Beadle's New York Dime Library, No. 472 — page 15: what you’re looking at

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

- camp from the side opposite to Moran’s shanty, Six-F'oot Si. 15 evitable that he should drink with Moran, or be- tray his hostility by a refusal. This much, then he yielded, but he could not bring himself to sit down with him at play. ‘** Gents,” he said, ** hyar’s whar I draw the line. I don’t gamble.” ‘* What!” cried Dandy Dave, in astonishment, while everybody within earshot stared much as if he had announced that he had abandoned the | useless custom of eating prevalent among men. | As if tosettle the question without further | parley, the Teaser silently drew his breeches | pockets inside out. **Oh, waal, is that all?’ exclaimed Dandy Dave, ‘* We’ll mighty soon fix that.” And without hesitancy he drew forth wallet, and slapped it on the table. ** Pard,” he said, ‘* when that’s gone, I reckon we kin raise as much more without goin’ out o’ the camp to do it.” ** [ll stand my quota,” said Old-man Crocker, who knew that nothing was so popular as the appearance of not bearing malice. “Waal, now, really, gents,” stammered the | Teaser, with marked emotion, ‘‘you do me | proud—you do, so! But I can’t take yer money, ye know. I wouldn’t never have no show o payin’ it back,” ‘ Nonsense!” protested Dandy Dave, with a smiling wink. ‘‘ We've dropped to you, ole man. You can’t come that dodge any more. When you've cleaned out Sam Sutter, you kin set ’em up fur the boys. Ole Boggs, hyar, is in | fur that.” ‘* Waal, now, you bet!” declared the bummer, emphatically, ‘‘ These hyar,” with a wave of the hand which included Dandy Dave and Old- | man Crocker, “‘ air public-spirited men. They’re | puttin’ up their money on ye so’s the community at large kin reap the benefit. Now, it don’t stan’ | to reason as you’d knock sich a great an’ glori- ous scheme in the head by flunkin’ their patriotic example.” ** Ef so be I seen a show to further the cause was made, the winner called for the drinks, of which Bummer Boggs came in for his share. By midnight Moran was pretty well under the influence of liquor, though not so much as he would have been, had not the whisky been in a measure neutralized by his strong excitement. However, he was glad to avail himself of the fraternal proffer of Bummer Boggs, who seem- ed to bid defiance to all the powers of King Alcohol. ‘**Pard,” said the old bummer, taking him by the arm, ‘‘thar’s a pair of us, fur I’m happier’n a b’iled owl myself to-night. But you hain’t got my underpinnin’, which it don’t stan’ to reason as you would have, bein’s as you hain’t fit the battles what I have with ole Tanglefoot. ‘* But one good turn desarves another, You've filled me up, an’ made me happy, an’ I'll stan’ by ye, pard, while wood grows an’ water runs! Pll back ye off to bed, an’ I'll keep the flies off 0’ ye while ye sleep, ef so be iv’ll do ye any good. “You tie to Bummer Boggs, ole man, fur I don’t mind lettin’ on as how he’s took a sneakin’ notion to ye. You're the whitest man in this hyar camp, an’ that’s a fact. You set ’em up | like a gentleman, an’ no questions asked. When ye want a lift, | say, call on Bummer Boggs, | } his own | He’s a pore ole shote, we will allow, but he’s solid, what thar is of him, from the ground up. ‘Whoop! whoop! Set ’em up in the other alley! Fur we won’t go home till mornin’—we won't go home till morn— Stiddy! stiddy, ole man! Say, pard—this byar’s gee-lcrious, ch ” Nothing could be freer from guile than old Bummer Boggs seemed to be. Joe Moran was not fool enough to take much stock in the disinterestedness of his friendship, but he seemed to have but one thought—his whisky, and he would probably stand by the one who supplied that need most fully. 6 certainly saw Moran home, and put him to bed as comfortably as any one could have done, When he came to leave him, he fumbled about the door for some time, until Moran called out o’ free whisky, nothin’ would do me prouder | with drunken impatience: than to lend myself to the scheme, But the ‘What the deuce is the matter with you? fact is, gents, I’ve give it to ye straight. I | Why don’t you cl’ar out, an’ lemme alone?” don’t never gamble, an’ I hardly know one keerd from another.” ie ** But, don’t ye see,” pleaded Bummer Boggs, earnestly, ‘‘ef Sutter cleans you out, Ae sets em up. So public sperit bas free play either Then, in an equally fuddled state, to all ap- pearances, Bummer Boggs replied, holding on to the door: ‘Say, ole man, hyar’s a poser.” ** Wha’s a poser?” _ “Why, this hyar. Ef I lock the door on the inside, how’ll I git out?—an’ ef I locks it on the outside, how’ll you git out? Hic! That'll take some figerin’, I reckon,” ‘**'You car out, you blasted fool, an’ Pll lock the door myself, ef I want it locked.” ** Six-foot Si had Sm so seriously that the ‘** Waal, now, that shows what it is to have a others took him at his word, and dropped the head on yer shoulders. Anybody’d orter see matter, though not without an evident abate- | that. You locks it yerself, an’ then you climbs ment of their enthusiasm. ; in through the winder, an’ takes the key in with They had little use for a man who didn’t gam- | yer. Waal, ye see, I don’t have no sich bother. t’s all outdoors over to our house. I’m a great hand fur ventilation, I’ve left the hull front o’ the house out—” **Consarn your ugly pictur’! ef you don’t cl’ar out 0’ that, Pll ventilate your hide with a hole what ye can’t stop up with an ole rag.” And Moran fell to fumbling for bis revolver. way.’ eBat that’ won’t refund these gents their money,” insisted Si, firmly. | **Oh, don’t crowd the mourners!” sneered a would-be beneficiary, in disgust at his disap- pointment. le. “The country’s goin’ to the dogs!” wailed | Bummer Boggs, pathetically. Joe Moran scanned the Teaser narrowly. He, too, was suspicious of a man who didn’t gamble, If that was so, what was his business in that part of the country, and especially in such a camp as Bloody Run? If it was only a pretext, what **Don’t trouble verself, ole man,” returned scheme did it cover? Boggs, moving off. ‘‘So long! Ill see ye Could this be the foe against whom he must ! later.” be on his guard? | Joe Moran had enough liquor in him so that He listened closely to the story of the Teaser’s | he had forgotten all about his fears of the early Se ees since his advent in the camp. evening. he man might be only one of those eccentric He muttered something to himself, in which characters of whom the West is full, whose in- | the word fool and a profane qualifier were the dividuality crops out in all sorts of absurdities, | only intelligible articulations, and so drop no two being alike. — i | off to sleep, quite unmindful of the door, which His hobby was evidently self-detraction, by | was left unlocked. contrast with which he hoped to make his ac-| But while be slept, his mind resumed the tions the more striking. earlier line of thought, and ran into a horrible The next crank might adopt a course exactly | nightmare. the reverse. Indeed, the blow-hards were vastly | _ It began with his interview with Beth, and he in the majority. lived over again those wild alternations of emc-~ On the other hand, the whole might be affect- | tion, the tides of his soul ebbing and flowing in ed for a purpose, answer to her smiles, Moving about the room with seeming care- Then came the shock of his return home, lessness, chatting with this one and that one, only varied, as dreams distort the events of our Joe Moran elicited enough facts about the | waking life. Teaser to satisfy himself that his suspicions Instead of finding that paper, he was con- were groundless, frorted on the threshold by his old tner— The Teaser had been seen riding into the | not an avenging Nemesis arisen from his grave to denounce his murderer, but the Bob Cady of old, when, balf-mad with the rush of feeling with which he saw success at last crowning his long years of suspense, he announced his great discovery, unsuspicious of the cupidity that was a is listening partner into a merciless end, Bob called to him, almost in the very words he had used that night: ‘* Hooray! hooray! [ve struck it at last! and had gone directly to the Bucking Burro. | Joe, returning to the company of Miss Fal- | mouth, had seen him at the culmination of his mill with Dandy Dave. Between that time and the finding of the warning, there had been no chance of his reach- ing Joe’s shanty before him. ore and more perplexed, Moran entered upon a night of deep drinking and reckless gambling. Dandy Dave took the place the Teaser had declined, and the way he “ corraled” Sam Sut- ter’s ‘‘ ducats,” was equaled only by the way his own were occasionally ‘‘stampeded” by his daring adversary. Bummer Boggs hung round the board with greedy delight. It seemed to do him ‘‘a power of good” to witness a big haul, no matter who the winner or who the loser, —-— } It’s one o’ the mines what ye read about. T tell ye, it’s as straight as a string.” In a flash, as is common in dreams, the scene changed, and the dreamer was back again in that fatal shanty. But hoe had not the unaccusing conscience with which be had awaked before to listen to his partner’s announcement. Now his soul was burdened with the unspeak- P this impartiality was not altogether | able horror of a murderer. without reason. never a noteworthy stake Never again would he look upon Bob Cady or =. , / , Ges ‘ it - < = | > . é ~J | Rich?—my God! thar ain’t no countin’ of it!. his counterfeit presentment, without being overpowered by an unmanning cowardice, the agony of which cannot be portrayed in words, ow he was awake, and sitting up in his bunk, clinging to his bed-clothes as if to hide himself behind them, yet unable to withdraw his horrified gaze from the specter that fascin- ated him. He could only stare with starting eyeballs and chattering teeth, while every nerve quivered, and a clammy ooze issued from every pore. The room was dark. Outside, the night was so overcast that the window was scarcely dis- tinguishable from the surrounding gloom, He could hear the wind sighing dismally through the pines, and from time to time a fitful Bust of cold air swept over him, like a breaths rom the grave. . Over there in the darkest corner, he could dimly discern a figure of spectral white, which, as nearly as he could make them out, had the lineaments of his dead partner. But it moved with a ceaseless changeableness impossible to anything of substantial constitu- tion. Now it seemed to dwindle away, until it looked as if it were sinking through the floor, and anon if loomed to proportions limited only by the hight of the ceiling. Even more unnerving were the cries to which it gave utterance, Now it was: ** Joe! Joe! Oh, my God! I’m a dead man!” Anon it was: **Murder! murder! Help! oh, help!” Then came hoarse, panting curses, as of a man engaged in a life-and-death struggle. But these cries were confined to no particular locality. They seemed to come from constant- ly shifting points about the room, as if the man who gave utterance to them were moving about, now here, now yonder. The ery of murder!” was shrieked irfto the ear of the quailing listener. The hoarse rattle of strangulation came from the floor. A atte de curse set the air aquiver in the middle of the room, at about the hight of a man’s head. A groan, a stifled cry of anguish, proceeded from under the bunk. Meanwhile, these sounds of human contention were attended by all of the accompaniments of a terrific struggle, box which, standing on one end, had a -board nailed up one side of it at an angle, so as to form a seat that was a fair substitute for a chair, went spimning across the room, as if struck by a flying foot. A rude table, which was a luxury not known in A mining shanty, was overturned with a erash. MD . Objects that hung against the wall were swept own. Finally came a eo ee. flash, and the room rung with an explosion like that of a pistol, upon which the very air seemed to burst into shrieks so weird, so appalling, that the listen- er’s hair rose on end, while his eyes seemed about to start from their sockets. The door was thrown open, and ban to again with such violence as to shake the house to its foundations, while the window rattled as if it were being torn from its casement, as the spectral form sped through it, out into the darkness of the night. Then, as if by magic, the silence of death suc- ceeded the uncanny commotion. With a shriek of horror Joe Moran threw himself back upon his bunk, covering his head with the bed-clothes. CHAPTER XV. BEHIND THE SCENES, MEANWHILE Six-foot Si was passing through a fiery ordeal. He had come here to kill Joe Moran, that he might spare the sweetheart of his murdered partner the horror of imbuing her hands in blood, in her frenzied quest of revenge, only to find her on terms of seeming tender intimacy with the murderer! Granted that, deceived by his assumed nam she did not know him as Joe Muran. But what was this monstrous inconstancy? He had last seen her like one turned to stone with despair, yet here she was, scarcely a week later, laughing and chatting, and practicing all the arts of a coquette! This it was—the fall of his idol—that had wrung that cry from the honest breast of Six- foot Si, when he cast himself upon his bed and appealed to Heaven against the evidence of his eyes. Well, if this was woman, and the one he had come to believe the paragon of her sex had proved to be as unreliable as the least trust- a ae what was to be done about it? Could he leave her in her ignorance to go on and perhaps marry Joe Moran? That seemed to him a horror too great for contemplation. But what would be the effect of telling her who he was? Would she turn from him in horror, or would her love prevail against her hate? . In the former event, what would she do? He recalled an incident somewhat similar, of “cmeacomicbooks