MARY HALE.
In a comfortable log cabin, containing four rooms, and surrounded by
every evidence of a well-to-do borderman’s home, sat Mary Hale. She
was thinking of her noble friend, Buffalo Bill, who had saved her from
marriage with the Gambler Guide.
Her father had brought her sad news only a short while before to the
effect that the expected train had arrived from Border City and along
with it Ben Tabor, his Texas pards, and Old Negotiate, who had been
initiated as a member of the band, but that no tidings had they had of
Buffalo Bill for weeks.
He had left camp before daylight one morning, it was said, to go on a
hunt. Since then he had not been seen. Though the train had halted for
two days, and parties had been sent out in all directions, no trace of
him had been discovered.
The last to see him was Parson Bristow, who had reported that while he
was throwing the earth into his daughter’s grave, the scout had joined
him and aided him in his sad work, and that when he had left the timber
to overtake the train, Buffalo Bill had said he would remain and hunt
for game.
Ben Tabor and his Texans had gone back to the timber, where was the
lone grave of the young girl, and had seen the tracks of the scout and
of Midnight. But they had also made a discovery which filled them with
dread, for there were signs of a large party of horsemen having passed
that way, and not far distant was another new-made mound.
They had thrown the earth out of the grave, expecting to find the body
of Buffalo Bill, but with glad hearts they saw that it was not the
face of the scout. What they saw was a painted face and a form clad in
Indian costume. But the paint was a disguise--beneath it was the fair
skin of a white man.
Farther upon the prairie, as they followed the trail of over a score of
horses, they found a dead mustang, a bullet in his head.
“Ther gerloot in ther hole had a wound in his head, an’ this mustang
died suddint like o’ ther same disease, an’ I’m thinking thet Buffier
Bill were the one as did ther shootin’.”
Such had been the comment of Seven-foot Harry, and so had all agreed.
They followed on the trail to the hills, where they lost it, and, with
their small force dare not go farther, and gave the scout up as dead.
Suddenly a hoof fall caught the ear of Mary Hale, as she thought of
these things, and, glancing up, she saw a horseman approaching the
cabin.
Then, as she gazed, she recognized the rider, and her face flushed
crimson. A moment after he dismounted, and met her upon the piazza.
“Why, Captain Dash, who would have expected to see you here?” she said,
in the innocent way a woman can assume in deceiving a lover, while she
well knew she had expected and hoped for his coming for months.
“You said I might come, Mary,” answered the captain of the Revolver
Riders, in his sincere way.
“Did I?” she asked archly.
“Yes; have you forgotten the time when I struck your train with my
Revolver Riders, and captured Kent King, the Gambler Guide?”
“Oh, no, Mr. Cody led you there, and you both did me a noble service.”
“Yes, noble Cody, whom some of my men report dead. I intend to start on
his trail to-morrow with my men.”
“I fear it will be useless, from all my father tells me,” she said
sadly.
“It may be useless, as far as finding him is concerned; but not to
avenge him,” and his voice became deep and stern.
“But you know not whom to strike as his murderers, Captain Dash.”
“I do know; the man who pretended to be Parson Bristow----”
“Pretended to be, captain? Why, he certainly seemed a sincere
Christian. He came to supper with father last night, and was very
entertaining, I assure you.”
“As he knows how to be, for he is none other than Kent King.”
“Kent King! That wretch! Impossible, for you----” and Mary’s face
turned white as she paused.
“No, I did not kill him, for he escaped from me before we reached Santa
Fe. He was captured in Border City in disguise by Buffalo Bill and
some of my men, and again escaped, through the love of a girl who had
sought him to kill him, but changed her mind, and fled with him. In
the disguise of a preacher he boldly joined the westward-bound train,
though Buffalo Bill and some of my men were along; and he passed the
girl, Panther Kate, also disguised, off as his daughter.
“That poor girl he poisoned by degrees, she not even suspecting it,
and she was buried on the side of the trail. At her grave Buffalo Bill
found him, and recognized him by some means. Then Cody was forced to
fly for his life, pursued by the Trail Bandits, who just then came up,
painted as Indians.”
“Can this be true?” gasped Mary Hale, trembling violently.
“I got it from one of his own men, whom I recognized, and hanged an
hour ago, knowing him to be a renegade and murderer.”
“And where is Kent King now?” she asked, in almost a whisper.
“He has fled. It seems he saw us hanging the man, though we did not
then see him, and he took to the prairie, with his band.”
“His band?”
“Yes, he is chief of the Trail Bandits now.”
“This is fearful, indeed.”
“But I shall soon be on their trail. My Revolver Riders now number half
a hundred, and we will bring back Bill Cody, or avenge him fearfully.”
“And you start to-morrow?” asked Mary, her voice faltering.
“Yes, I arrived in Denver a couple of days ago from Texas, where I had
some business to attend to, for I am not altogether what you believe
me, Miss Hale.”
“What! Do you wear disguises, too, Captain Dash?”
“Only when necessary to track villainy to the fountain seat; but I
mean, I am the owner of a large cattle ranch, and not a poor man, as
being in command of a band of herders would lead you to believe. I have
a score to settle with Kent King. To find him, I joined the Revolver
Riders, who made me their captain, and they are all now under my pay
until I accomplish the task I have set out to perform.”
“And God grant you may do it, Captain Dash.”
“My name is Dudley Dashwood, Miss Hale; my men called me Captain Dash,”
said the handsome young Texan, with a smile.
Then he resumed:
“When we parted on the trail, long months ago, I asked that I might
visit you here, and you said yes.”
“And I assure you I am glad you have come.”
“Thank you; but I was so bold then as to say that I loved you, although
we had met but that once; yet, in all the time that has gone by since
then, I have grown each day to love you more, until you are now
necessary to my happiness, and I have come to ask you to be my wife.”
He took her hands in his own, and gazed down upon her bowed head; but
she remained silent, and, raising the beautiful face until he gazed
down into it, he asked:
“Have I come in vain, Mary?”
“No.”
The answer was very low, but he heard it, and drew her gently toward
him, while he asked:
“When am I to call you wholly my own, Mary?”
“When you have found Mr. Cody, or run Kent King to earth,” she said,
almost sternly.
“Enough, I ask no more; but here comes your father, and I will ask him
for your hand, now that you have given me your heart.”
The young Texan turned and greeted Mary’s father as he came upon the
piazza, evidently greatly excited.
“Glad to meet you, Captain Dash; but, sir, the devilish old parson was
no parson at all, but Kent King, the Gambler Guide, who has escaped and
swept down the valley at the head of twoscore renegades, burning and
pillaging as he went.”
“He has already begun his mad work, then?”
“He has, indeed, and the vigilantes are organizing to go in pursuit;
and more, he would have paid us a visit had not a band of miners turned
him back.”
“I will leave at once on his trail. Mary, I leave to you to say what I
would have said to your father; good-by.”
Two minutes after, Captain Dash was riding like the wind toward the
encampment of the Revolver Riders, some ten miles distant and in his
heart were commingling the antipodes of emotions--hatred for the
Gambler Guide, and love for Mary Hale.