Miss Dividends: A NovelGunter, Archibald Clavering
General
Miss Dividends: A Novel
Gunter, Archibald Clavering
Latter Day Saints -- Fiction
"I know where he is, and I'll find him," answers Erma, and runs hastily
down the sidewalk to where she has last seen the errant youth. As she
approaches, however, she pauses a moment, for the thought suddenly
strikes her, "If Captain Lawrence is there, perhaps he'll think I want
to speak to him."
But remembering that haste is vital, she hastily opens the saloon door,
and stands appalled; for a sight meets her such as seldom comes to a New
York young lady. The signs of combat are about her--a table has been
thrown over, a broken spittoon and scattered cards are lying on the
floor--and Ferdie, his light suit in the sawdust of the barroom, is held
down upon his back, while over him, one knee upon his chest, is a man
with black sombrero and buckskin leggings and red shirt, and awful hand
with uplifted bowie, ready to strike the young heart that is panting
beneath his grasp, did not Harry Lawrence grasp it with his left, and
with his right hand press the cold muzzle of a Colt's revolver against
the desperado's forehead.
Then Lawrence's voice speaks clear as a bell: "Drop that knife! You know
me, Texas Jack. I hung up your pard in Laramie. Drop that knife or I
fire."
At his word the bowie-knife comes to the floor. Then Harry says coolly:
"Throw up your hands and walk out in front of me," and keeping the man
before his pistol, marches him out of the saloon. On the sidewalk he
remarks:
"Don't look back until you have gone a hundred yards, or you are a dead
man. _March!_" And Texas Jack, his spurs clinking in the dust, and a
deck of monte cards slipping from his clothes as he walks, proceeds on
his way, and does not turn back till he has got out of sight.
Then the bell of the locomotive is suddenly heard. Lawrence cries:
"Hurry. You'll miss the cars!" and waves Erma, who is too much agitated,
and Ferdie, who is too much out of breath, to speak, to follow him. And
they all run to the station of the Utah Central, where Miss Travenion
gives a gasp, for the train has already run out, and they can see it
making its way to the bridge across the Weber bound for the city of the
Saints.
"Anyway, God bless you!" cries Ferdie, who has gained his wind. "You
saved my life."
"Yes," says Harry shortly, "this time; but perhaps the next there will
be no one there to help you. And take my advice, young man: don't go
hunting adventures out here, not even if they tell you there is a
grizzly bear chained in the back-yard."
"Why!" says Mr. Chauncey with a little gasp, "that is just what he did
tell me."
"Ah, I guessed right," says Lawrence with a slight sneer, for Mr.
Ferdinand had been made a victim of the notorious bear game, as were
many others about that time in Ogden. Then he goes on: "Don't play three
card monte, and if they rob you, don't knock the villain down, for he is
sure to be armed, and your life is pleasant to you still, I guess, young
man."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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