Once more, dear reader, let us go back to the Devil’s Tarn.
It is night, but the moon is flooding the hill, wood and valley with its light.
Within its light, on the banks of a stream at the verge of the roaring falls, a man is standing, ever and anon glancing impatiently around him.
It is Duval Dungarvon, the robber-captain, and who is he there to meet?
The bushes part near him and a man stands before him.
It is Blufe Brandon, the renegade, and he is to meet Duval Dungarvon.
“Well, you’ve got along at last, have you?” asked Dungarvon, as the chief approached him. “I received your message and came at once to meet you, and here I’ve been waiting for an hour; but have you any news from the girl?”
“I am sorry, Duval, that I wasn’t here at the appointedhour, but the fact is, I’ve been scarcely able to walk forseveraldays; and the girl—well, I’ll tell you soon.”
“Why, Blufe, what ails you? your voice sounds like the grave.Severaldays? why you were well enough the night you became one of the brotherhood.”
“Dungarvon, you’re a fool.”
“Why so? what do you mean, Blufe?”
“Just what I say. The other night that we met here, a man was concealed where he heard every word we said, and when we parted, he followed me, beat me down, stripped off my bear-skin and put it on himself, threw me into a gorge, where I lay, more dead than alive, several days. The night of the storm I recovered sufficient to get out of the gorge just as a flood of water came sweeping down. I moved off toward my village, and on the way I met the man who had beat me down, robbed me of my disguise, and threw me into the gorge. He seized me, dragged me into a cavern, and told me that he had been passing himself off as Black Bear, with success, and—”
“Ha! ha! ha!” roared Dungarvon; “well, your Indians must be a set of cursed fools, blind at that, to let a stranger fool them in that manner.”
“Well, hedid,” continued Brandon, “and he went up to your ranch and was initiated into your band as Black Bear, and now who’s the blind fools? ha! ha! ha! Duval Dungarvon andhismen!”
“Brandon, you’re lying as fast as you can talk.”
“Not a bit of it, my gallant Duval; but hear me through. The man said you met him at Lone Pine, told him all about your ceremony, as he heard you promise to tell me; then he said you told him all about your killing the miner on the Yuba, swearing the deed onto Wayland Sanford; your throwing Barker into the shaft; the escape of Sanford; the affair about the girl, Florence; the death of one Captain Walraven; and the capture of Barker, the hero of the Yuba shaft, and two Omaha ‘larks,’ all of which were then in your prison at your ranch. Then he said you got drunk, and that he stole a bottle of your brandy and gave it to Barker and the Omaha ‘larks,’ let them out of prison, locked the cell, and hid the key.”
“Blufe! Is what you are telling true?”
“True as gospel, captain.”
“And did the man tell you his name?”
“Yes. It was Wayland Sanford.”
Duval Dungarvon growled with anger, cursed with rage, stamped with fury.
Blufe Brandon laughed in his face. This so enraged the robber-captain that he dealt the renegade a blow in the face that sent him heels over head into the brush.
Brandon sprung up, and drawing a knife, rushed upon his robber friend, wild with sudden rage.
The two grappled. Brandon was the larger, and could have easily handled the robber, but he was still quite weak from his affair with Solomon Strange, and their strength was about matched.
“Curse you!” hissed the renegade, “your life shall pay for that blow!”
To and fro the struggling men swayed. Their faces were livid with rage. Thick and fast fell the deadly blows. The ground at their feet grew slippery with their own blood. At last they fell, striking and tugging like maddened beasts. They arose again to their feet, staggered backward and—
Toppling, fell over the cliff and were crushed to atoms, almost, against the jagged rocks as they dropped in the stream at the foot of the Devil’s Tarn.
Two figures came from the shadow of the woods, and walking to the edge of the cliff, looked down into the foam-lashed waters below.
“Golly, de jig’s up wid dem villains.”
“Ay, and their blood is not on our heads, so it ain’t.”
And Flick O’Flynn and Ebony Jim descended the cliff, entered their canoe, and in a moment were lost in the mist and spray at the foot of the Devil’s Tarn, as they sought their cavern retreat.
THE END.