“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.