the Northwest. looking ghastly Hal’s nigh enough dead men now, after havin’ | blowed a spell, to venture back where we've got to go to git Miss Blanche. We hain’t out o’ the woods yet by a few, or I lose my guess.” ‘* You are sufficiently recruited, are you not, | Harry?’ asked Mr. Burbank. Hal raised himself, not without effort, and said, simply: von F slow fire! It was not more than half an hour since the | last of them had dragged himself, almost dead | with fatigue, to the rendezvous. The short re- spite had revived them a little; but they had not energy enough to talk, and so pursued their way in silence, urly Ben’s:habitual caution prompted him to reconnoiter the spot himself, before letting the others’approach Blanche’s place of concealment; tut Mr. Burbank’s anxiety would not hear to the delay. . ‘‘ There is not a sound,” he said. ** Most like- | ly the Indians have gone into camp on the other | side of the hill, before the mouth of the cave. Let us waste no more time. My darling may now be lying in a swoon of terror.” * Burly Ben yielded, by no means content. They reached the vine-tent, and Mr. Burbank called softly: ‘‘ Blanche, my child, we have come for you.” No answer. ** Blanche! Blanche! It is your father who calls.” , Dead silence. ‘*My God! Has she been recaptured?” ‘*‘She may be swooned, as you suggested,” volunteered Hal. Without a word, Mr. Burbank dropped upon his hands and knees and crept beneath the vines. _A moment of painful suspense, and then the lis- teners heard a groan. ‘*She’s gone!” said Ben, and an awful hush followed. The vine leaves: father stood before them aggorniees. With ready sympathy Ben grasped his hand and re- ceived his head upon his shoulder. ‘** Cheer up, uire,” he said, feelingly. ‘‘ While there’s life there’s hope, ye know. We're down to-day; but that ain’t sayin’ we won’t be up to-morrow.” ‘*Théy have retaken her and gone!” said the like a log, without a groan. | bereaved parent, and his iron frame shook with But a score of throats yelled fierce resentment; | anguish. and the youth’s life was threatened on every hand. , For the third time, the renegade’s magic call suspended immediate action; but this time the weapons were not returned, nor was the atti- tude of age relaxed. All eyes were turned upon Buffalo Horn. In his hands lay the power of life and death. | Swanton addressed him a few rapid words, in which he played upon a jealousy existing be- tween the two chiefs, to such effect that the sur- vivor waved his hand in command to his fellows desist. “The Rattlesnake was a squaw, but the squaw of a great chief,” he said. ‘“ TheS i ifle id his life for hers. Let the feud die With hem; nor let us alienate our powerful friend,” Sullenly the Indians deve But one there was whose fierce eye rested upon Sidney with a look which would have warned him, had he seen it, that the savage only bided his time. Swanton was very pale as he bent over his wife. There had been little love between them; but the suddenness and violence of her death had shocked him. But when he had buried her which he did at once, he had so far recovered that he reflected: **'Well, she was ‘called’ at a time very con- venient for me. It has taken a disagreeable business off my hands; for I certainly should not have let her stand between Helen and me.” The ate | twilight saw the work of inter- ment comp , and wasting no time in formal ef, Swanton rallied the Indians and led them the spot where Blanche had been sec As the moon cast her silver beams into the i they discovered no indication that the orest was longer tenanted. Silvan solitude reigned supreme. How was Nature’s sanctuary soon to be ted? CHAPTER XXXIV. THE FIGHT IN THE GLADE. Uncr more the friends—Mr. Burbank, Hal and Burly Ben—were united beneath the oak which Shang had appointed as a rendezvous, Carlton Bur sat in a dejected attitude; Hal Then the silence which followed was broken | by a voice which said: ‘‘You don’t seem to have found what you | Were looking for, my dear Burbank.” The three started and saw William Swanton | standing with folded arms in the middle of the moon-lit glade. His face wore a smile of cruel triumph. Before his auditors had recovered 23 | lay at full length upon his back, looking pale | ‘*Stop,efor God’s sake! It is your brother that you are about to kill!” A moment of hesitatiqn, in which Hal looked up and caught a glimpse of Swanton’s face, in the monlight; then, with a fierce oath, the would-be fratricide gripped bis knife more firmly, and leaning forawrd to give it impetus to the blow, plunged it down- ward. But the hand was torn aside, and the next in- stant he lay on his back, with Sidney’s foot on: his throat. ‘* Now, you devil!” cried the victor, throwing his weight upon the neck of his victim until the latter’s eyes protruded with strangulation, ‘‘now itis my turn! Now I will show you how much torture can be crowded into one death! I shall scourge you with rettles; then flay you alive; then put salt upon your raw flesh: Seen stick splinters into you; then roast you bya I shall rack you Letween hens sap- lings! J shall—curse you! a thousand new tor- tures shall be invented, until Mary is avenged!” All this time Mr. Burbank and Burly Ben were fighting with the Cesperation of men who knew that nore than life depended upon their cfforts. The dead and wounded lay all about them; but the living wall, ever renewed, hedged them about mare and more closely. J 1, Bur- bank was already down, and Ben was fighting over him, faithful to the last, yet almost over- powered by tLo numbers that threw themselves upon him frem every side, when the woods rung with a shrill whocp which was not Sioux. And now the assailants were desyeratel fighting on the defensive in their turn. Forge ful of their single surviving fce, they only sought to escaye 11cm the new enemy. ne blood from his eyes, Purly Ben saw that Indian was stiuggling against Indian! . CHAPTER XXXV. BOYHOOD FRIENDS. For an instant the scene was unintelligible to Ben, and then recollecting the shrill war-whoo which had heralded the new assault, he divin it all—the Sioux had been attacked by a party of Cheyennes. * But what boded this to him or his friends? rted again, and the agonized | ' i ' ' : | | ’ from the shock of this sudden revelation, he | ded: ‘‘T need not tell you, gentlemen, that you are my risoners.” Never!” cried the, outraged father. Well he knew, as did his companions, that ay hag meant death, made horrible, doubtless, Vv ture. His pistol exploded almost in Swanton’s face. Then there was a sudden rising from every bush and coppice; and they knew that they had been cleverly ambushed. Pen cannot depict the scene that followed. The three men, surrounded by a multitude of foes, might have been shot down at a single dis- charge; but Swanton had ordered them to be taken alive. Their simple death would not ap- pease his malignity. sang was. fiendish in his fury, as he leaped upon ‘ nA Wane, murderer He = cried, ‘‘I come to avenge Mary Edwar The sound of that name gave Hal the strength of a madman. In an instant the two were clasped in a mute embrace, staggering hither and thither and spinning round and round in such rapid evolutions that no interference was possible. In eon Eas etree or oe dey ern He for lis antagon inst a sapling, its slender trunk aad bana: the van- uished man over it, so as to bring breast fairly upward. Clute the throat of his in- tended victim, he rai is knife for the fatal blow. : Sidney looked demoniac in his hatred and de- =. He saw his revenge baffled, and the mur- faser of his love now about to add his death to ers. But the murderous knife was stayed, A voice which thrilled Hal to the heart cried; | tor- | i i Were they to escape one set of savages only to fall into the hands of another? As if to answer his questions, a white man forced his way to the hunter’s side, crying: ‘* Ben, for God’s sake, where is Carlton Bur- ° bank?” | ‘*Here, if he is not dead,” replied Ben, and stooped down to lift the fallen man from where | he had been standing astrice of him in the hope- less attempt to beat off his foes. The combatants had now left the glade, and the sounds of conflict were fast receding through the woods. The newly-arrived bent over Mr. Burbank and examined him anxiously by the aid of the moonlight. Meanwhile Burly Ben was staring blankly at his timely friend. _ “ Who in thunder be you?” he asked, speak-. mg Pompe A he man addressed looked up, and said: “Need you ask? Don’t you know me? *“*MAJOR BEARSLEY!” Honest Ben gasped out the white as that of any corpse. ‘*Help me to revive him. He is not dead,” said the major, —— E Ben set about the necessary measures like one in a dream. When Mr. Burbank showed signs of recover- ing, the major said, hastily: ‘It wlll not be weil for him to see me at the first moment; I will join you again, when he has fully recovered.” Noiselessly he stepped back into the shadows. “That's the way!” muttered Burly Ben, a shade whiter, if possible, than before. ‘ We won't see no more o’ you, I'll bet my last bullet!” ‘*Ben! Ben! we are not captured?’ were Mr. Burbank’s first words. ** No, ‘squire. We was rescued at the very last hitch. ‘**Rescued? How?” ** By a spook!” “A what?” “‘ By the ghost o’ Major Bearsley, that is dead an’ gone this twenty years, eanymost.” “Nonsense, Ben! A ghost couldn’t fight In- dians.” “IT tell ye the major come here with a pack rey ks that was meant for Cheyennes at his back, an’ stampeded the Sioux like smoke. You see the Sioux ain’t here; an’ if you kin find hide ae o’ the major or his spooks, I'll eat my Further discussion was cut short by a ripplin cry; and Blanche Burbank sunk ahudes taint ing into her father’s arms, her appearance from con shadows being as sudden as if she had Rped from the . ; ‘““What! My child? Thank God, she is re- stored to us!” ‘** And—oh, papa!—there is some one else! Do not be startl We are all safe now.” ‘*Some one else?” ** CARLTON!” The wife*tould not wait longer. Tottering ECOMIE St words, his face as 200 (E(e)