Deadwood Dicks Doom | Page 5

I had, I should use my own judgment about imparting the information to you," Carrol growled, arising to a standing position. "I want to know what business you had to strike me?"
"The business of being a consolidated protective association for the protection of widders and orphans an' weak humans generally. I found you an unscrupulous knave, attempting to kiss this girl against, her will, and I very naturally lost control of my pugilistic members to that extent that you immediately let her alone and set down."
"You shall answer for the insult, sir. I am going to Death Notch. If you take pains to come there also, I'll punish you severely."
"Karect!" Deadwood Dick assented, with a taunting bow. "You may look for me to-night Senator. Be kind enough to pedestrianize hence most precipitately, now, will you, as your prescence is doubtless very disagreeable to this young lady."
"Yes, I'll go, but remember, you shall yet repent your insult to me!" Carner replied fiercely.
"For fear I may forget the admonition, perhaps I'd best write it down in my diary, " was the sport's parting shot, as the stranger turned and stalked down the gulch.
When he had gone from view, Dick turned to the Indian girl, who stood a few paces away, regarding him with surprise in her big black eyes.
"There, miss, I've banished the snake, and you need have no fear of his harming you," he said gallantly. "Luck always lets me happen along to lay out such reptiles as he."
"Pale-face brave very good, and Siska is grateful to him for driving off the bad pale-face," the girl replied, her eyes lighting up, wonderfully. "Red Hatchet be very glad, when Siska tells him."
"Ah! so you are the daughter of the stern-handed chief, Red Hatchet, are you?"
"I am. What does Deadwood Dick know of Red Hatchet?"
"Oh! So you infer that I am Deadwood Dick, eh? You are sharp! I heard the history of Red Hatchet and Death Notch, before I came this way. I allow Death Notch is a pretty tough town."
"Its lodges are filled with bad men, and Red Hatchet has placed a curse upon their heads, and all who enter the town to stay. Surely you are not going there?"
"Well, I reckon so. Thought I'd drop down that way, see if any one was in trouble, and if so, help 'em out."
"Then, let Siska give you a token, to always shield you from the vengeance of Red Hatchet or his agents," and she took a large tin star from her pocket, with a ribbon attached to it, and pin it to Dick's vest; then, turning, she waved her hand at him, and darted into the forest with the speed of a young antelope.
Far up the mountain-side, not noticeable from Death Notch, yet from where the town was plainly visible, nestling in the basin, was a great projecting crag, the top of which was a plateau as level as a floor. From the outer edge of the crag to the yawning abyss among the mountains was a sheer descent of mayhap five hundred feet.
Death Notch was not at the foot of the mountain from which the crag projected, a low range of hills intervening but was plainly visible from the plateau with the naked eye, being over a mile distant on a bee-line.
Seated upon a camp-stool on this plateau, on the afternoon of the day which opens our story, engaged in a survey of the town through a powerful field-glass, was an old Indian of bent form and wrinkled features -- the wreck of a once great warrior, now almost in his second childhood from old age.
This was the father of the girl Siska -- Red Hatchet. For hours be had sat there and studied the town through his glass, the varying expressions of his countenance, and the glitter of his dark, baleful eyes that a revengeful spirit yet rankled in his breast.
"The stage brings two new-comer," he muttered, in good English, proving that he was not untutored, like many of his race. "One is a young pale-face squaw-the other a son of the South. I wonder what brings them? It cannot be that they know of the curse that rests upon the place and all who enter it."
Then for a long time the outcast chief was silent, but watchful, until a man sauntered along down the street whom he recognized through the glass, though to the naked eye the man looked, but a pigmy from the Cliff.
"That is Piute Dave-devil pale-face!" the chief gritted, fiercely. "Red Hatchet hates him more than all the rest, and yet he lives and enjoys Red Hatchet's possessions, heedless of warnings of death and destruction. He knows Red Hatchet is too old and feeble to take the warpath -- therefore -- he defies me. But he shall