Deadwood Dicks Doom | Page 9

upon the girl upon the bar-a gaze intense in its evil significance.
Virgie felt it, by some instinct, and turned to glance at the man-met the gaze and then shudderingly averted her eyes.
Though terrible to her were the glances of the others, the eyes of this man sent a thrill of horror through her being. She felt that in him she had a designing villain to cope with-and she was not wrong.
Piute Dave was a villain-a fierce, self-willed ruffian, who hesitated at no dark and terrible deed that would further his purpose. More than one of those who had come to Death Notch to avoid Judge Lynch's noose, had fallen by his hand, for a trivial offense, and there was not a man in the town who did not stand in fear of him, even including the poetical Shakespeare.
After his singing nearly a dozen different comic songs, the audience seemed to grow tired of Nicodemus and a call was made for the girl to sing!
"Yes, gal, let's heer frum you," the bullwhacker ordered, rubbing his bands together, greedily. "You're ther very nightingale w'at our ears acheth to hear. Give us a sorter o' Methodist tune-suthin' what'll make us feel solemncolly like. As my late lamented namesake, Shakespeare, has been known on several occasions to remark:
'Ketch a bird on ther wing,
And force it ter sing,
An' all in god time,
You'll hev music sublime.'"
Virgie saw that there was nothing left for her to do but to comply with the demand of her rough audience, as she was alone, with the exception of Nick, among strangers, and without defense.
She had already made up her mind to get through the concert as best she could, and afterward attempt to escape from the town.
Therefore, tuning her guitar, which was a fine-toned instrument, she selected a ballad from her repertory entitled- "My Dear Old Mother Face," and sung it through in a sweet, pathetic voice.
Every man in the room stood in utter silence as though spellbound, until she had finished, when there was a tremendous outburst of applause. Rude and uncouth though the auditors, they could but appreciate the beautiful song, heartily.
"Hip! hip! hooray! three cheers for ther bar schangled spanner! bow! wow! wow!" at this juncture bellowed Bulldog Ben, elbowing forward from the vicinity of a temporary bar, where he had been imbibing numerous "bootlegs." "Thet war splendiferous, old gal thet war a reg'lar old hymn right frum Halifax, harketh I, Bulldog Benjamin, ther majestic mastiff o' Death Notch. Sweeter by far than ary essence o' eslysium war thet old song about my old mother. I can now see her s'archin' fer her inebriate son, along ther shady banks Other Mississippi, you bet, an' ef evyer I did a noble act in my life I'm goin' ter kiss yer fer remindin' ther Bulldog of his old main Bulldog -- bow! wow! wow! barketh I!"
And the ruffian bounded nimbly upon the bar.
Virgie sprung to her feet with a cry of horror, but before the wretch could lay a hand upon her there was the sharp crack of a revolver, and he fell, bleeding, at her feet.

CHAPTER IV.
DEADWOOD DICK'S DOOM.
IT had taken less time to end the life of the ruffian than it has to relate the occurrence, for the bullet entering his heart, he had expired almost as soon as he dropped.
For a moment afterward you could have heard a pin drop in the great bar-room of the Poker House, so great was the intensity of the silence caused by the shooting.
Then came words to the hearing of all-words in a strange, shrill voice, whose significance was plain to all within the room, except Virgie and Nick:
"Oho! Death Notch 47, and still the spirit of Red Hatchet calls for vengeance. Piute Dave shall count seventy, and Deadwood Dick five more. Ha! ha!"
Then there was a strange wild peal of laughter without the tavern, that chilled the blood of every one who heard it, so fearfully suggestive of a demon's triumph it was.
Not a man within the tavern made a move to discover the author of the laugh-infernal and of Bulldog Ben's death.
Even Piute Dave's swarthy visage assumed a grayish pallor as he heard the words of the avenger, and he moved not from his tracks.
Shakespeare, the poetical bullwhacker, was the coolest man in the house, and that among men who were habitually hard-hearted and possessed of a sort of brute courage on such occasions.
"Pop goes ther weasel, an' thar'll be another notch on the council-pole!" he observed, dragging the body of Bulldog Ben upon his shoulder dumping it in an obscure corner of the room.
"Bulldog's gone on his last long canine circuit, an' I allow I'll hev ter compose a doggeral on his keflumex, or an epidemic for his tombstone. How'd this be, fer instance:
Poor Bulldog Ben, he