“Linchpin lost!—wheel off!—broke down!”
In a dark little valley, lying nearly midway between Fort Sully and
Deadwood, and not far from the Cheyenne River, a gin trader, or
smuggler, had met with an accident. He inaugurated a hunt for a piece of
timber, which he hoped to transform into a drag to serve in lieu of the
wheel.
Armed with an axe, Timon was not long in finding the desired stick, and
when with the aid of straps and chains he had secured it to his
satisfaction, the last streak of day left the valley, and the pale light
of the stars took its place.
Then, with a self congratulatory pull at the demijohn, Timon hitched up
the mules again, tossed the useless wood into the wagon, and sprung to
his accustomed place.
The swearing, the cracks of the villainous whip over the heads of the
patient beasts, and their desperate efforts to pull the vehicle, made up
a scene never witnessed before by the hills that surrounded the little
valley.
“Git ep! you stubborn Injun-coloured brutes!”
But Timon cursed, struck and pleaded in vain. The heavy drag obstructed
progress, and though the faithful mules pulled with all their strength,
they could not draw the wagon over ten feet at an effort.
“Thirty miles from a bushel of gold, an' bu'sted!” roared the smuggler
in despair, springing from the box.
“Bless me, if I don't lighten the load! they do that when a ship's in
trouble at sea, an' the ship Timon Moss jest now is in a fearful strait.
Saltpeter an' soda! the thing is reasonable. I can fix up a story
between hyar an' Deadwood. Fell in with Midnight Jack or the Sioux,
either one will do, but the Midnight Jack story will look more likely.”
Ten whisky-kegs, with a single exception full to the bung, formed the
principal part of the load; then there were sundry boxes and packages,
consigned to the citizens of Deadwood, among them the legs of a
billiard-table, and the nucleus of a library which some “eastern chap”
was going to start in the mining-town.
“Can't throw any of the licker overboard!” said the smuggler, with
settled emphasis. “But thar's them confounded books—thar goes!” and for
the next ten minutes the lightening of the cargo went on: But the whisky
was not touched, and the only articles that remained in the wagon beside
it were consigned to the gamblers and other sporting men of Deadwood.
“Two hundred pounds lighter, my long-eared pards!” ejaculated Timon,
over whose florid face the evidence of his exertion was pouring. “Now a
last pull at my straw-coloured bird, an' then I'll say ho! for the
sun-dance, or ho! for Deadwood. I can't make up my mind.”
Old Tanglefoot's hands flew eagerly to the demijohn encased in a network
of split willows, and he was in the act of lifting the often-touched
nozzle to his lips, when a human voice made him start.
“I say, stranger, ain't ye losin' a right smart bit o' yer cargo?”
The demijohn almost dropped from Tanglefoot's hands, and he retreated
from the boyish countenance which, full of health and good-humour,
appeared at the rear end of the wagon.
The next moment, with his hand on the butt of his “navy,” Timon Moss
glided across the kegs toward the boy.
“Say, what's yer name?” he asked gruffly.
“I guess it's Gopher Gad, an' I'm not afraid of anybody in the Cheyenne
country.”
“Ain't, eh?” hissed Timon, “Wal, the reason is because you've never met
old Tanglefoot before. Do ye ever go to Deadwood?”
“Been there once,” answered the boy, who showed signs of retreating from
the basilisk-eyes of the whisky-smuggler.
“Then, by the spirit of Bacchus, ye'll never go thar ag'in!”
The revolver full cocked, and tightly griped by hands that had wielded
it before, shot from its sheath, and the boy with a cry of fright
disappeared in an instant.
“Can't git away that easy,” grated Timon. “Blast my cargo! if you shall
go to Deadwood an' spile the Midnight Jack story.”
The whisky-smuggler leaped from the wagon as the last sentence fell from
his lips.
His murderous eyes instantly caught sight of his intended prey, and,
with a roar not unlike that of a jungle tiger, he darted forward.
But the next moment the western villain executed a sudden halt, for a
loud cry came down from the shadows above.
“Cl'ar the track! I'm the Thunderbolt of the Dark-edged Cloud! a reg'lar
sky-scraper!”
Such were the words that halted old Tanglefoot, and, revolver in hand,
he looked up, as if he expected to see the speaker leap upon him from
the hills overhead.
Tall and handsome, affecting the dress of the Sicilian brigands, with a
mass of dark hair falling to his shapely shoulders, this pest of the
road was the most frequently-mentioned man in Dakota. He was still
young, and the plundered agents whose lives he had spared said that he
was nothing more than a mere boy. Though never seen in Deadwood in
brigand costume, his personal appearance was well known to every one.
They knew that there was a grease spot on the left side of his
sombrero-like hat—that he wore a cavalry-button on his right shoulder,
and that a few links of a gold watch-chain hung from his black courser's
bit.
About the time when the ungenerous linchpin cast old Tanglefoot a wreck
in the little valley, Midnight Jack rode upon the trail not many miles
from the scene we have just left.
He had halted in an open part of the country, and the stars, as they
glowed brilliantly in the heavens above, showed him the trail which he
had made dangerous for some distance east and west.
With one of the huge revolvers cocked, in his right hand, Midnight Jack
then kept his eyes fastened down the road, over which some kind of a
vehicle was lumbering.
Louder and shriller resounded the whip, never for one moment at rest,
and a puzzled expression of countenance settled on the road-agent's face
as he rose in his heavy stirrups, eager to see the approaching team.
All at once a wild cachinnation, followed by a series of fiendish yells,
drowned the reports of the whip, and the situation was instantly
explained to the road-agent.
“Indians!” ejaculated Midnight Jack.
The wagon—for the noise told the keen senses of the road-agent that but
one four-wheeled vehicle was approaching—continued to rattle over the
not very smooth road, accompanied by real Indian yells.
A common wagon, to which four strong-limbed mules were harnessed,
greeted the brigand's eyes. On each side of the hindmost beasts sat a
half-naked Indian, whose hands griped articles entirely strange to
them—whip and lines. Nor was this all. At least ten savages were crowded
into the bed of the vehicle, dancing like fiends, and filling the air
with those wild sounds which had so often assailed the ears of Midnight
Jack.
Evidently they had imbibed liquor in no inconsiderable quantities, and
they were pushing each other about in their drunken orgies, threatening
to overturn the wagon, or frighten the mules, already ungovernable, into
a runaway.
The wagon lumbering over the road had now reached a point almost
directly abreast of the still unseen road-agent, and, as his hands shot
up, a “navy” tightly clutched by each, his well-known “halt!” spoken in
deep thunder-tones, fell upon the ears of the carousing Indians.
In an instant of time, as it seemed, the orgies were hushed, and the
savage who had the lines, rising in the stirrups, jerked the lead mules
upon their haunches, and prepared to leap to the ground.
But the quick eye and trigger of Midnight Jack, saw the action and
suddenly checked it.
The stricken brave fell back upon the mule, shot through the eye, while
his companion with the whip, kissed the road before the report of the
first dead shot had died away. Now ensued a scene of terrible and deadly
confusion.
The pistols continued to pour their leaden messengers into the wagon,
until the last red reveller pitched over the dash, and quivered in the
agonies of death beneath the heels of the mules.
When he had reloaded the formidable weapons he rode up to the wagon,
speaking kindly to the team as he passed by, and looked around upon the
half-naked savages lying in the road.
“I kind o' piled them in the wagon, I guess,” he murmured, approaching
the vehicle, over whose side he leaned.
“By the gold of Ophir, a girl!” he cried, and with the exclamation
ringing from his lips, Midnight Jack leaped from the saddle and landed
in the wagon.
A moment sufficed to hurl the dead Indians to one side, and when the
bandit rose from a stooping position, he held a female figure in his
arms, and was looking into the whitest and loveliest face his eyes had
ever beheld.
In the excitement of the moment, the bandit did not notice that the
girl's ankles were bound together; he was gazing into the white, angelic
face.
As he looked, his own face assumed a wild expression; the ruddy colour
departing, left it as white as the one he held in his arms.
“Merciful heaven!” he cried, “I cannot be mistaken. If she is really
dead, I'll exterminate the whole Sioux nation. I'll make their land a
land of blood! Ah! Golden George will never carry out his threat now.
Better dead, Dora, than HIS! But why did you come out here? Wake up!
open your eyes, and tell me about father. Am I cursed yet? Are you dead
in my arms? I'll leave the road now—leave it forever. The red devils
shall curse the night they killed Midnight Jack's sister!”
As yet the girl exhibited no signs of life; the beautiful face, cold and
marble-like, met his gaze with no return of expression, save that
forbidding one of death. If the road-agent had laid his pistol-hand over
the heart, he would have detected a faint movement which would cause his
own to leap for joy.
But, in his anger and his thoughts of dark revenge, he never thought of
this.
After awhile Midnight Jack crawled from the wagon with his beautiful
burden, which he deposited gently upon a rich, soft plat of grass, that
seemed to invite its sleeper.
Then he drew a piece of “keil” from his pocket, and wrote on one side of
the vehicle these words:—
“Killed by Midnight Jack! This is but the beginning. Uncle Sam won't
have to feed the Sioux much longer. Blood for blood!”
Midnight Jack was satisfied with this writing, and as he turned again to
the little figure reposing on the grass, he said—
“I mean every word—every letter of that inscription!”
When he remounted his charger, which had watched its master with almost
human interest, the body of Dora lay in his arms, and Midnight Jack rode
from the scene of his exploit.
“Yes, she died before the evil days had time to fasten upon her. But
what brought her away out here, anyhow? I'd give my very life to know!”
Talking in this and a like strain, the road-agent did not seem to note
the progress of his horse, but he suddenly spoke to the animal, which
came to a halt in a beautiful spot not far from the banks of the
Cheyenne river.
“This is the place for you, Dora,” said Midnight Jack, addressing the
fair girl whom he had carried to this bewitching spot. “I'll visit your
grave every day, and death shall be the portion of the fiend who
ventures to despoil it. Now for the secret home. I saw it the other day,
though it was well hidden. The boy has not come back yet, I think, for I
saw him down near Brier Ford at sundown, and he had no horse either.
However, he's an innocent-looking cuss, I take it; perfectly harmless!”
A few moments later, Midnight Jack leaped to the ground at the foot of a
rugged hill covered with a dense undergrowth, and apparently
inaccessible. But his keen eyes descried a path which seemed to lead to
the top, and up this he sprung.
A few bounds brought him to a strong door, fixed seemingly in the hill,
and adroitly concealed by a variety of wild grape-vines which hung from
above.
Midnight Jack entered the hole in the ground and struck a lucifer, which
for several moments illumined the place, showing him that it was the
dwelling of a human being, for several rude articles of furniture lay
around, as well as a lot of new skins, a pickaxe and a spade.
As Midnight Jack, with spade and pick on his shoulder, emerged from the
place, he uttered a cry which was an oath.
“Thunder and rifles!” he ejaculated, and as the digging implements
glided from his hands, he drew his repeating rifle. “The red devils are
going to give me more exercise. Well, they shall find that I am eager to
keep up the work I began to-night.”
Another shaft cut short the sentence, and the road-agent saw that it
sped upward from the depths of the little valley, and just beyond his
horse which, with head erect, had snuffed the prowling foe.
“Not dead yet, you dogs!” he cried, recovering just as his horse sunk to
the earth bullet-stricken.
“Lie still, Quito! It's life and death with us now,” he said to the
horse as he dropped beside him. “I'm hit and so are you, but the bullet
that is to kill Midnight Jack isn't carried by the red-livered dogs over
there.”
“They shall not get you, Dora. By the gold of Ophir—”
He suddenly stopped, and a startled look filled his eyes.
“GONE!”
Midnight Jack sprung to his feet, and uttered the word in all the horror
and despair imaginable.
“The red devils have stolen my dearest dead! Oh, you dogs! for this
there shall be double vengeance taken.”
He was answered from the further side of the valley. A line of fire
leaped from the darkness, and bullets fell all around him.
The moon peeping over the edge of a cloud was revealing a score of
horses, upon which dark figures were mounted.
Midnight Jack darted forward, and as he halted for a moment, his rifle
sent ten messengers of death into the ranks of the savages.
Wild cries of pain and shrieks of death followed the rapid shots. There
was retreating in hot haste; but before the redskins could get beyond
the stretching moonlight, two rifles on the road-agent's left opened
upon them.
With astonishment Midnight Jack turned upon his reinforcements, to hear
these words in a loud, rough voice:—
“Don't let up, youngster, but give 'em all the grim death ye've got in
the magazine. Whoop-ee! there they go! I'm the Screamin' Eagle of the
Smoky Roost—the Thunderbolt of the Dark-edged Cloud—a reg'lar
sky-scraper.”
Instead of smiling, Midnight Jack's brow darkened at these words.
“I didn't want any help,” he muttered. “By the gold of Ophir! I didn't
need any.”
The road agent found five dead braves on the spot where the Sioux band
had fought, but no sign of his sister's pallid face greeted his keen
vision.
“You may carry Dora to the North Pole, but even there the hand of
Midnight Jack will fall upon you and tear her away!” he cried, looking
toward the direction in which the Indians had fled. “I will not rest
until I have avenged my sister!”
“Thet's bizness, stranger,” came the unpolished voice from among the
little trees that stood thickly on the sides of the hill. “I'm comin'
down to take the hand of the feller what loaded a wagon with Injuns down
the road. I'm a reg'lar sky-scraper! Hold on thar, stranger!”
A moment later two figures mounted on mules, whose bodies bore the marks
of heavy harness, came in sight, and the road-agent soon caught their
eye.
“Hyar we ar'!” cried a lank and uncouth, but strong specimen of
humanity, springing from the animal's back, and alighting so near
Midnight Jack that that worthy had to start back to avoid a collision.
“I hevn't got a card, but my name is Rube Rattler, or the Screamin'
Eagle of the Smoky Roost. Whoop-ee! strangers, we've checked five of 'em
straight through to-night. This boy is—bless my boots! if I don't forgit
what he calls himself. I picked 'im up back thar a piece. Old Tanglefoot
war goin' to let moonlight into 'im, when I said, 'I guess not,' an' he
didn't. He's a chicken, sir, an' I'm his friend from this night. The man
what teches him teches the Thunderbolt of the Dark-edged Cloud. Say, did
the Injuns take anything?”
“Take anything?” and Midnight Jack echoed the uncouth individual's words
in tones so vengeful that Gopher Gid, who still sat astride one of old
Tanglefoot's mules, started. “They took what Midnight Jack never took
from any man—a sister.”
“I've heerd of you,” Rattler said. “You never took a thing from me,
Midnight Jack, and I'm always ready to help the man what's lost any of
his own. Put it thar! an' let us be friends.”
The stony expression on Midnight Jack's face relaxed, and the boy opened
his eyes in wonder when he saw the two men shaking hands.
“We had a queer tussle to-night,” the Sky-scraper said, glancing at
Gopher Gid. “That old rot-gut peddler lost a linchpin. He tried to cuss
it back, but it war the most wasted cussin' you ever heerd of. Then, as
I said, he got at the boy thar who came up to help 'im; but jist about
that time the Thunderbolt of the Dark-edged Cloud dropped close by 'im.
We emptied his cargo—knocked in the heads of his kegs—and left 'im with
two of his mules. He war usin' the strongest kind o' language. It was
amusin' to hear 'im. Did you ever meet Tanglefoot?”
“He knows me, at any rate,” was Jack's response.
“I'll go with you to the ends of the world after the gal,” said the
borderman. “I've nothin' to keep me hyar; no family. The boy—why he can
stop hyar till we come back. Gopher, jump off the critter, and let
Midnight Jack take the saddle.”
“Not till I look to my own horse,” interposed the road-scourge, before
Gopher could spring from the beast. “He went down at the first fire, and
I told him to lie still;” and he went to the spot where his black horse
still lay, but a glance at the rigid form and the glazed eye told him
that he would never ride the faithful animal again.
With clenched lips, and eyes flashing anew, the bandit came back to the
two spectators.
“I'll take the mule, boy,” he said, gently, and Gopher Gid slid to the
ground. “With a fresh trail ahead, we will overtake the reddies before
they reach the big village. I have my doubts whether Tanglefoot was
going to Deadwood. The great sun-dance of the Sioux is near at hand; I
guess he never misses such an affair as that.”
The night was well advanced when Midnight Jack and his companion bade
the unsatisfied boy farewell, and he stood in the darkness like a youth
in a dream, listening to the canter of their mules.
Before departure, Midnight Jack had superintended the burial of his
horse and the slain savages, so that their bodies would not taint the
atmosphere so near the boy's hillside home.
“I'd like to see your sister, Midnight Jack, if she's alive,” he mused,
pausing in the low doorway before he shut the portal. “I haven't seen a
white girl's face for a year, and I'll never see yours, Dora, I'm
thinking. Dora—what's your name?—I'd like to see you. Midnight Jack's
sister—that sounds funny.”
The boy could not repress the low laugh that bubbled to his lips, and
while it still sounded he shut the door.
“You will not find me here, Rube, when you come back,” he said, speaking
out his thoughts, as he discussed a frugal meal alone. “I'm goin' to
hunt new trapping-grounds, so far away from here that I'll never think
of Midnight Jack and his sister.”
He finished the meal, and carried the light to his traps. Setting it on
the ground he began to untangle the chains, but his fingers moved slower
and slower, until at last his body fell gently to one side, and Gopher
Gid, the little trapper, was asleep.
But it was the slumber of the cat, for all at once his eyes opened, and
as they darted to the door his fingers clutched the butt of a pistol
with firm determination.
Gopher Gid sprung erect, and fastened his eyes on the portal.
The candle was burning low at his feet, and the room was growing darker
each succeeding moment, but the awakening noise at the door still
continued.
Then came in sight the semblance of a human head, and the next moment
Gopher Gid saw the hideous face of Timon Moss, whose two little eyes
danced like dervishes in their cells.
He raised the revolver, and fired at the living target. At the same
moment the candle went out, and left him in almost palpable gloom.
With the flash of Gopher Gid's revolver, old Tanglefoot's head
disappeared as if a battering-ram had been applied to the cranium.
For a long time the little hermit stood in the gloom at the side of the
door, waiting for a reappearance of his foe.
After waiting for two hours, with his heart beating audibly in his
bosom, the boy began to think that his shot had disposed of his foe.
“He'll know better than to poke his head into a lighted room whose door
is chained,” he said, a victorious twinkle in his eyes. “If I didn't
send the bullet into his head, I at least left my mark somewhere on his
face. Why I never dreamed that he would follow my trail so soon.
Midnight Jack is right—Timon Moss is a veritable demon.”
If Gopher Gid had known that his words were falling upon the ears of the
man he had mentioned, he would not have made preparations to inquire
into the result of his nocturnal shot as soon as day broke.
Squatted like a toad, and with his repulsive face rendered doubly
hideous by a long red streak across one cheek which bled profusely,
Timon Moss sat behind some bushes which grew near the door of the cave
home.
In one hand he held the ungainly but dread revolver which we have
already seen in his gripe. He peered through the bushes at the door,
waiting patiently for his prey.
At last the door slowly opened, and the whisky-smuggler saw the anxious
face of his boy enemy.
“I didn't kill him, that's certain,” muttered the boy trapper.
“Leastwise he isn't here to tell me this. Alas! Tanglefoot, that ball
passed too near your face. It was a gentle reminder for you to keep your
distance, and to knock when you come visiting.”
Suddenly the tiger in wait crouched nearer to the earth, and then, with
a roar not unlike that of the jungle-king, he sprung at his prey.
The twain went over together, the weight of the smuggler bearing his
young victim to the ground.
They reeled down the hill together, over and over like amateur
wrestlers, but the strength of Tanglefoot was bound to win.
The boy tried in vain to slip from the smuggler's embrace, but it was
like the hug of the she bear, and the fumes of bad liquor almost
overpowered him. As Gid went back the revolver was torn from his hand,
nor could it be regained. Tanglefoot used no weapon, and when they
reached the foot of the hill, Gid found himself lifted in mid-air, and
held out at arm's length by the panting ogre.
For several moments Tanglefoot said nothing, but continued to gaze at
his prize.
“Caught!” he cried. “Nobody whoever done Timon Moss a wrong ever got
away in the end. It war fun to bust the whisky-kegs, but the laugh will
be on the other side of the face afore the game is played cl'ar out.
Say, whar's that j'inted individual who did most of the breaking, my
delicate child?”
“I do not know where he is.”
“Gone off, eh?”
“Yes.”
“Alone? I heerd a great deal o' shootin' while I war coming hyar. Who
did it.”
“Midnight Jack.”
Gopher Gid peered eagerly into Tanglefoot's face to note the effect of
his reply.
The whisky-smuggler started a little—that was all.
“Whar is he now?”
“I don't know.”
Gopher Gid's answer seemed to nonplus the avenger of the spilled
spirits; he was at his finger's-end for another question.
All at once he broke forth with one that shot a malicious twinkle into
his little eyes.
“Say, Gopher, did you ever see a sun-dance?”
The boy stared a moment, then said, “No.”
“Heerd of them, eh?”
“I have.”
“They're goin' to hev a big one up at Red Cloud's town,” said old
Tanglefoot. “Sixty hosses for the Injun what kin hang the longest. The
red boys ar' comin' from the lodges of the Teton Sioux, an' thar'll be
more Injuns thar then you kin count. Well, I'm goin' to the Injun show,
an' I ain't goin' alone, either.”
Timon Moss now proceeded to secure his captive, which no longer fought
the tide which had set in against him.
“You will do me one favour?” said the boy.
“In course I will,” was the answer. “What is it?”
“Shut my door, and fix it as I tell you.”
“What! you don't expect to come back, I hope?” was the quick retort.
“But I'll fix the shanty, fur thar may be some things thar that I'll
want when I come back.”
He then shut the door of the cave home, and left Gopher Gid there while
he went round the hill, from whose further side he soon reappeared,
leading two mules, the late lead ones of his team.
Gopher Gid once glanced over his shoulder at the hill-home which he was
leaving forcibly after a long sojourn there, and could hardly realise
his situation till he turned to look into the ogreish face of Timon
Moss.
“Look well at your hole in the ground, my peewee, fur ye're never comin'
back to its traps and skins.”
Gid's eyes flashed fire.
Never? He would see about that.