|We will now suppose twenty-four hours to have passed Since the scenes
narrated in the last chapter.
The gloaming is beginning to gloam.
It began to look as though if something were not done for Pumpkin Jim
pretty previously, he would pass with a gentle, gliding movement up the
flume.
He was growing fainter hour by hour, and the extreme torpidity of
his liver, gave rise to grave apprehensions on the part of his gentle
guardian.
His leg also gave him extreme pain and cause for uneasiness, to say the
least. It had swollen to about the size of a flour barrel, and was still
swelling as we go to press.
He opened his eyes with a low moan, and looked up into the limber
sun-bonnet.
"Beauteous one, with the ethereal brow!" he began, but Geraldine blushed
and bade him let up.
"Gentle lady," he began again, "I am aware that the crisis is near.
Unless I have help very soon, in some form or other, I shall have
clomb the golden stair. Already the circulation is impaired, and the
transverse duplex has ceased to vibrate. Dissolution is coming on. My
pulse grows feebler hour by hour, and I feel that another morning sun
will find only my earthly tenement here. My spirit will have wung its
way to the realms of eternal day."
"O, do not talk that way," sobbed Geraldine, filling her apron full of
large, irregular fragments of grief. "It cannot, must not be!"
"Do not be over confident," said Pumpkin Jim. "Few men would have lived
as I have with a rib running through the centre of the liver, and into
the ground for nine or ten inches without great difficulty. The secret
of my power of endurance, I will, however, confide to you, as this may
be positively my last appearance. My true name is not Pumpkin Jim; that
is only a _nom de plume_. My sure enough name is Jesse James--that is
the secret of my longevity. I have been killed a great deal. I have lost
my life in almost every State in the Union. At first it used to make
me gloomy and taciturn to be killed so much; but latterly I became
very much pleased and flattered by this attention. It is sad to think,
however, that after being killed by some of our most prominent men,
I should at last yield up the ghost in a lonely canon, at the urgent
solicitation of a narrow-guage mule. But enough; it is useless to
repine. All that I am kicking about is, that after dying in so many
different styles, and in such desirable conditions, surrounded by all
the comforts of civilization, and getting a large amount of newspaper
space, and having a patent medicine portrait of myself published in the
papers, I should succumb to the death-dealing jackass, in the solitude
of the mountains.
"I cannot die again, however, without telling you of my love. I might
occupy your time by telling you of my long and glittering career of
crime, but it would take too long. I have nothing to lay at your feet
but my untarnished record as a highway robber, and my all consuming
love.
"It would ease the pain of my dying hour if you were to say to me that
you returned my love."
Our hero then fell back upon the mossy bank and gasped for breath, while
to all appearances the last moments of Pumpkin Jim had come.
It was a trying time for a young thing like Geraldine to pass through.
She stooped over him and fanned him with her sun bonnet and whispered a
few low musical words in his ear.
That did the business.
*****