Beadle's Dime Library, No. 406 — page 5: what you’re looking at

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

i ‘arm broken. Old Pop Hicks, Showman. tt ok A ' . Ys, e i = Th ibe 4 . Om 5 ‘‘Now, look here, Moone,” she said, lifting her finger threateningly, “‘ you tell me the truth, or it will be the worse for you.” Moone looked at her placidly. ‘What's the matter with you?” was al! he deigned to answer. ‘Tl tell you what’s the matter with me,” she answered in her impetuous way. ‘** You set those dudes on to queer my act, didn’t you, you little sinner?” ‘‘Did I?’ returned Moone calmly. ‘* Well then, complain to the old man. You know i didn’t; so what’s the use of talking? Are you ready to go yet?” é ‘‘No. Is any one hurt?’ asked she, with her usual way of skipping from one thing to an- other. Moone nodded. ‘Yes several. Tom Fowler got a black eye, that’ll last him a month.” ‘* That’s nothing. Any bones broken?” ee Yes.” ** Who is it?” “Tim Flanagan, the canvas-man. Had his Got to leave him in the hospital.” ‘* How did it end, and where were you?’ ‘Tt ended in our cleaning them out, and I got the men in the other show to help us.” ‘“Didn’t they do it till you asked ’em?” Sally snapped out angrily. oone shook his head. ‘* Not a man stirred, except one.” ‘* And who was that?” ‘‘Charley Noble, their beast man. He broke away when he heard you girls yelping. What was it, anyway?” Sally tossed her head angrily. ' “s at’s that to you? You weren’t with us ‘to help us, Seti agent you are!” Moone smiled placidly. ‘‘T wasn’t engaged to fight. Besides, [’m no better at it than you—not so good, perhaps. What was the racket, girls?” He was on familiar terms with them all, and they rather liked him, because he never falked any nonsense to them. ridget Stubbs broke out: ‘‘Tt was those dudes that frightened Fiirt. ‘They came after us. But didn’t that man lay %em out, just?” Moone laughed. ‘““He ought to. He’s the wickedest fighter 1 ever saw. Better than Elephant Jim, and he’s a terror, you know.” “Was Jim hurt?’ inquired one of the girls who rode in the ‘‘entry.’ ‘‘Hurt? Well, not much. He got several clips, but he’s tough. He well-nigh killed one of the townies, though, and we had to send him on ahead in a buggy, for fear they might arrest him for spite. King Philip went with him, and I pity the man that tries to arrest him.” The girls laughed at the idea, too, for King Philip was the terror of the show, when his trainer was not with him all the while. “Come along, girls,” added the little agent. “We're well out of this town, if they don’t follow us into the next, and make it hot for us there.” Sally Hicks laughed defiantly. “If these sick dudes come after me again, with their flowers and nonsense, I'll let them have a piece of my mind,” she said. Moone shook his head. ‘* Won't do, Sally. Showmen can’t afford to have rows. Your father*feels anxious about the next town. You do your act, and leave us to attend to the dudes. They don’t get in again to make a disturbance.” _ They went down-stairs, where the girls found waiting, the large, comfortable vans in which they traveled from place to place. Pop Hicks’s show was one of the old-fashioned kind that does not depend on railroads for trans- rtation, but carries everything from town to wh in vans; that moves like a brigade of troops with its train of baggage, and lives in tents during the whole season, only using hotels for feeding-places, y and Ma’m’selle Pao oo with Zora- lina, the trapeze girl, and Fanny Rounder, the hurdle-act lady, occupied one of the huge vans and slept there on the road, when the only peo- ple left awake were the drivers, who kept on the watch all night. Zoralina was a quiet, modest girl—real name elia Briggs—the last person one would have thought of as the brilliant figure in tights that was wont to vibrate in mid-air before the crowd, As the girls prepared to sleep, she said to Sally in a whisper; - Sig dear.” , Milly?” ‘We're going to have trouble ahead.” ‘* | know it, Milly.” “ And it’s going to keep n.” “ What makes you think so?” ‘‘ Because I know the light man that made the ‘first pee about you.’ ** Who is he?” ‘He is a rich man, and he owns mines in the ‘very country we're going to.” ‘*What of that?’ Zoralina shuddered. up the whole sea- : | You don’t know those miners. If he tells them, they'll drive us out of every town we come to.” ' Sally compressed her red lips. ‘They can it; but I tell you, Milly, they don’t know my father. He’s hard to beat.” She looked herself, at the moment, a good deal like her father in the face, with the same deter- mined expression. ‘*They can run us outif they get the whole people on their side,” pursued Sally, who knew a good deal of the inside business of the show, from hearing her father talk; ‘ but I can tell you one thing; they haven’t got all the papers, and they can’t get them while little Moone man- ages the racket. He'll bring it all right, see if he don’t.” ‘‘Mr, Moone’s a good man,” assented Zora- lina, rather faintly; ‘‘ but what’s he going to do if they make a fight at every place?” ** Tl tell you,” returned Sally viciously. ‘* We can make it as hot for them as they can for us. Oh, I wish I was a man for just this season. I'd give it to them. Wouldn’t I just, when they cry ‘Hey, Rube? I tell you what it is, Zoe, fighting’s fun, if you can only whip your man.” CHAPTER V. PAYING THE PIPER. Mr. CoLpEN A. STONE, his head bound up in a white linen bandage, stained with blood; one of his handsome dark eyes closed with a huge swelling; his nose broken; with a cut on his lip that nearly split it, lay on a sofa in the house of his friend, Leonard, with the surgeon putting his nose into shape. He cursed and snuffled, groaned and swore as the doctor fussed at him; while his friend sat at a well-spread breakfast-table by him, fresh and uninjured, and interjected advice to him when he groaned. ‘Take it coolly, man, You don’t want to be disfigured for life, Doctor's doing all he can for you. Don’t make such a noise,” Stone pushed away the doctor’s hand and made the room ring with his curses and the noise of his snuffling, as he reviled his friend till the air was blue with profanity. Then he sunk back, saying: **Go on, doctor. I’m easier now.” Leon was used to his ways, and kept on at his breakfast, with a smile of great content on his pale, handsome face; for he saw that his friend was disfigured for a dere to come, and Stone was the only man rge Leonard feared as'a rival in the affections of the oppo- site sex. The doctor at last got through with Stone’s nose, which he had manipulated into shape, and rose, saying: = There, sir. If youcan keep perfectly quiet for about two days, those bones will heal with- out much disfigurement, but you must avoid ex- citement, stop drinking as much as you can also smoking; lie stillon the sofa and think o nothing but how to nurse your wounds. It will be three weeks before the marks are gone, but the nose will be safe in two days.” _ Stone scowled SL atreng! wha § ** Wha’m I do ’muse ’self?”’ he snuffled, for he could not speak plain for the strips of plaster that ornamented his nose. ** What must you do to amuse yourself? Read, write, do anything” but talk, and get into a pas- sion. If you move your face much the muscles will draw those strips loose, and we shall have to do it all over again. You understand?” Stone nodded sullenly. ** Cuss luck.” ‘“*T stand,” he snuffled. The doctor laughed. ‘** Curse the luck as much as you like. How did you get into such a row, Mr. Leonard? Was it that fight with the circus men that they are all talking about to-day?” Thani nodded his head. “Yes. It was a sudden thing. I don’t exact- ly know how it began, but the men attacked us savagely and we had to do our best. They had clubs, and one of them struck poor Stone—” The doctor interrupted, “Club? No, no, you must be mistaken. Where did he hit him? Isaw no wound. Per- haps I didn’t examine—is it on the back of the head?” And he was coming over to examine his atient, when Stone snuffled angrily: ‘*S'lie, lie. No club—heel—heel—cuss luck.” The doctor looked at his face narrowly. **That accounts for it. I was wonderin what that mark meant in its crescent shape. It was a kick, was it?” " Leonard colored slightly, ‘To tell you the truth I was not sure, and I thought it was a club, from the marks.” “Yes,” hissed Stone, malignantly, “’n’ you ran, you ran!” Leonard sbrugged his shoulders. ‘“Of course I ran. I didn’t want to have my face ruined after I saw you knocked stiff. What do you say, Doc?” he doctor looked at Stone’s’ battered face in a curious Math at the less you have to do with **T think men who kick like that, the better,” he said, dryly. ‘‘ It’s as bad asa horse could have done with his hoofs.” ‘ Leonard looked coolly at his friend. ‘* Yes, it’s pretty bad,” he said, “ pretty bad. He won’t have much chance to make a mash, for some time—hey, doctor?” The doctor evaded the question by turning to go away; but Stone glared at his friend with such passion that the medical man raised his hand warningly to say: ‘*Careful, careful. Don’t let him tease you; or disfigurement is sure. He don’t mean any harm. Good-day. Remember what I said about excitement.” Then he was gone, and Stone lay on the sofa, glaring savagely at his friend, while Leonard chipped an egg, and said airily: ‘** Tt’s no use scowling over it, old fellow. a! Jove, you can’t say l’ve not treated you we all this time. I couldn’t afford to lose all my good looks for you, you know. Ive helped you all I can. now.” And indeed he had: for Stone had been an inmate of his house for two years, during which he had fleeced his host at poker to the tune of thousands of dollars; smoked his cigars; drank his ‘wines, and made himself generally as much at home as if the house belonged to him, which it did by virtue of possession and enjoyment, as much as a house could to any man. Stone knew this, and saw something in the manner of bis dupe that made him think to him- self that if Leonard chose to cut his acquaint- ance, he, Stone, would be likely to be the loser. It was this feeling and his physical soreness and prostration that caused him to put a curb on his devilish temper for the first time in their long acquaintance, as he snuffled out sadly: “Know it, George, know it—’m sick—’scuse —can’t help it.” And George was instantly melted, for he an- swered cordially: ‘*T know it, old fellow, and it’s a beastl shame for me to tease you.” In common with most of his class—the mod- ern American dude—he affected the ultra Eng- lish slang and dress, though the flashy instin of his na would come out in the diamond ins-and sleeve-buttons that he wore, in imita- ne of bis gambling and now battered friend, tone. A ‘*T ought not to chaff you, Stone,” he pur- sued; ‘* but, after all, I’m afraid it was our own fault. I don’t remember much myself; I was too drunk. Didn’t we get put out of the show?’ Stone nodded gloomily. “IT thonght so, but I wasn’t sure. What was it all about?” Stone knew well enough, for he never drank so much that he lost his recollection, like his weaker friend. Itdid not op tosuit bis pur- pose, however, to pretend to know just at that time; so he half-closed his eyes, and snuffed: “Tdno. Wasn’t sober. Ask Charley.” Charley was another of Leonard’s friends and hangers on; not such a vicious and greedy para- site as Stone, for he still had some money of his own, but on the fair way to ruin with the rest of the at of dudes. His full name was Charles Southworth, commonly called ‘* South,” or ** Charley.” as Charley, indeed!” returned Leonard, with disdain. ‘* He was as bad as any of us; or, he’d be up now. Here!” He touched the hand-bell, which was instantly answered by a quiet darky, who moved like a cat and had a way of coming in after a ring that strongly suggested listening at doors. ‘*Is Mr. Southworth up?” asked the master of the house. ‘Yes, sah,” was the reply, and John Johnson never said a word more than was absolutely necessary. ; ‘**Ts he coming to breakfast?” ““T ll see, sah, if you wish.” Leonard nodded, and John went out, his mas- ter saying, as he vanished: ** John’s a — man; saw. He can do anything.” Stone curled his lip slightly, a motion which he checked instantly from the spasm of pain it caused. He and John Jobnson were, in fact, a pair of confederates, assisting to fleece the eo young spendthrift and dividing profits pro rata, * He made no remark howeyer, partly on ac- count of the pain it caused him speak and partly because it was not his cue to speak, till the door opened and into the room came a tall, thin young man with a long, sweeping brown mustache, and the air of Eee gambler. He looked pale, and had dark circles under his eyes, so that Leonard said, jokingly : ‘“‘ Hillo, South; laid out again? I thought you were the soberest man of the crowd, night.” South nodded ruefully. ‘*So I was, worse luck. I remember it all oe ee and that’s more than some do, I'll t ‘You're right, dear boy,” returned hf® friend, smiling. ‘Stone and I were trying to remem- ber how the row began, and we can’t. Agreed to leave it to you.” | lance at Stone. South cast a keen He was a rival of that gentleman, being in ha him em the same boat, and he ; GooOOoKs. com best servant I ever com