Boy's Cinema (1935-39)

Every Tuesday Bound to Uie stake, Wild Bill Ilickolt diew in a long breath. ile luui gnnil)lcd on the superstitious credulity of the savaKes, and it looked as if the ganibio had proved successful. Nor did he have occasion to doubt the s\iccess of that gamble when the ecliptic phenomenon at lenf,'th came to an eiul. For as the .shadow of the moon Ijassed clear of the sun's orbit and allowed the lipht of day to shine forth aghin the Redskins who had dropped to their knees rose up and turned Bpprehensive glances on the marshal. " H.'^ Thunder spoke true words,'" faltered the Indian who had quenched tiie blazing faggots and the torch that tlio Vulture had thrust into them. " I, Woon Dog, say that Big Thunder must riot perish by any hand of ours." There was a tremulous mia-mur of kssvnt from those otlicr Redskins who Had knelt reverently during the period of the eclipse. But the Vulture did not add his voice to that murmur. Alone amcn^ the renegades he was still in jMuiderous mood, and plucking a knife from a belt around his waist, was hing- ing towards the marshal when the Indian known as Moon Dog sprang to intercept him. Seizing the Vulture by the wrist. Moon Dog dragged him back from the captive. "No," he cried vehemently. "No, Vulttne! Big Thunder gave sign. No can kill !" "Maybe you no can kill!" the Vul- ture snarlsd. "But I am not afraid." "ISIoon Dog say no kill!" the other insisted. "You bring great trouble on us! Moon Dog say no kill!" The Vulture was the leader of that bond of renegades, yet it was plain that Moon Dog was a personage of influence amongst them. Moreover, it was obvious that Moon Dog had the sup- port of the rest of the Indians present, and, divining that these might even turn on him if he persisted in his desire to slay Bill Hickok, ihe Vulture sullenly discarded his knife. "What of our bargain with the white man who bribed us to kill Big Thunder?" he muttered, when he had let the dagger fall to the ground. "What of the rest "of the gold he was ♦o pay us? We were to buy much fire- water with it—and good guns." "We take Big Thunder alive to that white man at Wolfville," INIoon Dog re- toitod. "We get gold just the same. But we no kill. We leave that to white man. Then Great Spirit make no bad medicine for us." The arrangement met with general approval, and within a few minutes Bill Hickok had been untied from the stake and marched to the edge of the encamp- ment, on the fringe of which his own bronc Pinto aiid the mustangs of the Indians \ve)e picketed. There, covered by his captors, the marshal was com- pelled to climb astride his pony with his arms pinioned by a lariat which had been slung over him and which the Vulture was holding. Then, the leader of the renegades mounting a sorrel horse and Moon Dog and two power- fiilly built braves scrambling on to the hacks of three other .steeds, a start w'as made for the town of Wolfville, which lay half a day's journey to the north- east and which po.ssessed an unsavoury leputation, as Bill well knew. The remainder of the Indians watched prisoner and escort until they had passed out of sight of the encamp- ment, and for the marshal and the four Redskins who were in charge of him there ensued a brisk journey through the hills which environed that encamp- ment. Bill was forced to keep ahead of his captors. Riding abreast of one another, BOY'S CINEMA these followed at a distance of a (lo7en yards, (he Vulture linki;d to Bill by the rope which encircled the oflicer of the law and which the Redskin had twined lound his own right wrist. In this formation the quartet pre- sently debouched on to an expanse of prairie boundeil on the north-oast by a stretch of terrain (Jutfcreil uith mas- sive rocks, and, the Viiltuic calling out ter.se directions to him from time to time, Hill at length fo\ind himself in close proximity to that boulder strewn tract. JIo had been speculating on the identity of the white man whom the Indians intended to seek out in Wolf- ville, but he had no desire to make that individual's acquaintance yet awhile— and certainly not as a prisoner. And ho had scarcely reached the ibcks to which he had been directed when he unexpectedly jabbed his heels into Pinio's flanks. The bronc was prompt to respond. It shot forward from trot to gallop with an impetus that n)ight have been likened to the velocity of a stone dis- charged from a catapult. Simul- taneously Bill braced himself to counteract the tug of the rope that connected him to the Vulture, and, taken completely unawares, that dusky ruffian was whipped clear over his mustang's neck as the lasso was wrenched taut. The renegade crashed to earth, and was dragged forward as Pinto careered into the midst of the huge boulders that littered the ground ahead. Twenty paces the Vulture vvas hauled, then his skull came into sickening collision with a snag of rock, and cracked as if it had been an egg-shell, his brains splattering the dust. By then Pinto and Bill Hickok had disappeared among the boulders—before Moon Dog and the other two Red- skins could fire so much as a single shot—and a split-second after the leader of the renegades had met his death against that snag of rock the marshal contrived to tear the lariat's noose fiom around his arms and extricate himself from the imprisoning loop. He spuired onward. Behind him there arose a fierce outcry and a sucj^len. swift tattoo of hoofs—sounds that told him the Vulture's cronies were surging forward to give chase—and, though he had no dovibts conceining Pinto's ability to outstrip the Indians' mounts, he had no intention of matching the paint stallion's speed against that of his enemies' mustangs. He wanted his guns, and they were in the possession of one of the two braves who were with Moon Dog. He had gone no more than a hundred yards through the rocks when he jumped from the saddle, and, shouting fc) Pinto to keep going, he scrambled up the craggy side of a high bouldei'— had barely gained the peak of it when Moon Dog and his comrades swept into his view. They were riding side by side, follow- ing the dust-clouds raised by the flying feet of Pinto, who had vanished among the rocks farther on, and no sooner were the three Indians below him than Wild Bill hurled himself upon them. He landed atop of them, enveloping the trio in his powerful arms. Next instant white man and Redskins were thumping to the ground with an impact for which the marshal was prepared, but for which his foes were not. Bill was the first to rise. Moon Dog was the next to reach his feet, but almost immediately renewed his ac- quaintance with the dirt, for he en- countered an Anglo-Saxon upper-cut that laid him as flat as a tepee rug and 23 hufTetcd the wits clean out of dig feather-decked head. The other two renegades struggled up, only to feci the weight of jjiir» bunched knuckles as well. They had no chance (o use musket, six-gun, or kmfo —were slaimncd sen.seless ere they could make any dangerous move—and iiist thirty .seconds later Bill Ilickuk nad retrieved his prized forty-fives and was uttering a shrill whistle that was cal- culated to bring Pinto back to him. Sure enough the brotic soon returned to him, and, swinging himself into the saddle again, he abandoned the un- conscious renegades and made tracks for the west. Half an hour afterwards he picked up the Chisholm trail and turned south- ward along it in the expectation of meeting up with the Cameron column; and it was about four o'clock of that same afternoon that he finally came upon the Texans at the point near which the rancher who had headed the expedition had died so tragically. The fight which had broken out between Scuddci', Keno, Jim Blakely and Kit La\yson had been stopped, the other men in the outfit having inter- vened. Yet it was plain to Bill when he arrived on the scene and dismounted that all was not well, and espying Ruth Cameron among the assenjblage gathered there, he singled her out and addressed her inciuiringly. "Howdy, Miss Cameron?" he greeted. "Are you folks camping here for a spell ?"' Scudder was near by, somewhat bruised of countenance but belligerent of niamier, and he stepped close to Bill before Ruth could reply. "No, we're not campin' here, Mr. Hickok," he said thickly. "We're headin' back to Texas where wc belong." Bill surveyed him coolly. "I sort of htard rum.ours that a fellow by the name of Scudder was trying to spread discontent through the outfit," he observed. "It appears a liunter who spent a night in camp with this ex- pedition showed up in Abilene a week or so back with word to that effect. That's why I'm here." He turned to Ruth again. "Is your father around, Miss Cameron?" he asked. The girl's eyes filled with tears, and approaching Bill, Jim Blakeley related the news of Cameron's death, whereupon the marshal was silent for a spell. Then, after expressing his condolence to Ruth, he once more addressed himself to Scudder. "Listen," he said, "you may be from the Lone Star State, but you answer to the name and description of a hombre who used to hang out in Abilene and who wasn't too highly thought of by the folks around there. Anyhow, I'm giving it as my opinion that whatever you m.iy be aimmg to do, the rest of these people won't be of the same mind as yourself after I've had a talk with them." "No?" Scudder sneered. "Talk's cheap, Hickok." Bill took his hand across the ruffian's face in a sharp, stinging blow, and at that Keno made as if to pounce on the marshal from the rear, only to bo held in check as Kit Lawson pulled a six- shooter and covered him. As for Scudder, he had recoiled with hand up- lifted to his cheek, but in another moment he ripped out an oath and reached for a revolver he was wearing on his hip. Bill could easily have beaten him to the draw and plugged him. He re- frained from doing so, however, and instead gripped the rogue by the front of his shirt with one hand and let loose a smashing punch with the other. August 5th, 1939.