Deadwood Dicks Doom

Deadwood Dick's Doom or, Calamity Jane's Last Adventure
a Tale of Death Notch
by Edward L. Wheeler
Deadwood Dick Library, Vol. 3, No. 39
New York: Beadle and Adams
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Table of Contents

CHAPTER I.
TOO LATE FOR THE STAGE.

CHAPTER II.
A COMPACT WITH THE DEVIL'S OWN.

CHAPTER III.
THE STRANGERS SING.

CHAPTER IV.

DEADWOOD DICK'S DOOM.

CHAPTER V.
$500 REWARD; AND "CALAMITY" ON DECK.

CHAPTER VI.
A VERY SINGULAR PERFORMANCE.

CHAPTER VII.
A VILLAIN UNMASKED.

CHAPTER VIII.
WHO KILLED PIUTE DAVE?

CHAPTER IX.
THE UNKNOWN WINS-AND LOSES.

CHAPTER X.
A THWARTED DESIGN.

CHAPTER XI.
THE POET PLOTS.

CHAPTER XII.
OLD SCAVENGER'S SCALP.

CHAPTER XIII.
TWO SENSATIONS.

CHAPTER XIV.
DEATH NOTCH NO MORE: A CLOSING ACT.
* * *

CHAPTER I.
TOO LATE FOR THE STAGE. DEATH NOTCH!
Did you ever hear of a more uninviting name for a place dear reader? If
so, you could not well find a harder role, where dwelt humanity than
Death Notch, along the whole golden slope of the West.
It was said that nobody but rascals and rough could exist in that lone
mining-camp, which was confirmed by the fact that it was seldom the

weekly stage brought any one there who had come to settle. Even the
Government officials, cognizant of the lawlessness within the border of
death Notch, hesitated to interfere, because of the desperate character
of the residents-hardest of the hard.
The town lay in a sort of mountain surrounded basin, on the route from
Pioche, Nevada, to Helena, Montana, and had formerly been an Indian
camp, until a "well-heeled" but notorious young gamble named Piute
Dave had come along and driven the reds away, as he was able t do,
having backing of some forty ruffians of his own stamp.
There being but a comparative handful of the reds, they had been
scattered, when Piute Dave and his gang went to prospecting, and in a
short time discovered paying dirt.
Since that the population had gradually increased to a hundred and fifty
people, nearly all of the ruffian type, and all under the order of the man,
Piute Dave, who ruled as king over the others.
In the days when the Indians had held possession, the town had been
called Sequoy; afterward it had been named Golden Eagle, until a few
months past, when, by vote, it had been re-christened Death Notch. Of
course there was a reason for this -- a reason both peculiar and striking.
When the Indians had been driven forth, their chief Red Hatchet, had
declared vengeance upon the pale-face two intruders, and cursed the
town, vowing to kill off every pale-face who should enter it, and to
mark each death by a notch upon the council-pole. This pole was tall
young pine that grow just as the edge of the town, and around which it
had been the custom of the tribe to hold council. Nor had the chief lied.
For several years he and the member of his tribe had waged upon the
usurpers, and a score or more had bit the dust, and a notch upon the
council-tree had recorded each stroke of vengeance.
But, as Piute Dave constantly added new roughs to his gang, the
Indians also gradually diminished, until no more death notches had
appeared upon the tree.

This state of affairs had continued until about three weeks before our
story opens, when a placard had been found tacked to the council-tree
bearing the following message:
"Beware! Red Hatchet is not yet gone the way of his forefather, but
lives to wreak vengeance upon the town of Death Notch. In the interval
of silence he has only been recruiting his fury.
"Red Hatchet"
With the name, "Death Notch," Piute Dave seemed strangely impressed,
and at once ordered that the town of Golden Eagle be henceforth
known as Death Notch.
Death Notch gloried in one important fact- it was the midway stage
station between Helena and Pioche, and the terminus of two stage lines.
All traffic from Pioche to Helena or vise versa had to be transferred at
Death Notch from one stage or freight line to another.
As a result, the arrivals and departure of stages being very irregular, it
was a thing for passengers or freight to be laid off at Death Notch for a
number of days.
It was a delay that very few relished, who knew the bad repute of the
place, but there was no help for it, except for passengers to go on afoot
through a bowling wilderness.
The Wednesday's stage of the second week of September whirled down
into Death Notch about noon, from the mount in trail, and drew up
before the "Poker House," with a noisy rumble-for the Poker