The hands which had pushed the stone over the edge of the wall were small
and beautiful. They belonged to a young girl who might have reached her
seventeenth year. She was of medium height, rather slightly built, with
a fair, fresh skin, and sparkling black eyes. At a goodly distance she
might have been taken for a member of the opposite sex, for the garment
that reached but a little way below the knees was fringed after the
manner of the frontier hunting-frock. Her _petite_ feet were incased in
a pair of Indian moccasins; and her leggins of pliable goods, reached to
the strings of these picturesque shoes.
On the whole, the girl on the cliffs formed a romantic piece of living
statuary in the moonlight that fell unobstructed about her.
If she was armed, her person bore no evidences of it. The weapon which
she had just hurled at Tom Terror was one which could not be borne by
such slender arms as hers.
She had not witnessed the Tiger’s manner of dealing with old Jack the
stage-driver. There were many shadows between her and the exciting drama
going on below, but the voices came up to her, clear and distinct,
without a syllable missing, and she heard Jack’s shriek and the shots of
the scarlet Thugs.
“The white Thug and his creatures are down there,” fell in angry and
vengeful accents from her tongue. “They have added another human being
to their catalogue of victims, and he, Old Jack, the man who once looked
at me till I felt my heart beat in my bosom like a bird beats herself
against the sides of the cage. Oh, if I had a weapon here. I see the
white Thug. I--can’t I send a death missile down among them?”
As the beautiful speaker started from the edge of the cliff with flashing
eyes, her heel came in contact with a stone which moved so she was almost
thrown over it.
The next instant, with a quick, eager cry of vengeance, the girl pushed
the rock from her with great force, and with bated breath leaned forward
to watch its descent.
It shot down the side of the gulch until it struck a mass of rock that
jutted from the main wall, and then, glancing off like a bomb, it went
straight down like a descending cannon ball.
The wild cry of the Thugs as they attempted to dodge the singular
missile of destruction reached the listener’s ears, and then came the
terrible landing on the canyon road.
“Missed!” cried the girl, shrinking back with bitter disappointment
written on her face.
She looked again and saw the cavalcade ride from the spot where their
leader had barely escaped with his life, but springing erect she hurled
after them the words we have already recorded.
“The next time, monster, my missile will strike and kill!”
Then, leaving Tom Terror to anathematize her to his heart’s content, she
hurried away.
“Hal will come to the cave by-and-bye. He will not regret the failure of
my attack on the Canyon Terror, for he says that he intends to hang the
villain some day.”
As the girl glided through the forest that fringed the top of the canyon,
the land sloped gradually, and at last she reached a ravine through which
a stream had evidently poured its waters in days unremembered even by the
oldest red inhabitants of Colorado.
Dropping into this fissure the girl crept toward the canyon, and
disappeared all at once in a dark opening which was almost concealed by a
network of half-dead vines.
“I always feel secure here; but I wish his days of vengeance would
end. No rest, he says, until he has cleared Cut-throat of its curses.
Sometimes, when I stand before him, and hear him talk of the oath of
vengeance he has sworn to carry out, I almost wish that Tom Terror and
his Thugs had murdered some one whom I loved, so that I could enter into
the bloody campaign with him. But am I not helping? Did not the sight
of the monster fire my heart with the torch of revenge, and did I not
attempt the life which Hal seeks? Whom have I to avenge? I am a waif who
drifted on a stray wave to this place. I never felt a mother’s kiss, and
the strong old gold-digger whose roof sheltered me a long time, would not
let me call him father.”
It was in the cave proper that these musings dropped in audible tones
from the girl’s lips.
This apartment was lofty, commodious, and not illy furnished. A fire,
evidently kindled some time prior to the girl’s present visit, burned in
the middle of the floor and illuminated the place.
The walls gave evidence of encompassing a boy’s home. There were several
rude and ghastly pictures of hanging scenes, and over each hung a dark
cord to which a small leaden ball was attached. Beside such pictures as
these, six long white marks were visible on the northern wall of the
apartment. At the right hand was a long vacant place which seemed to have
been left by the artist on purpose to fill up with marks at some future
time.
“Hal has not been here,” said the girl, withdrawing her hand letterless
from beneath the pillow of a cot that lay in the mellow firelight. “He
went down to Custer to meet his Indian friend, Red Crest, but he said he
would not be absent long. He cannot remain away a great while. I am eager
to relate my adventure, and yet I am almost afraid to tell him that I
disobeyed him by leaving the cave.”
A few minutes later the beautiful young girl lay on the cot with her eyes
fixed dreamily on the fire. She formed a sterling picture for an artist,
but only a magic brush could have laid in the wonderful colours of the
scene.
An hour must have passed away before the girl moved. Then all at once, as
if roused by a sound, she left the cot and leaped to a repeating rifle
which her delicate fingers cocked as she lifted it from the ground.
But a figure came in sight as she sent a glance toward the mouth of the
cave, and, with a cry of pleasure, the girl sprung forward.
“You did not think the Wolf had found the cave, Myra?” fell from the
new-comer’s lips as he came forward, and revealed himself as the boy
judge.
“I did not know who had come,” smiled the girl, glancing half confused at
the rifle. “I have been waiting for you, for I have--”
He had dropped the hand which he had taken, and Myra, the girl, saw him
go forward and halt before the six marks on the wall.
For several moments he stood there with an uneasy expression of
countenance, then, as if directed by some impulse of passion, he drew a
piece of chalk from his pocket, and added another stroke to the singular
collection.
Myra noticed that the last mark was longer than the others.
“A special enemy!” she said to herself. “I wonder if he met the Canyon
Monster? No, no! he was surrounded by his Thugs.”
Almost abruptly the boy Vigilante turned upon the girl; the piece of
chalk still in his hand.
“One more, Myra!” he exclaimed. “Do you not see that the last mark is the
longest one on the wall? Ah! girl, I met an old foe to-night; but--if he
had divulged a secret which I believe he held, there would be no mark
there, although I hated him with all my heart.”
“A secret! a secret!” cried the girl. “Whom did it concern?”
“Me!”
“You, Hal? Why, I always thought I was the best subject for a secret--or
some such mystery like they have in novels. What do you think the dead
man’s secret was?”
The boy shook his head; he was troubled.
“If there’s a mystery concerning you, Hal, time will clear it up,” she
said. “But the man--was he a Thug?”
“No. His name was Dan Darrell. Deadly Dan he was called. I have told you
about how he acted on the Rosebud?”
“Oh, yes. And so you met at last? Fate brought you together!”
“Yes, it must have been fate; but I did not think so when I hanged him.
He said that his secret concerned me; he said it with his last breath,
Myra. I believe him. Men like Dan Darrell don’t die with lies on their
lips.”
For several minutes the pair stood face to face, speechless but
thoughtful.
“I would give my right arm if Rosebud Dan was alive,” cried the boy
judge, starting forward. “His stubbornness hung him, more than my hatred
or my revenge. Look at the legacy he left behind--a tortured, doubting
mind. Girl--girl, you cannot know how I have suffered since I left that
wretch and his secret hanging together.”
“Maybe, Hal--”
Myra, the waif, hesitated.
“Go on.”
“Once you hung a foe, but the neck was not broken, and he escaped. Are
you certain that Deadly Dan is dead?”
The boy avenger almost shrieked as he bounded forward.
“Ah, why did I not think of it before? No, I am not certain that he is
dead. Come, girl, it is not far away; there is a certain place from
whence we can look down upon the gallows. The voice. Ah! I recall it now.
It frightened Red Crest; it even paled my cheek, for on the spur of the
moment, Myra. I thought it came from the dead man.”
The hand of the young Vigilante encircled the girl’s wrist, and a moment
later the two were going up the waterless ravine.
They seemed to hold their breath us they went on, the boy slightly in the
advance, and not a syllable escaped their lips until more than a mile of
woodland along the top of the canyon had been traversed.
“Here at last!” exclaimed the young Vigilante, halting, and then
approaching the edge of the precipice. “We are directly over the beam to
which I hung Rosebud Dan.”
With eyes full of eagerness and suspense, the boy dropped his companion’s
hand, and crept forward. He was almost afraid to look over the cliff.
Deadly Dan might be hanging there with the secret locked in a heart as
dead and cold as a stone.
Earnestly trusting otherwise, the boy lyncher shut his lips, and was
about to solve all mental questions when a stern voice rung in his ears.
“Hello thar! youngster. Do you want to go over the edge o’ Cut-throat, or
die whar ye ar’?”
A piercing cry fell from the girl’s lips as the boy started back, sprung
erect, and wheeled quickly.
“I’ve got ye whar I’ve long wanted to see ye--at the end of my rifle.
Look at the stars, look at the gal, an’ say yer pray’rs, for my finger’s
on the trigger, an’ I’m goin’ to send the bullet home.”
There was no mercy in his voice, no hope in the expression of his face
that confronted the boy.
He stood before, and in the power of, Tom Terror, the Gulch Tiger.
The boy judge was in a situation of imminent peril; not only this, but
Myra, the waif, also stood before the deadly repeater which the Canyon
Terror kept against his shoulder.
“He says he has long wanted to catch me napping,” said Hal, to himself.
“Is it for the Thugs I have strung up, or does he possess the secret that
Rosebud Dan refused to divulge? I need not expect mercy at his hand; but
Myra! What will the villain do with her?”
The boy’s sentence was broken by a startling voice which did not fall
from the Tiger’s tongue.
On the contrary, it came up from below, and was followed by the furious
galloping of a single horse.
“Now for the big bonanza. Hurrah for the claim that hes but one big
share.”
Tom Terror, starting violently, lifted his head and listened to the tread
of the unseen horse.
“Fair play!” cried Hal, as he sprung forward with a drawn revolver. “Now,
my good fellow, be so obliging as to fling your repeater over the wall.
Quick! or there’ll be a riderless horse where you now sit.”
The Gulch Tiger ground his teeth with rage, and roundly cursed the
accident which had diverted his attention from his foe.
“Throw it over!” continued the lyncher, sternly. “One--two--”
Accompanied by a fierce brigandish oath, and the flashing of a pair of
evil eyes, the carbine disappeared over the brink of the precipice, and
the boy heard the sound of its arrival on the stony road far below.
“That’s sensible; now the pistols.”
Another savage oath, and two large revolvers, drawn sullenly from the
Tiger’s belt, followed the repeating rifle.
“They’ll hev a precious time hangin’ me,” thought Tom, as he shrugged his
Atlantean shoulders and looked contemptuously at the youthful couple. “I
hope they’ll try: I do so, by the eyes of the gods! Then my weapons will
hev company down thar.”
“I tell you I’m ready,” ejaculated the Canyon King as if becoming
impatient. “If the court _always_ hangs, here’s the primest subject in
Colorado. Call up the sheriff, jedge, an’ let the air-dance proceed.”
The boy’s eyes wandered to the edge of the cliff.
“I’m not prepared to hang at this moment. In fact you have caught me
without a rope, Tom Terror. But perhaps there is one handy. I’ll send you
after it.”
“Me? Why, jedge, I might forget to come back.”
“I’ll attend to that,” answered the boy. “Go to the edge of the wall
where yon rock lies, and look over. If I am not mistaken, you’ll see the
gallows that I have used on two occasions.”
“The timber in the wall, eh?”
“Yes; you’ve seen it?”
“Do you think you could climb down to it to-night, cut the subject loose
that hangs from it, and bring the rope up?”
For the first time Tom Terror showed signs of weakness.
“I never tried to go down a perpendicular wall, smooth as glass--”
“Oh, there are steps--niches in it,” interrupted the boy. “Go and look.”
A minute’s walk sufficed to bring Old Tom to the fringe of the precipice,
and a moment later, with much of his old courage, he was looking over the
dizzy height.
A shade of disappointment came to the faces of the watchers. He was
looking down as if his suspicions had been confirmed.
“Can you cut him loose and bring up the rope?” asked the boy hanger.
“Cut who loose, an’ git what rope?”
“Why the man hanging from the beam in the wall.”
“Ye’re mistaken, jedge; somebody’s fooled ye.”
“Mistaken--fooled?” echoed the boy, and he quickly thrust the revolver
into Myra’s hand, saying: “You can shoot; watch that man and drop him
over the cliff if he attempts to fly or attack. No man at the beam? Great
heavens! what has become of Rosebud Dan?”
Rosebud Dan, rope, all had disappeared.
The boy lyncher shrunk back, for the moment unnerved. His face was
colorless, and he glanced at the Gulch Giant who was trying, as it
seemed, to fathom his surprise.
He staggered rather than walked back to the girl, who, revolver in hand,
had not taken her eyes from Tom Terror one second.
“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 secret
may 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?”