“Linchpin lost!—wheel off!—broke down!”

In a dark little valley, lying nearly midway between Fort Sully and Deadwood, and not far from the Cheyenne River, a gin trader, or smuggler, had met with an accident. He inaugurated a hunt for a piece of timber, which he hoped to transform into a drag to serve in lieu of the wheel.

Armed with an axe, Timon was not long in finding the desired stick, and when with the aid of straps and chains he had secured it to his satisfaction, the last streak of day left the valley, and the pale light of the stars took its place.

Then, with a self congratulatory pull at the demijohn, Timon hitched up the mules again, tossed the useless wood into the wagon, and sprung to his accustomed place.

The swearing, the cracks of the villainous whip over the heads of the patient beasts, and their desperate efforts to pull the vehicle, made up a scene never witnessed before by the hills that surrounded the little valley.

“Git ep! you stubborn Injun-coloured brutes!”

But Timon cursed, struck and pleaded in vain. The heavy drag obstructed progress, and though the faithful mules pulled with all their strength, they could not draw the wagon over ten feet at an effort.

“Thirty miles from a bushel of gold, an' bu'sted!” roared the smuggler in despair, springing from the box.

“Bless me, if I don't lighten the load! they do that when a ship's in trouble at sea, an' the ship Timon Moss jest now is in a fearful strait. Saltpeter an' soda! the thing is reasonable. I can fix up a story between hyar an' Deadwood. Fell in with Midnight Jack or the Sioux, either one will do, but the Midnight Jack story will look more likely.”

Ten whisky-kegs, with a single exception full to the bung, formed the principal part of the load; then there were sundry boxes and packages, consigned to the citizens of Deadwood, among them the legs of a billiard-table, and the nucleus of a library which some “eastern chap” was going to start in the mining-town.

“Can't throw any of the licker overboard!” said the smuggler, with settled emphasis. “But thar's them confounded books—thar goes!” and for the next ten minutes the lightening of the cargo went on: But the whisky was not touched, and the only articles that remained in the wagon beside it were consigned to the gamblers and other sporting men of Deadwood.

“Two hundred pounds lighter, my long-eared pards!” ejaculated Timon, over whose florid face the evidence of his exertion was pouring. “Now a last pull at my straw-coloured bird, an' then I'll say ho! for the sun-dance, or ho! for Deadwood. I can't make up my mind.”

Old Tanglefoot's hands flew eagerly to the demijohn encased in a network of split willows, and he was in the act of lifting the often-touched nozzle to his lips, when a human voice made him start.

“I say, stranger, ain't ye losin' a right smart bit o' yer cargo?”

The demijohn almost dropped from Tanglefoot's hands, and he retreated from the boyish countenance which, full of health and good-humour, appeared at the rear end of the wagon.

The next moment, with his hand on the butt of his “navy,” Timon Moss glided across the kegs toward the boy.

“Say, what's yer name?” he asked gruffly.

“I guess it's Gopher Gad, an' I'm not afraid of anybody in the Cheyenne country.”

“Ain't, eh?” hissed Timon, “Wal, the reason is because you've never met old Tanglefoot before. Do ye ever go to Deadwood?”

“Been there once,” answered the boy, who showed signs of retreating from the basilisk-eyes of the whisky-smuggler.

“Then, by the spirit of Bacchus, ye'll never go thar ag'in!”

The revolver full cocked, and tightly griped by hands that had wielded it before, shot from its sheath, and the boy with a cry of fright disappeared in an instant.

“Can't git away that easy,” grated Timon. “Blast my cargo! if you shall go to Deadwood an' spile the Midnight Jack story.”

The whisky-smuggler leaped from the wagon as the last sentence fell from his lips.

His murderous eyes instantly caught sight of his intended prey, and, with a roar not unlike that of a jungle tiger, he darted forward.

But the next moment the western villain executed a sudden halt, for a loud cry came down from the shadows above.

“Cl'ar the track! I'm the Thunderbolt of the Dark-edged Cloud! a reg'lar sky-scraper!”

Such were the words that halted old Tanglefoot, and, revolver in hand, he looked up, as if he expected to see the speaker leap upon him from the hills overhead.

Tall and handsome, affecting the dress of the Sicilian brigands, with a mass of dark hair falling to his shapely shoulders, this pest of the road was the most frequently-mentioned man in Dakota. He was still young, and the plundered agents whose lives he had spared said that he was nothing more than a mere boy. Though never seen in Deadwood in brigand costume, his personal appearance was well known to every one. They knew that there was a grease spot on the left side of his sombrero-like hat—that he wore a cavalry-button on his right shoulder, and that a few links of a gold watch-chain hung from his black courser's bit.

About the time when the ungenerous linchpin cast old Tanglefoot a wreck in the little valley, Midnight Jack rode upon the trail not many miles from the scene we have just left.

He had halted in an open part of the country, and the stars, as they glowed brilliantly in the heavens above, showed him the trail which he had made dangerous for some distance east and west.

With one of the huge revolvers cocked, in his right hand, Midnight Jack then kept his eyes fastened down the road, over which some kind of a vehicle was lumbering.

Louder and shriller resounded the whip, never for one moment at rest, and a puzzled expression of countenance settled on the road-agent's face as he rose in his heavy stirrups, eager to see the approaching team.

All at once a wild cachinnation, followed by a series of fiendish yells, drowned the reports of the whip, and the situation was instantly explained to the road-agent.

“Indians!” ejaculated Midnight Jack.

The wagon—for the noise told the keen senses of the road-agent that but one four-wheeled vehicle was approaching—continued to rattle over the not very smooth road, accompanied by real Indian yells.

A common wagon, to which four strong-limbed mules were harnessed, greeted the brigand's eyes. On each side of the hindmost beasts sat a half-naked Indian, whose hands griped articles entirely strange to them—whip and lines. Nor was this all. At least ten savages were crowded into the bed of the vehicle, dancing like fiends, and filling the air with those wild sounds which had so often assailed the ears of Midnight Jack.

Evidently they had imbibed liquor in no inconsiderable quantities, and they were pushing each other about in their drunken orgies, threatening to overturn the wagon, or frighten the mules, already ungovernable, into a runaway.

The wagon lumbering over the road had now reached a point almost directly abreast of the still unseen road-agent, and, as his hands shot up, a “navy” tightly clutched by each, his well-known “halt!” spoken in deep thunder-tones, fell upon the ears of the carousing Indians.

In an instant of time, as it seemed, the orgies were hushed, and the savage who had the lines, rising in the stirrups, jerked the lead mules upon their haunches, and prepared to leap to the ground.

But the quick eye and trigger of Midnight Jack, saw the action and suddenly checked it.

The stricken brave fell back upon the mule, shot through the eye, while his companion with the whip, kissed the road before the report of the first dead shot had died away. Now ensued a scene of terrible and deadly confusion.

The pistols continued to pour their leaden messengers into the wagon, until the last red reveller pitched over the dash, and quivered in the agonies of death beneath the heels of the mules.

When he had reloaded the formidable weapons he rode up to the wagon, speaking kindly to the team as he passed by, and looked around upon the half-naked savages lying in the road.

“I kind o' piled them in the wagon, I guess,” he murmured, approaching the vehicle, over whose side he leaned.

“By the gold of Ophir, a girl!” he cried, and with the exclamation ringing from his lips, Midnight Jack leaped from the saddle and landed in the wagon.

A moment sufficed to hurl the dead Indians to one side, and when the bandit rose from a stooping position, he held a female figure in his arms, and was looking into the whitest and loveliest face his eyes had ever beheld.

In the excitement of the moment, the bandit did not notice that the girl's ankles were bound together; he was gazing into the white, angelic face.

As he looked, his own face assumed a wild expression; the ruddy colour departing, left it as white as the one he held in his arms.

“Merciful heaven!” he cried, “I cannot be mistaken. If she is really dead, I'll exterminate the whole Sioux nation. I'll make their land a land of blood! Ah! Golden George will never carry out his threat now. Better dead, Dora, than HIS! But why did you come out here? Wake up! open your eyes, and tell me about father. Am I cursed yet? Are you dead in my arms? I'll leave the road now—leave it forever. The red devils shall curse the night they killed Midnight Jack's sister!”

As yet the girl exhibited no signs of life; the beautiful face, cold and marble-like, met his gaze with no return of expression, save that forbidding one of death. If the road-agent had laid his pistol-hand over the heart, he would have detected a faint movement which would cause his own to leap for joy.

But, in his anger and his thoughts of dark revenge, he never thought of this.

After awhile Midnight Jack crawled from the wagon with his beautiful burden, which he deposited gently upon a rich, soft plat of grass, that seemed to invite its sleeper.

Then he drew a piece of “keil” from his pocket, and wrote on one side of the vehicle these words:—

“Killed by Midnight Jack! This is but the beginning. Uncle Sam won't have to feed the Sioux much longer. Blood for blood!”

Midnight Jack was satisfied with this writing, and as he turned again to the little figure reposing on the grass, he said—

“I mean every word—every letter of that inscription!”

When he remounted his charger, which had watched its master with almost human interest, the body of Dora lay in his arms, and Midnight Jack rode from the scene of his exploit.

“Yes, she died before the evil days had time to fasten upon her. But what brought her away out here, anyhow? I'd give my very life to know!”

Talking in this and a like strain, the road-agent did not seem to note the progress of his horse, but he suddenly spoke to the animal, which came to a halt in a beautiful spot not far from the banks of the Cheyenne river.

“This is the place for you, Dora,” said Midnight Jack, addressing the fair girl whom he had carried to this bewitching spot. “I'll visit your grave every day, and death shall be the portion of the fiend who ventures to despoil it. Now for the secret home. I saw it the other day, though it was well hidden. The boy has not come back yet, I think, for I saw him down near Brier Ford at sundown, and he had no horse either. However, he's an innocent-looking cuss, I take it; perfectly harmless!”

A few moments later, Midnight Jack leaped to the ground at the foot of a rugged hill covered with a dense undergrowth, and apparently inaccessible. But his keen eyes descried a path which seemed to lead to the top, and up this he sprung.

A few bounds brought him to a strong door, fixed seemingly in the hill, and adroitly concealed by a variety of wild grape-vines which hung from above.

Midnight Jack entered the hole in the ground and struck a lucifer, which for several moments illumined the place, showing him that it was the dwelling of a human being, for several rude articles of furniture lay around, as well as a lot of new skins, a pickaxe and a spade.

As Midnight Jack, with spade and pick on his shoulder, emerged from the place, he uttered a cry which was an oath.

“Thunder and rifles!” he ejaculated, and as the digging implements glided from his hands, he drew his repeating rifle. “The red devils are going to give me more exercise. Well, they shall find that I am eager to keep up the work I began to-night.”

Another shaft cut short the sentence, and the road-agent saw that it sped upward from the depths of the little valley, and just beyond his horse which, with head erect, had snuffed the prowling foe.

“Not dead yet, you dogs!” he cried, recovering just as his horse sunk to the earth bullet-stricken.

“Lie still, Quito! It's life and death with us now,” he said to the horse as he dropped beside him. “I'm hit and so are you, but the bullet that is to kill Midnight Jack isn't carried by the red-livered dogs over there.”

“They shall not get you, Dora. By the gold of Ophir—”

He suddenly stopped, and a startled look filled his eyes.

“Gone!”

Midnight Jack sprung to his feet, and uttered the word in all the horror and despair imaginable.

“The red devils have stolen my dearest dead! Oh, you dogs! for this there shall be double vengeance taken.”

He was answered from the further side of the valley. A line of fire leaped from the darkness, and bullets fell all around him.

The moon peeping over the edge of a cloud was revealing a score of horses, upon which dark figures were mounted.

Midnight Jack darted forward, and as he halted for a moment, his rifle sent ten messengers of death into the ranks of the savages.

Wild cries of pain and shrieks of death followed the rapid shots. There was retreating in hot haste; but before the redskins could get beyond the stretching moonlight, two rifles on the road-agent's left opened upon them.

With astonishment Midnight Jack turned upon his reinforcements, to hear these words in a loud, rough voice:—

“Don't let up, youngster, but give 'em all the grim death ye've got in the magazine. Whoop-ee! there they go! I'm the Screamin' Eagle of the Smoky Roost—the Thunderbolt of the Dark-edged Cloud—a reg'lar sky-scraper.”

Instead of smiling, Midnight Jack's brow darkened at these words.

“I didn't want any help,” he muttered. “By the gold of Ophir! I didn't need any.”

The road agent found five dead braves on the spot where the Sioux band had fought, but no sign of his sister's pallid face greeted his keen vision.

“You may carry Dora to the North Pole, but even there the hand of Midnight Jack will fall upon you and tear her away!” he cried, looking toward the direction in which the Indians had fled. “I will not rest until I have avenged my sister!”

“Thet's bizness, stranger,” came the unpolished voice from among the little trees that stood thickly on the sides of the hill. “I'm comin' down to take the hand of the feller what loaded a wagon with Injuns down the road. I'm a reg'lar sky-scraper! Hold on thar, stranger!”

A moment later two figures mounted on mules, whose bodies bore the marks of heavy harness, came in sight, and the road-agent soon caught their eye.

“Hyar we ar'!” cried a lank and uncouth, but strong specimen of humanity, springing from the animal's back, and alighting so near Midnight Jack that that worthy had to start back to avoid a collision. “I hevn't got a card, but my name is Rube Rattler, or the Screamin' Eagle of the Smoky Roost. Whoop-ee! strangers, we've checked five of 'em straight through to-night. This boy is—bless my boots! if I don't forgit what he calls himself. I picked 'im up back thar a piece. Old Tanglefoot war goin' to let moonlight into 'im, when I said, 'I guess not,' an' he didn't. He's a chicken, sir, an' I'm his friend from this night. The man what teches him teches the Thunderbolt of the Dark-edged Cloud. Say, did the Injuns take anything?”

“Take anything?” and Midnight Jack echoed the uncouth individual's words in tones so vengeful that Gopher Gid, who still sat astride one of old Tanglefoot's mules, started. “They took what Midnight Jack never took from any man—a sister.”

“I've heerd of you,” Rattler said. “You never took a thing from me, Midnight Jack, and I'm always ready to help the man what's lost any of his own. Put it thar! an' let us be friends.”

The stony expression on Midnight Jack's face relaxed, and the boy opened his eyes in wonder when he saw the two men shaking hands.

“We had a queer tussle to-night,” the Sky-scraper said, glancing at Gopher Gid. “That old rot-gut peddler lost a linchpin. He tried to cuss it back, but it war the most wasted cussin' you ever heerd of. Then, as I said, he got at the boy thar who came up to help 'im; but jist about that time the Thunderbolt of the Dark-edged Cloud dropped close by 'im. We emptied his cargo—knocked in the heads of his kegs—and left 'im with two of his mules. He war usin' the strongest kind o' language. It was amusin' to hear 'im. Did you ever meet Tanglefoot?”

“He knows me, at any rate,” was Jack's response.

“I'll go with you to the ends of the world after the gal,” said the borderman. “I've nothin' to keep me hyar; no family. The boy—why he can stop hyar till we come back. Gopher, jump off the critter, and let Midnight Jack take the saddle.”

“Not till I look to my own horse,” interposed the road-scourge, before Gopher could spring from the beast. “He went down at the first fire, and I told him to lie still;” and he went to the spot where his black horse still lay, but a glance at the rigid form and the glazed eye told him that he would never ride the faithful animal again.

With clenched lips, and eyes flashing anew, the bandit came back to the two spectators.

“I'll take the mule, boy,” he said, gently, and Gopher Gid slid to the ground. “With a fresh trail ahead, we will overtake the reddies before they reach the big village. I have my doubts whether Tanglefoot was going to Deadwood. The great sun-dance of the Sioux is near at hand; I guess he never misses such an affair as that.”

The night was well advanced when Midnight Jack and his companion bade the unsatisfied boy farewell, and he stood in the darkness like a youth in a dream, listening to the canter of their mules.

Before departure, Midnight Jack had superintended the burial of his horse and the slain savages, so that their bodies would not taint the atmosphere so near the boy's hillside home.

“I'd like to see your sister, Midnight Jack, if she's alive,” he mused, pausing in the low doorway before he shut the portal. “I haven't seen a white girl's face for a year, and I'll never see yours, Dora, I'm thinking. Dora—what's your name?—I'd like to see you. Midnight Jack's sister—that sounds funny.”

The boy could not repress the low laugh that bubbled to his lips, and while it still sounded he shut the door.

“You will not find me here, Rube, when you come back,” he said, speaking out his thoughts, as he discussed a frugal meal alone. “I'm goin' to hunt new trapping-grounds, so far away from here that I'll never think of Midnight Jack and his sister.”

He finished the meal, and carried the light to his traps. Setting it on the ground he began to untangle the chains, but his fingers moved slower and slower, until at last his body fell gently to one side, and Gopher Gid, the little trapper, was asleep.

But it was the slumber of the cat, for all at once his eyes opened, and as they darted to the door his fingers clutched the butt of a pistol with firm determination.

Gopher Gid sprung erect, and fastened his eyes on the portal.

The candle was burning low at his feet, and the room was growing darker each succeeding moment, but the awakening noise at the door still continued.

Then came in sight the semblance of a human head, and the next moment Gopher Gid saw the hideous face of Timon Moss, whose two little eyes danced like dervishes in their cells.

He raised the revolver, and fired at the living target. At the same moment the candle went out, and left him in almost palpable gloom.

With the flash of Gopher Gid's revolver, old Tanglefoot's head disappeared as if a battering-ram had been applied to the cranium.

For a long time the little hermit stood in the gloom at the side of the door, waiting for a reappearance of his foe.

After waiting for two hours, with his heart beating audibly in his bosom, the boy began to think that his shot had disposed of his foe.

“He'll know better than to poke his head into a lighted room whose door is chained,” he said, a victorious twinkle in his eyes. “If I didn't send the bullet into his head, I at least left my mark somewhere on his face. Why I never dreamed that he would follow my trail so soon. Midnight Jack is right—Timon Moss is a veritable demon.”

If Gopher Gid had known that his words were falling upon the ears of the man he had mentioned, he would not have made preparations to inquire into the result of his nocturnal shot as soon as day broke.

Squatted like a toad, and with his repulsive face rendered doubly hideous by a long red streak across one cheek which bled profusely, Timon Moss sat behind some bushes which grew near the door of the cave home.

In one hand he held the ungainly but dread revolver which we have already seen in his gripe. He peered through the bushes at the door, waiting patiently for his prey.

At last the door slowly opened, and the whisky-smuggler saw the anxious face of his boy enemy.

“I didn't kill him, that's certain,” muttered the boy trapper. “Leastwise he isn't here to tell me this. Alas! Tanglefoot, that ball passed too near your face. It was a gentle reminder for you to keep your distance, and to knock when you come visiting.”

Suddenly the tiger in wait crouched nearer to the earth, and then, with a roar not unlike that of the jungle-king, he sprung at his prey.

The twain went over together, the weight of the smuggler bearing his young victim to the ground.

They reeled down the hill together, over and over like amateur wrestlers, but the strength of Tanglefoot was bound to win.

The boy tried in vain to slip from the smuggler's embrace, but it was like the hug of the she bear, and the fumes of bad liquor almost overpowered him. As Gid went back the revolver was torn from his hand, nor could it be regained. Tanglefoot used no weapon, and when they reached the foot of the hill, Gid found himself lifted in mid-air, and held out at arm's length by the panting ogre.

For several moments Tanglefoot said nothing, but continued to gaze at his prize.

“Caught!” he cried. “Nobody whoever done Timon Moss a wrong ever got away in the end. It war fun to bust the whisky-kegs, but the laugh will be on the other side of the face afore the game is played cl'ar out. Say, whar's that j'inted individual who did most of the breaking, my delicate child?”

“I do not know where he is.”

“Gone off, eh?”

“Yes.”

“Alone? I heerd a great deal o' shootin' while I war coming hyar. Who did it.”

“Midnight Jack.”

Gopher Gid peered eagerly into Tanglefoot's face to note the effect of his reply.

The whisky-smuggler started a little—that was all.

“Whar is he now?”

“I don't know.”

Gopher Gid's answer seemed to nonplus the avenger of the spilled spirits; he was at his finger's-end for another question.

All at once he broke forth with one that shot a malicious twinkle into his little eyes.

“Say, Gopher, did you ever see a sun-dance?”

The boy stared a moment, then said, “No.”

“Heerd of them, eh?”

“I have.”

“They're goin' to hev a big one up at Red Cloud's town,” said old Tanglefoot. “Sixty hosses for the Injun what kin hang the longest. The red boys ar' comin' from the lodges of the Teton Sioux, an' thar'll be more Injuns thar then you kin count. Well, I'm goin' to the Injun show, an' I ain't goin' alone, either.”

Timon Moss now proceeded to secure his captive, which no longer fought the tide which had set in against him.

“You will do me one favour?” said the boy.

“In course I will,” was the answer. “What is it?”

“Shut my door, and fix it as I tell you.”

“What! you don't expect to come back, I hope?” was the quick retort. “But I'll fix the shanty, fur thar may be some things thar that I'll want when I come back.”

He then shut the door of the cave home, and left Gopher Gid there while he went round the hill, from whose further side he soon reappeared, leading two mules, the late lead ones of his team.

Gopher Gid once glanced over his shoulder at the hill-home which he was leaving forcibly after a long sojourn there, and could hardly realise his situation till he turned to look into the ogreish face of Timon Moss.

“Look well at your hole in the ground, my peewee, fur ye're never comin' back to its traps and skins.”

Gid's eyes flashed fire.

Never? He would see about that.