“The Thug was right. Rosebud Dan and the rope are gone,” he said.
“Cut down?”
“Heaven knows. But one thing is certain. If he was not dead the secretmay yet reach my ears. If the lasso slipped from its rocks, Deadly Dan will never divulge the secret.”
He silently took the pistol from Myra’s hand and looked at Tom.
“For the present you can mount your horse and go where you please,” he said.
“Honest Injun, jedge? So, you’re goin’ to hang me, boy?”
“I am.”
“You’re a sneakin’ little liar!” came over the gray steed’s ears. “On the contrary, I’m goin’ to make a widow outen thet livin’ doll at yer side, then I’ll leave Cut-throat an’ work a bonanza bigger nor twenty Emma Kings. You heard what that fellow said down in the canyon awhile ago? He war right; the big bonanza ar’ goin’ to hev but one share.”
As the man’s lips quivered with the uttering of the last word, he turned his horse’s head and spurred him away.
Hal, the lyncher, gazed after him like a person just emerging from a trance.
“He’ll try to keep his word!” exclaimed Myra.
“Then you have not guessed,” he said, wheeling upon her. “Tom Terror knows the secret that died with Deadly Dan—if he is really dead. My life is sought for a purpose. Oh, Heaven, what is this mystery?”
Than Lilly, Antenat and Moravy, the three Vigilantes detailed by Maverick Joe to remain in Cut-throat for certain purposes, a trio of braver men never crossed the rushing river of the Great West.
In many places great indentations, and even caves existed, and it was into one of the latter that the three Vigilantes went after hearing their leader’s command.
This cave has been visited before, especially by Antenat, the half-Creole, for on springing from his horse, he ran to a niche in the wall, and took therefrom a little package which, in the light of the fire kindled by his companions, he unwrapped with a curious smile on his dark face.
“Parbleu!it is here yet,” he exclaimed, as the contents of the packet were exposed to view. “See, messieurs, what a pretty ring; where is thepetitemademoiselle on whose finger it used to shine?”
Lilly and Moravy looked at the bauble, beyond all doubt a child’s ring, and then turned their questioning eyes upon the exhibitor.
“Where did you get it, Antenat?” they both asked, in one breath.
“One day I was sitting on my horse, under the ‘Devil’s Wing,’ when all at once something came down, from the sky, mebbe, and hit me plump on the hand.Sacre bleu!how I started and looked up. I put my hand on my pistol but there was nothing over me but the sharp, black rock and the sky, blue as my mistress’s eyes. Then I looked at the ground, and there lay something that glittered. Down from the saddle went Louis Antenat, and he held in his hand this,ma cherecomrades,” and the old fellow held the little ring between thumb and forefinger, before his companion’s eyes.
“A curious find,” said Moravy. “And you hid it here?”
“Yes.”
“Well, it’s a pretty thing. Look here, Lilly; there’s a little diamond set on it, and here are letters on the inner surface.”
“Letters?” echoed Antenat, starting.
But Moravy bent forward into the stronger firelight, and tried to make out the word engraved on the tiny ring.
“As near as I can make out,” he said, as he looked, “the word, ‘Jennie.’ But this is the queerest place for a baby ring with a child’s name on it. Just think of angels in Cut-throat, boys.”
Lilly burst into a loud guffaw at his comrade’s attempt at wit; but the lines of thought deepened on Antenat’s face, and taking the ring, he looked at it steadily a long time.
“Parbleu!it shall not hide here any more,” he said, suddenly. “When I found it I said I would put it away where nobody would find it, for there are fellows who would sell it for a drink of whisky. Antenat will carry it with him, hereafter. Ah!ma petiteJennie, some day old Louis may have the pleasure of restoring your ring.”
The two men did not hear the last sentence, for Lilly had leaped up, and darted toward the mouth of the cave.
His figure was unseen for a moment, and then it sprung back into the firelight, and beckoned the others to his side.
“There! a ghost with a rope around his neck!” said Lilly. “If we had finished Tom Terror that day I could call the speerit by name, but Tom got off alive, and report says that he’s hyar now, and in the flesh. When I got hyar a minute ago I heerd something come staggering down the canyon, and all at once that thing came in sight, and stopped whar it’s been standing ever since.”
The canyon at that point was not very wide; a gentle toss would have taken a pebble easily across, and the moonlight fell uninterrupted upon the uncanny object upon which the starting eyes of the Vigilantes were fixed.
“That’s no ghost,” retorted Moravy. “Speerits ar’ some kind o’ air thet kin git over ground without noise, but that fellow rattles the pebbles; he staggers, falls ag’in’ the wall, an’ then—bless my heart! his hands ar’ tied! that’s why he can’t pick up the rope. Whar in the name of death! ar’ Louis?”
The next instant the Creole answered the excited Moravy, for something long, dark and serpent-like shot through the moonshine, and fell over the head of the object staggering along the wall.
The two men at the month of the cave darted into the canyon with exclamations of astonishment, as the Creole jerked the “ghost” from his feet, and brought him heavily to the ground.
The little old Creole would not let his companions assist his endeavours; therefore, they could do nothing but sit by and watch.
Meanwhile the Creole worked on until at last he looked at his companions in triumph.
Wild and excited, the revenger had sprung erect, and he stood before the three Vigilantes.
“Who do you call yourself?”
“My name is Darrell.”
“The same as Rosebud Dan?”
“The same.”
Did Antenat’s little eyes flash as he glanced over his shoulder at his companions?
“I’m sorry, monsieur, but you’re the pard they want in these parts,” he said, coolly, to Dan. “It arn’t often thet a fellow gits hanged twice in one night. Comrades, the lasso at Napoleon’s saddle—quick!”
Antenat’s hand moved to his revolver as he uttered the command, but the next moment with a startling cry that resembled the hoarse intonation of the tiger, the hanged Sport darted forward.
“Another rope for me to-night? Never, by the fires of Tophet! So you, too, would hang the Wolf of the Rosebud? There, Louis Antenat, take that with my compliments.”
The pistol touched the Creole’s forehead as the last word fell madly from Darrell’s lips, and the next moment a dull but horrible report filled the cavern.
Lilly and Moravy started back with cries of horror, and the lifeless body of poor Antenat, released by the Sport’s left hand, fell quivering to the ground.
“Now lift a finger, my friends, and I’ll repeat the compliment,” thundered Deadly Dan, as turning quickly but coolly upon the Vigilantes, he covered them with the weapon sprinkled with the Creole’s blood. “One hanging is my share. I’ve had that, but it was not enjoyed. I do not intend to furnish any more necks for such entertainments. Keep clear of me. Stand back! I’m still the Wolf of the Rosebud, and there’s death in my right hand!”
He moved slowly back as he spoke, until, reaching the shadow of a rock at the mouth of the cave, he sprung away with a victorious cry and was gone.
The boy judge relapsed into moody silence, and walked, without a word, at Myra’s side.
The journey back to the cave was not a long one, and they entered it as the first rays of the sun, flashing over the cliffs of Cut-throat, chased the shadows of night away.
A few moments later the strange pair seated themselves before the meal, which the fair waif spread on the cavern floor, and after it had been discussed the boy took Myra’s hands, and, looking into her eyes, said:
“You will not turn vengeance-hunter during my absence. This little retreat is the place for you. I want you to hear the solution of this mystery.”
“And I am burning to hear it, Hal,” was the quick reply. “Whither are you going now?”
“To find Red Crest. I want the Indian near me henceforward.”
There was a long look of something more than friendship in the couple’s eyes before they separated, and Myra’s followed the figure that went away.
As the boy judge emerged from the well-chosen cave home he looked up at the heavens.
Overhead the limitless skies wore their garments of blue, but there were shadows in the narrow ravine.
Even at noon they lingered there, and as the orb of day declined they grew longer, until once more the little chasm became cold and dark.
An ominous silence reigned over the roughness of nature that surrounded the boy lyncher, and when he stepped entirely from the mouth of the cave, it was to glide down the ravine toward the large canyon.
Noiselessly he went on until, with his lithe body half-hidden by a rock, he leaned forward and beheld the floor of Cut-throat two hundred feet below.
All at once the well-known tread of horses fell upon the boy lyncher’s ears.
“Maybe they’ll entertain me with a drama,” murmured Hal, with a smile, as, stretching his neck forward, he evinced great eagerness to catch sight of the cavaliers.
They did not keep the boy waiting, for hard upon his words two horsemen came in sight—two men whose figures made the little lyncher draw back and hold his breath for a minute.
“They were certain to get together,” he said as he returned to his lookout. “They are magnets which attract each other; evil gravitates to evil, and it is but natural that Deadly Dan and Tom Terror should come together.”
Wholly unaware of the keen eyes that regarded them from the mouth of the ravine, the border worthies came on and to the boy’s surprise drew rein almost directly beneath him.
At the same time the rapid gallop of steeds came from the west.
“The scarlet Thugs! They are going to give me the drama!” said Hal, as he waited.
Sure enough, he soon counted six horses that came toward Tom Terror and his friend, and the scarlet Thugs of Cut-throat, well made but ferocious-looking Indians, sat before him like statues carved from blocks of granite.
“These are the boys with the strings,” said Tom, waving his dark hand at his band as he turned to Deadly Dan. “I never saw ’em miss a throw in all my life. They call ’em Thugs down at Deadwood and Custer, and it’s the handle that suits ’em.”
The next moment Deadly Dan put out his hand which Tom Terror took, and the boy looked down and saw the lightning flash of revenge that passed between his foes.
But before that grasp was broken there came a stunning report which drove the boy back from his rock, and he heard a wild cry as Tom Terror, springing erect in his stirrups, pitched forward and completely over his horse’s head.
Then, quick as a flash of powder, he turned toward the spot from whence the startling shot had come.
It was directly across the canyon, for the white smoke curling upward marked the precise spot.
“Ah! you have cheated me out of a neck,” flashed Judge Lynch, Jr., catching sight of the figure on the bank. “By Jove! you shall not boast of that in Custer. Hold! my hearty; one moment and I’ll pay you back.”
The carbine was at the boy lyncher’s shoulder, and his finger at the trigger when he saw the marksman leap to the edge of the precipice, and halt in full view of the thunderstruck band below.
“Hurrah! for the big bonanza!” he yelled, as he swung his shabby hat defiantly at the Thugs. “What ar’ ye looking at? I’m no comet—I’m only Bonanza Jack, soon to bethegold bug of the coast.”
Then, with a wild half-maniacal laugh of triumph, the man turned away, and, as he did so, the repeating rifle dropped from the young lyncher’s shoulder.
“I can’t kill you,” he said, gazing after Old Jack. “Myra says you are mysteriously linked to her. Go and enjoy your big bonanza. But I hate you because you cheated me out of a neck.”
The ex-stage driver soon disappeared, and Hal when he looked down intothe canyon once more, saw the Thugs and Deadly Dan staring at the wound ghastly and terrible in the Tiger’s breast.
“Men don’t often recover from such a wound,” murmured the boy. “But he’s got the constitution of an ox, and that’s in his favor.”
“The man what says that Tom Terror ar’ goin’ to pass in his checks lies like sin. His time will not come till he’s paid the rascal Jack fur this gapin’ hole in his life chest. Don’t look long-faced an’ down-hearted, pard. I’m goin’ to help you to the big bonanza. Did you ever see such an ugly hole? Why, it’s big enough fur death to drive a four-in-hand into a chap’s heart. They’ll hunt for me,” he said. “Ah! I know the place fur me to rest in. I found it last summer. Lodgepole, you have not forgotten—the cave in the old ravine. Take me thar.”
A few moments later the band moved slowly from the spot where the Tiger received his wound. The progress made was painfully slow, for the fact that Tom Terror lay heavily upon the scarlet arms that supported him on either side, with his dark eyes hid and teeth glued together, told that he was suffering the agonies of twenty deaths.
But guided by the young Thug, the speechless cavalcade finally left the bed of Cut-throat, and ascended to the ground above.
At that time not a soul of that band dreamed that not twenty rods ahead a fair young girl, suddenly roused from sleep, was listening white-faced and with throbless heart to the noise of their coming.
“In the name of mercy what wolves have tracked us down?” fell from her lips. “It is merciless fate that sent Harry off and left me to face them alone. But, ah! he is safe. Heaven, I thank thee for that. Ay, I am glad that I am alone.”
Myra, the waif, shrunk instinctively to the northern wall where the marks of the boy lyncher’s vengeance were.
As the girl stood there, and listened to the sounds made by the new arrivals, she did not allow her hands to tremble at the weapon which they encircled.
“Ar’n’t we thar yet? This bullet in my trunk hes got to movin’ about.”
Myra, the waif, started.
That voice had a familiar sound. Six hours had not passed since she heard it behind the stock of a leveled carbine.
But what had happened? A bullet in Tom Terror’s body? Then the Tiger had enemies besides the young judge.
“We must be in the cave,” said another voice that seemed to come from a white man’s lips. “But there are too many shadows here.”
“A light, boys. Make a fire, an’ while ye’re at work put me down.”
The kindling of the fire was not long delayed, the dry splinters of wood scraped together by the Thugs soon blazed up, and for the first time Myra saw her visitors.
She saw, too, the strong man on the floor, and in all her life the girl had never seen such a pair of wolfish eyes.
“Why, this place is inhabited!” suddenly cried Deadly Dan. “There’s a cot, a stool, and clothes hanging on the wall. By my life, Tom, I believe we’ve invaded the boy’s den.”
“Ah! there’s a bed, too.”
“Whar?—thet’s what I want just now. Whar’s a nest?”
“In yon corner.”
Tom Terror uttered a cry of joy, and essayed to crawl forward.
But at that moment a voice rung through the cavern and startled every one.
“Stay where you are, or I’ll let firelight into your skulls. The limbs of a murderer shall never pollute the cot where I sleep.”
In an instant of time, as it were, the fair occupant of the cavern had become known to the Thugs of Cut-throat.
The fire leaping ceilingward revealed her graceful figure, her determined white face, and the deadly weapon in her hands.
Deadly Dan Darrell, with a cry of amazement on his lips, started from the sight, while Tom Terror, having suddenly relinquished his attempted crawl to the bed, gazed at her in silence.
She showed no signs of life, save in the sparkling of her beautiful eyes which drew much of Rosebud Dan’s attention.
“By Jove, she’s a beauty,” he ejaculated. “What a queen she’d make for me when I get my fingers on the pile. The boy and she are carrying on business together; but I’m going to break up that partnership.”
“I’ll make tarms, pard,” said Tom, flashing the glare of his wolfish eyes upon the speaker.
“You speak of terms,” she said. “These are mine. Stand aside and let me pass.”
“They’re easy,” was the answer. “We don’t make war on women, an’ I guess you’ll never set the world afire if we do let you go.”
She could not avoid the handsome, eager eyes of Deadly Dan. She had seen him for the first time; but something proclaimed his identity.
“So you accede to my terms?” she said. “I am to pass out?”
“Yes, my beauty.”
At Tom Terror’s command, the Indians drew sullenly back, and Myra with a light cry of triumph sprung toward the opening. As she reached Deadly Dan she heard him say:
“Go straight to Custer, girl. I’ll kill the man that touches you.”
Myra started at such words in such a place, but did not pause. She was eager to get beyond the flashing eyes that regarded her, beyond the strings of the Thugs.
But alas! for such hopes and expectations.
All at once something was seen to whirl around an Indian’s head, and Deadly Dan with a mad oath sprung forward to prevent the fatal throw.
But in vain.
Caught by the swift messenger of death, Myra stopped, and reeled, at the same time dropping the rifle.
The Canyon Spider uttered a cry of delight.
“Ha! ha! strung, my beauty. Thet’s the kind o’ tarms I give the she wolves, pard.”
But Deadly Dan did not hear his comrade, for he had leaped forward, and prevented Myra from falling to the earth.
The Indians, too, had sprung toward her.
“Back! you infernal stranglers,” thundered the Wolf, as he turned upon them, a heavy revolver cocked in his right hand. “Stand where you are with your hands on your cords, but draw one if you dare. This creaturedoesn’t deserve your strings. From this moment she is mine. Deadly Dan is her protector, and he’s going to make her the wife of the greatest gold-bug in the States.”
The Thugs of Cut-throat, almost consumed with rage, were cowed by Deadly Dan and his revolver.
“Make ’er what you please, pard,” said Tom Terror, breaking the silence. “Thar mustn’t be any hard lines betwixt us. The big bonanza ain’t found yet, an’ she ain’t the gold-bug’s wife. I call my red wolves off. Now, bring the gal up to the fire.”
The Indians obeyed their leader, but looked daggers at the man who had cowed them.
“You will pardon me, Tom,” Dan said, coming forward. “This is a prize a fellow doesn’t draw every day. Permit me to present to you the future wife of Rosebud Dan, the future money king of the States.”
Tom Terror grinned as, despite his wound, he bent down to gaze into the finely chiseled face that Dan had lowered into the mellow firelight.
“Purty as a picter!” he ejaculated. “But what’s that on her right temple, Dan? Didn’t you say that a little mole shaped like a bean—”
A startling cry pealed from Darrell’s throat; he thrust his face between Tom and the girl’s, and the next moment, with the wildest of looks in his eyes, he sprung up as Myra fell from his arms.
“Thunder and guns!” fell from his lips, as he gazed first at Tom and then at the unconscious waif. “Is it possible that I’ve been tracking the wrong person the best years of my life? Tom, you stare but don’t speak. Can’t you say a word, and confirm—no! dispel my terrible suspicions?”
Tom Terror shook his head.
“So,” he said, looking up into Rosebud Dan’s startled countenance, “so the baby was a girl?”
Then, as if determined to have the rest and attention that his wound demanded, despite the new and exciting phase the adventure was assuming, he staggered toward the cot.
“I reckon she’ll hardly get to be the gold-bug’s wife now,” he muttered, as he fell upon the skin and fixed his eyes on the Wolf. “He’d give an arm ef that mole warn’t on her face. We used to think that it war on somebody else’s.”
The next moment he turned away, and shutting his teeth hard, tried to kill the groan of agony that came up from his shattered breast.
Again we must convey the reader to the wild metropolis of the Black Hills.
In the bar-room which we have once visited the Vigilantes of Custer were again congregated.
Moravy had a story to tell which sent a chill of horror to the hearts of the iron hangmen who surrounded him, and in rough but eloquent language he told the story of Rosebud Dan’s singular capture and the death of the Creole Antenat.
At the mention of the Wolf’s cognomen an attentive listener on the outer rim of the spell-bound circle started as if struck in the side by a dirk.
This was Red Crest.
What! the man whom he had helped to swing over a beam still alive, and capable of taking human life with the revolver?
The Indian was superstitious; he could not believe all of Moravy’s narrative.
A spirit, not a living being, had entered the cave and taken Antenat’s life.
But, thought the Sioux a moment later, the guards lassoed something tangible; they dragged it into the cavern, and it was this person who shot and killed.
Red Crest, if questioned about the matter at that time, would have told the story of Deadly Dan’s hanging.
“What do you say, Indian?”
But Red Crest kept his lips sealed.
For what purpose did these lawless men want to know Judge Lynch Jr.’s whereabouts? Time and again they had sworn vengeance against him; they had even hunted him among the shadows of Cut-throat.
“Boys, thar’s grit in Red Crest,” said the Vigilante, captain as he sent a smile among his impatient men. “He hesn’t got a spark of betrayal in him.”
The Indian, who had not removed his eyes from Maverick Joe for a second, made a sign for him to proceed.
“I propose that the boy take command of the Vigilantes of Custer—that we swear to follow whar he leads—that we stand by him through thick and thin, and let him hang when he wants to. That’s the ticket that Maverick puts into the box. Boys, I want Cut-throat cleaned out. When the Mining Commission comes hyar to report on our wealth, I want ’em to ride through that grand old canyon and never feel any o’ them infernal strings around their silken necks. Thar’s Cut-throat, boys, the glory of Colorado—it’s a real canyon of the gods, and I say, put the boy at the head of the Vigilantes of Custer, and change its name to Paradise Gap, or something else that don’t suggest wiping out!”
The men with a wild shout of approval on their lips could hardly wait until Maverick Joe concluded, but when he clinched the sentence by a mighty sweep of his arm, a cheer rose that fairly shook the building.
“He will not reject the proposition.”
For a moment the boy leader’s keen eyes swept the score of bronzed faces before him. Then he stepped forward.
“To saddle!” he said, in a voice of command. “The Thugs of Cut-throat are desperate as starving wolves. Let every man remember this. They may not be death with their strings in every instance, but with the rifle and the revolver they never miss. So, avengers of Colorado, I grant you five minutes for good-byes to wives and sweethearts.”
“I don’t think thar’s a chap hyar who owns any such property!” cried Maverick Joe; “least-wise, thar’r’ only sixty women in Custer, an’ they b’long to luckier fellars. No kissing when we go to battle, captain.”
With wild eyes, flashing with triumph, Jack Drivewell sat once more on his horse, his haggard face turned toward Cut-throat.
He did not look like a sane man; there was the unmistakable make-up of the lunatic about him.
He sat there statue-like and stern until a sound startled him, and made his eyes flash.
Quick as a flash of lightning he drew his revolvers and leaned forward.
But the next instant he started back and hugged the canyon wall. In that position he sat and held his breath while Captain Harry and his Vigilantes rode past entirely unconscious of his presence.
“The boy and Maverick together?” he repeated twenty times. “What does it mean? Ah, if I thought they war huntin’ the big bonanza, I’d hev asserted my right to the whole claim.”
The Vigilantes moved on, their hoof-beats did not rouse the echoes of the canyon; but Old Jack still occupied his halting-place.
All through the day which came after the night that witnessed the surprise of Myra, the waif, by Tom Terror and his Thugs, six Wolves watched with the fatal cord in their hands for the return of the boy lyncher.
But he did not come. Back in the cavern proper, with that ghastly colouring which comes to the faces of the dying, the white Thug reclined on the rude cot. His wound had been roughly but well dressed, and the gentle hands of the girl of mystery had moistened his lips with water.
All at once the fair girl started, for an Indian had leaped to the cot, and was talking in low tones to the wounded Thug.
Her heart seemed to stand still. She felt that Harry was coming, that he was about to walk in the death-trap which cunning had prepared for him.
How she strained her ears to catch a sentence, a word of the Indian’s communication. As well she might have listened for the sound of a zephyr! But she saw the giant’s eyes flash while his hireling talked; she caught the quick nod of approval that he gave, and saw the Thug bound toward the entrance again.
“Why don’t Dan come back?” murmured the cut-throat. “I recollect how he left shortly after he saw the mole on the gal’s face. The time has come!” she heard him say as if the words gave him a sort of wolfish pleasure. “Thar’s to be a good deal of dyin’ with boots on in the old Cut-throat. Whar’s the gal?”
“Here, Captain Tom,” answered Myra, and the next moment she stood before the robber of the gulch, from whom a few hours since she would have fled with a shriek.
“So hyar ye ar’!” he said. “I’m goin’, never to come back. I’ll never pull my boots off ag’in. Stay hyar till somebody comes; it won’t be me; it won’t be Deadly Dan. But, somebody will come an’ take you away. You’re the biggest bonanza in Colorado, ef you ar’ but a mite. One o’ these days you’ll be a gold queen. Dan got on the wrong trail, an’ now he’s run away from the right one. Run off an’ left the work for my boys with the cords. I told ’im to give you the strings last night, but I’m kinder glad thet Rosebud interfered an’ saved yer life.”
The old fellow dropped Myra’s hand, and started toward the mouth of the cave where two bronzed faces waited for him; but the girl bounded forward.
“You haven’t disclosed anything!” she cried. “What you have said makes me curious. Whose child am I? Captain Tom, will you not lift the veil of mystery that has hung before me so long? Who is the boy?”
“The boy?” and Tom Terror grated his teeth. “Oh, the young ’un what has carried on court in Cut-throat for six mouths?”
“Yes, yes!”
“He’s nobody in partic’lar. You’re the mystery, gal. Thar!”
The thought of the terrible scenes that might soon populate the chasm rushed upon the girl’s mind faster than she could speak. They came like the pictures of some mighty panorama, and when in one she saw Harry, the avenger, struck down by the man he had sworn to hang, she reeled away with a cry of horror.
When she recovered, the cavern was still. The fire burning brightly on the stone floor told her that she was the only tenant of the cave. The silence was oppressive.
“Can I not see something from the rock?” she exclaimed. “It would kill me to remain here while the last dread encounter was taking place in Cut-throat. I will go!”
The waif of the gap hurried from the cave, and a few moments later she was gliding through the shadows of the ravine with which she was thoroughly acquainted.
The girl sprung back with a startling cry; the thunderous report of firearms had broken the silence and the flash almost blinded her.
Again and again the shots sent her warm blood like lava through her heart; she heard oaths, cries, the wild struggling of enemies in deadly combat.
They had met!
But who were the white men whose voices assailed her ears?
Ah! Tom Terror and his Thugs had encountered Maverick Joe and his Vigilantes; not the boy lyncher.
The Vigilantes had conquered; their voices told her this, and she wanted to send down to them her approval of their success.
But something checked her. Those men hated the boy lyncher. They had even hunted him, and she—she could not admire such men.
Myra turned from the rock, but the next instant she found herself face to face with a figure that brought a cry to her lips.
“Here you are, my beauty! By Jove! they’ve been settling matters down in the gulch. I thought you were gone when I found the cave empty; but here you are, the girl to make the gold queen of the Eastern coast.”
The waif saw the glitter of the man’s eyes.
“Are you certain about your own neck, Deadly Dan?”
The villain stopped and dropped the hand that he held; then his revolver leaped upward, but the report which followed quickly upon the question, caused it to fall as suddenly.
“Draw again and I’ll spoil your face!” said the deadly marksman. “I have just closed one session of court, and now I will open the last one I shall ever hold in Cut-throat. Stand where you are! This time Red Crest and I will see that the noose is properly adjusted. Jennie—Myra—go on into the cave; there’s somebody there who wants to see you.”
The girl sprung forward with a parting look at Deadly Dan.
That villain bit his lips; the prize for which he had trailed and shot for ten years was gliding from his grasp.
He was doomed to the rope once more.
“Why did I come back to Cut-throat? War thet what ye asked me, Maverick?” asked Tom Terror, as he looked down into the Vigilante’s face from the saddle to which several of the red survivors of the gulch battle had helped him, bleeding from a fresh wound. “I see no harm in tellin’ the whyan’ wherefore now. A big bonanza brought me back. Deadly Dan knows more about it than I do; but I know that a million or more is tremblin’ in the balances on the Atlantic Coast. He sent me back to find an’ to kill; but he thought he’d better come, too. Ha! ha! I’m afeared he’ll never tech the rocks, for it turned out to be a gal.”
Captain Harry started at the man’s words.
“A girl!” he ejaculated.
“Yes; your sweetheart. Did you think it war you?” and the wounded man smiled grimly. “Last night Rosebud found an’ recognized her.”
“And did his work?”
“No; he ran off. But, mebbe he’s back by this time. He’d rather see her the gold queen of the cities than use his knife, for she’s purtier’n all creation.”
The Vigilantes looked at the boy.
“We can’t talk here,” Harry said. “Are you ready, Tom?”
“My boots ar’ on. Therefore, Tom Terror ar’ ready.”
Red Crest leaped forward at a sign from the boy, and the strong noose fell over the Tiger’s drooping head.
But vain, almost, was that long-delayed vengeance, for when the death noose tightened around Tom’s short stretch of throat, the soul of the ruffian had gone to be judged.
“Now for Myra!” cried the boy.
A scene totally unexpected greeted the eyes of the girl waif when she re-entered the cavern.
Stretched on the cot drawn close to the fire lay the body of a man whose face was haggard in the extreme. His eyes beaming with expectation, glittered intensely as the fair one appeared.
“I know it!” he exclaimed. “Ef I hev lost one big bonanza, I’ve found another; an’ one, too, all in one share. Jennie! Jennie! come an’ tell me thet the long-lost claim hes come back to Old Jack!”
The girl did not hesitate, and the next moment her gentle face was pressed to the rough cheek of the old driver.
“I know it would come,” said Maverick Joe, feelingly. “Old Jack has found the big bonanza. Captain Tom would have hired him to hunt down his own child, ef Rosebud hadn’t interfered.”
It was a scene from which the rough Vigilantes withdrew, and when the last one had departed, they left the twain there with lip glued to lip.
When the party returned to the cavern they found Jennie—Myra no longer, that being the name by which Captain Harry knew her—seated beside the cot holding the dead hand of Bonanza Jack, her father.
His tale had been told; she knew all, and she told Harry that with his last breath he had thanked fortune for preserving his life until he had found his child.
Here we must put aside the pen; but not until we have informed the reader that Maverick Joe, now a veritable gold-bug, has just arrived from the West to witness a wedding ceremony, and to give the blushing bride away.
And if somewhere in the fashionable assembly the interesting face of a young Indian is seen, we may be sure that he is the gallant Red Crest of our canyon romance.
THE END.
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PUBLISHED BYJAMES JACKSON.