Wild Bill's Last Trail.

by Ned Buntline.

CHAPTER I.

THE AVENGER.

"Bill! _Wild Bill!_ Is this you, or your ghost? What, in great Creation's name, are you doing here?"

"Gettin' toward sunset, old pard--gettin' toward sunset, before I pa.s.s in my checks!"

The first speaker was an old scout and plainsman, Sam Chichester by name, and he spoke to a pa.s.senger who had just left the west-ward-bound express train at Laramie, on the U.P.R.R.

That pa.s.senger was none other than J. B. Hickok, or "Wild Bill," one of the most noted shots, and certainly the most desperate man of his age and day west of the Mississippi River.

"What do you mean, Bill, when you talk of pa.s.sing in your checks? You're in the very prime of life, man, and---"

"Hush! Talk low! There are listening ears everywhere, Sam! I don't know why, but there is a chill at my heart, and I know my time has about run out. I've been on East with Buffalo Bill and Texas Jack, trying to show people what our plains life is. But I wasn't at home there. There were crowds on crowds that came to see us, and I couldn't stir on the streets of their big cities without having an army at my heels, and I got sick of it. But that wasn't all. There was a woman that fell in love with me, and made up her mind to marry me. I told her that I was no sort of a man to tie to--that I was likely to be wiped out any day 'twixt sunrise and sunset, for I had more enemies than a candidate for President; but she wouldn't listen to sense, and so--_we buckled!_ Thank Heaven, I've coaxed her to stay East with friends while I've come out here; for, Sam, she'll be a widow inside of six weeks!"

"Bill, you've been hitting benzine heavy of late haven't you?

"No; I never drank lighter in my life than I have for a year past. But there's a shadow cold as ice on my soul! I've never felt right since I pulled on that red-haired Texan at Abilene, in Kansas. You remember, for you was there. It was kill or get killed, you know, and when I let him have his ticket for a six-foot lot of ground he gave one shriek--it rings in my ears yet. He spoke but one word--'Sister!' Yet that word has never left my ears, sleeping or waking, from that time to this. I had a sister once myself, Sam, and I loved her a thousand times more than I did life. In fact I never loved life after I lost her. And I can't tell you all about her--I'd choke if I tried. It is enough that she died, and the cause of her death died soon after, and I wasn't far away when--when he went under. But that isn't here nor there, Sam--let's go and warm up.

Where do you hang out?"

"I'm in camp close by. I'm heading a party that is bound in for the Black Hills. Captain Jack Crawford is along. You know him. And California Joe, too."

"Good! It is the first streak of luck I've had in a year. I'll join your crowd, Sam, if you'll let me. Captain Jack and Joe are as good friends as I ever had--always barring one."

"And that is?"

"My old six-shooter here. Truth-Teller I call it. It never speaks without saying something. But come, old boy--I see a sign ahead. I must take in a little benzine to wash the car-dust out of my throat."

Bill pointed to a saloon near at hand, and the two old scouts and companions moved toward it.

As they did so, a young man, roughly dressed, with a face fair and smooth, though shadowed as if by exposure to sun and and wind, stepped from behind a shade tree, where he had stood while these two talked, listening with breathless interest to every word. His hair, a deep, rich auburn, hung in curling ma.s.ses clear to his shoulders, and his blue eyes seemed to burn with almost feverish fire as he gazed in the direction the scouts had taken.

"So! He remembers Abilene, does he?"

And the tone of the young man was low and fierce us an angered serpent's hiss.

"And he thinks his time is near. So do I. But he shall not die in a second, as his victim did, I would prolong his agonies for years, if every hour was like a living death; a speechless misery. Let him go with Sam Chichester and his crowd. The avenger will be close at hand! His Truth-Teller will lie when he most depends on it. For I--I have sworn that he shall go where he has sent so many victims; go, like them all, unprepared, but not unwarned. No, he thinks that death is near; I'll freeze the thought to his very soul! He is on the death-trail now? With me rests when and where it shall end."

The face of the young man was almost fiendish in its expression as he spoke. It seemed as if his heart was the concentration of hate and a fell desire for revenge.

He strode along the streets swiftly, and, glancing in at the saloon which the two men had entered, paused one second, with his right hand thrust within his vest, as if clutching a weapon, and debating in his mind whether or not to use it.

A second only he paused, and then muttering, "It is not time yet," he pa.s.sed on.

"He went a little way up the same street and entered a German restaurant. Throwing himself heavily on a seat, he said:

"Give me a steak, quick. I'm hungry and dry. Give me a bottle of the best brandy in your house."

"We've got der steak, und pread, und peer, und Rhein wine, but no prandy," said the German, who kept the place.

"Cook the steak in a hurry, and send for some brandy then!" cried the young man, throwing down a golden eagle. "Your beer and wine are like dishwater to me. I want fire--fire in my veins now."

"Dunder and blixen! I shouldn't d.i.n.k as you wus want much more fire as dere is in your eyes, young fellow. But I send for your prandy."

The young man threw one glance around the room to see if he were the only occupant.

There was another person there, one who had evidently just come in, a traveler, judging by a good-sized valise that was on the floor beside his chair. This person looked young, for the face, or as much of it as was not hidden by a very full black beard, was fair and smooth as that of a woman; while the hair which shaded his white brow was dark as night, soft and glossy as silk, hanging on short, curling ma.s.ses about his face and neck.

He was dressed rather better than the usual run of travelers; in a good black broad-cloth suit--wore a heavy gold watch-chain, had on a fine linen shirt, with a diamond pin in the bosom, and appeared to feel quite satisfied with himself, from the cool and easy manner in which he gave his orders for a good, substantial meal, in a voice rather low and musical for one of his apparent age.

The last comer eyed this person very closely, and a smile almost, like contempt rose on his face, when the dark-eyed stranger called for claret wine, or if they had not that, for a cup of tea.

But his own strong drink was now brought in, and pouring out a gla.s.sful of undiluted brandy he drank it down and muttered:

"That's the stuff! It will keep up the fire. My veins would stiffen without it. It has carried me so far, and it must to the end. Then--no matter!"

The stranger or traveler looked as if wondering that the young man could take such a fearful dose of fiery liquor, and the wonder must have increased when a second gla.s.sful was drained before the food was on the table.

But the latter came in now, and the traveler and the young man with auburn hair, at separate tables, were apparently too busy in disposing of the eatables to take any further notice of each other.

When the first had finished, he took a roll of cigarettes from one of his pockets, selected one, took a match from a silver box, drawn from the same pocket, and lighting his cigarette, threw a cloud of smoke above his head.

The second, pouring out his third gla.s.s of brandy, sipped it quietly--the first two gla.s.ses having evidently supplied the fire he craved so fiercely.

The traveler, as we may call him, for want of any other knowledge, now rose, and as if impelled by natural politeness, tendered a cigarette to the other.

The man with auburn hair looked surprised, and his fierce, wild face softened a little, as he said:

"Thank you, no. I drink sometimes, like a fish, but I don't smoke.

Tobacco shakes the nerves, they say, and I want my nerves steady.

"Strong drink will shake them more, I've heard," said the traveler, in his low, musical voice. "But you seem to have a steady hand though you take brandy as if used to it."

"My hand is steady, stranger." was the reply. "There is not a man on the Rio Grande border, where I came from, that can strike a center at twenty paces with a revolver as often as I. And with a rifle at one hundred yards I can most generally drop a deer with a ball between his eyes, if he is looking at me, or take a wild turkey's head without hurting his body."

"Then, you are from Texas?"

"Yes, sir. And you?"

"From the East, sir. I have traveled in the South--all over, in fact--but my home is in the old Empire State.

"If it isn't impudent, which way are you bound now?"