"SAVE, OH, SAVE MY HUSBAND!"
"Safe and in port at last, as old Cale Durg used to say, when a scout
was over and he was back in garrison."
This was the joyous exclamation of Captain Jack Crawford, as he turned
to Sam Chichester when their party rode into the settlement at the
Deadwood Mines in the Black Hills. Escorted nearly all the way by the
cavalry they had so providentially met, they had been troubled no more
by the Indians, and excepting the loss of some horses, and part of their
"fit-out" and stores, had suffered nothing. Not a man had been hurt, and
best of all, they came in sober, for the benzine had all gone with the
lost packs, for it was heaviest on the mules, as it would have been on
the men, had it not been host.
"I'm glad the trip is over. My temper never has been more tried," said
Chichester. "The most of the men have had their own way, though when we
started they promised on honor to obey me as captain. But honor is a
scarce article with the majority of them. Now they're here, they'll go
it with a looseness."
"You bet," was Crawford's sententious remark. "Wild Bill will be in his
element. Look at the signs. Rum, faro, monte, all have a swing here, you
can swear."
"Men, into line one minute, and then we part!" shouted Captain
Chichester to his party.
For a wonder, with temptation on every side, the weary riders obeyed,
and drew up in a straggling line to hear their leader's parting speech.
"Men, I promised to bring you here safely if I could, but to get all of
you here that I could, any way. I've kept my promise we're here."
"Ay! Three cheers for Sam Chichester!" shouted Wild Bill.
The cheers were given, and Chichester said:
"Thank you, boys. Now do me one favor. You are here in a busy place, and
I see by the sign that benzine is about as plenty as water. Touch it
light, and do behave, yourselves, that my name will not be disgraced by
any of Sam Chichester's crowd. Every man is his own master now, and must
look out for himself. I wish you all good luck, and shall work hard for
it myself."
The speech was over, and in a second the line melted away and every man
was seeking quarters or pitching into the benzine shops.
Wild Bill would have been the first to go there, had not his companion,
Willie Pond, said, in a low tone:
"Bill, please get quarters for you and me before you do anything else.
You know what you have promised. Remember, if it had not been for me,
neither you nor one of this party would ever have got here."
"You're right. But I'm so cussed dry!" muttered Bill. "You're right,
I'll find housing for us two before a drop passes my lips."
And Bill rode on to the upper part of the town, as it might be called,
where some men were putting up a new shanty, in fact, just putting the
finishing touch on it by hanging a door.
"Will you sell that shebang?" asked Bill, of the man who seemed to be
the head workman.
"Yes, if we get enough. We can build another. What will you give?"
"These two horses, and a century," said Bill, pointing to the animals
ridden by himself and companion, and holding up a hundred-dollar bill
which Pond had furnished him.
"O. K. The house is yours!" said the man. "Boys, put for timber, and
we'll have another up by sunset."
Bill and his companion dismounted, removed their blankets, arms, and
saddle-bags into the house, gave up the horses and were at home. It did
not take long to settle there.
* * * * * * * *
Night had fallen on the town of Deadwood, but not the calm which
generally comes with night where the laborer is but too glad to greet
the hour of rest. Lights flashing through chinks in rude cabins, lights
shimmering through canvas walls, songs, shouts, laughter, curses, and
drunken yells made the place seem like a pandemonium on earth.
Almost every other structure, either tent, cabin, or more pretentious
framed house, was either a saloon or gambling-hell, or both combined.
And all these seemed full. The gulches, sinks, and claims that had been
the scene of busy labor all the day were now deserted, and the gold just
wrenched from the bowels of the earth was scattered on the gambling
table, or poured into the drawer of the busy rumseller.
At this same hour, a man rode into the edge of the town on a noble black
horse, leading a tired mustang. Both of these animals he staked out in a
patch of grass, leaving the saddles on, and the bridles hanging to the
saddle-bow of each. Then he placed his rifle against a tree near by,
took the old cartridges out of a six-shooter and put in fresh ones. This
done with the greatest deliberation, he pulled his slouch hat well over
his face, entered the nearest saloon, threw down a silver dollar, and
called for brandy.
A bottle and glass were set before him. He filled the glass to the brim,
drank it off, and walked out.
"Here, you red-haired cuss, here!" cried the bar-keeper. "Here's a half
comin' to you; we only charge half-price when it goes by wholesale!"
The joke fell useless, for the red-haired man had not remained to hear
it.
In the largest hall in the place, a heavy gambling game was going on.
There was roulette, faro, and monte, all at different points.
Before the faro-table there was the greatest gathering.
Wild Bill, furnished with money by the person known to us so far as
Willie Pond, was "bucking against the bank" with, his usual wonderful
luck, and the crowd centered around him as a character more noted and
better known than any other who had yet come to Deadwood.
"I'll bet my whole pile on the jack!" shouted Wild Bill, who had taken
enough strong drink to fit him for anything.
"Do be careful, Bill--do be careful!" said a low, kind voice just behind
him.
It was that of Willie Pond.
"Oh, go home and mind your business. I'll break this bank to-night, or
die in the trial!" cried Bill, defiantly.
"You'll die before you break it!" shrieked out a shrill, sharp voice,
and the red-haired Texan sprang forward with an uplifted bowie-knife,
and lunged with deadly aim at Bill's heart, even as the person we have
so long known as Willie Pond shrieked out:
"Save, oh, save my husband!"
But another hand clutched the hilt of the descending knife and the hand
of a short, thickset, beetle-browed desperado, was shouted, as he drew a
pistol with his other hand:
"Wild Bill is my game. No one living shall cheat me of my revenge! Look
at this scar, Bill--you marked me for _life_ and now I mark you for
_death!_"
And even as he spoke, the man fired, and a death-shot pierced Wild
Bill's heart.
The latter, who had risen to his feet, staggered toward the Texan, who
struggled to free his knife-hand from the clutch of the real assassin,
and with a wild laugh, tore the false hair from the Texan's head. As a
roll of woman's hair came down in a flood of beauty over her shoulders,
Bill gasped out:
"Jack McCall, I'm thankful to you, even though you've killed me. Wild
Bill does not die by the hand of a _woman!"_
A shudder, and all was over, so far as Wild Bill's life went.
His real and true wife wept in silence over his body, while sullen, and
for a time silent, the supposed Texan stood and gazed at the dead body.
Then she spoke, addressing McCall:
"Villain, you have robbed me of my revenge! for by my hand should that
man have fallen. No wrong he could have done you can be more bitter than
that which put me on his death-trail, and made me swear to take his
life.
"Two years ago a young man left a ranch close to the Rio Grande border
with a thousand head of cattle, which had been bought from him, to be
paid for when delivered in Abilene, Kansas. He was noble, brave,
handsome. He was good and true in all things. He was the only hope of a
widowed mother, the very idol of a loving sister, whose life seemed
linked with his. He promised when he left those he loved and who so
loved him that he would hasten back with the proceeds of the sale, and
then, with his mother and sister, he would return to the birthplace of
the three, to the old Northern homestead, where his father's remains
were buried, buy the old estate, and settle down to a quiet and a happy
life. Long, anxiously, and prayerfully did that mother and sister wait
for his return. Did he come? No; but the soul-blighting news came,
which, like a thunderbolt, struck that mother--my mother--dead! Wild and
despairing, I heard it--heard _this._
"The son, the brother, who never used a drop of strong drink in all his
life; who never uttered an oath, or raised a hand in unkindness to man
or woman, had been murdered--killed without provocation--no chance to
defend his life, no warning to prepare for another world--shot down in
mere wantonness. There lies the body of him who did it. Do you wonder
that, over my dead mother's body, girl though I was, I swore to follow
to the death him who killed my brother? It is not my fault that I have
not kept my oath. I would have done it had I known that you, his
friends, would have torn me limb from limb before his body was cold."
"And served him right!" said an old miner, whose eyes were dimmed with
moisture while the Texan girl told her story.
"Where is McCall? His act was murder," cried Sam Chichester.
"He has sloped, but I'll take his trail, and if there is law in Montana
he shall hang," said California Joe, who bounded from the house, when it
was discovered that the murderer had slipped away in the moment of
excitement.
How well California Joe kept his promise, history has already recorded.
Followed over many a weary mile of hill and prairie, McCall was finally
arrested, tried and convicted, as well by his own boast as the evidence
of others, and he was hanged.
But one glance at our heroine, for such the red-haired Texan is.
With a look of haughty defiance, she asked:
"Have I done aught that requires my detention here?"
"No," said Captain Jack; "thank Heaven you have not. We'd make a poor
fist at trying a woman by Lynch law, if you had done what you meant to."
"Then I go, and few will be the white faces I ever see again!" she
cried.
The next moment she passed out, and as the crowd followed to see whither
she went, she was seen to spring on a coal-black horse which stood
unhitched before the door, and on it she rode at wild speed away toward
the north-west, while a saddled but unridden mustang followed close
behind her.
The course she took led toward the regions where Sitting Bull, in force,
awaited the attack of the soldiers then on his trail.
[THE END.]
"DIAMOND DICK, JR'S TRUNK CHECK; or, THE MAN IN THE SILVER MASK," by W.
B, Lawson will be published in the next number (193) of the DIAMOND DICK
LIBRARY.