Frontier Boys in Frisco

by Wyn Roosevelt

Jim knew that the time allowed him was apt to be very short before he would be compelled to make his début in his new character, as the man with the iron jaw, mailed fist and steel legs, so he gripped his heavy sword, which none but he could wield (see Walter Scott, who preceded the present writer by some years). I hope you will forgive this jesting, but Jim was a great hand to make fun in the very presence of danger, a trait peculiar to the American character, and so I may be pardoned for following in his footsteps, for I, too, am an American.

Jim advanced toward the door, and he was thoroughly pleased and encouraged to discover that he could move with comparative ease though not noiselessly of course. But what did a little noise inside the room amount to, when there came the roar of the pursuers outside, for they had returned upon Jim's trail, guided by the hound.

The crisis had now come. The huge beast knew that his prey was inside, and he rushed against the door with all of his maddened bulk, and his great bark boomed through the castle, and filled with fury the Mexican bandits who raged on the outside; then came the voice of their leader.

"Back, you fools," he cried; "away from that door."

They were quick to obey, and at that instant there came the sharp report of a pistol; the bullet splintered through the thick casement but it glanced from Jim's steel breastplate, but this attack aroused him to action. With a thrill and tremor of the nerves which he could not repress, he drew back the bolts and with a cry, the impulse of his humorous excitement, "Desdichado to the Rescue!" he flung the door wide open, and stepped with clanging stride through the smoke into the dimly lit hall.

To have seen that great steel-clad figure moving with sudden life would have struck terror to even the stoutest hearts, and shaken the steadiest nerves. But these superstitious Mexicans were driven almost out of their excitable minds by the sudden horror of this seeming apparition. Of one accord they fled, gibbering, towards the stairs, one falling in a faint from fright before he reached them. Even the dwarf who was not afraid of the Powers of Darkness themselves, retreated slowly, sullenly and suspiciously down the hall.

But there was one of all that gang who did not flee, and that was the valiant hound. He sprang full for Jim as the latter stepped from the room into the hall. Jim was not altogether unprepared for this, for he had reckoned that the hound would be the one to make him trouble. If it had not been for the protection of the armor which he wore it would have gone hard with the youth.

But his own strength with the added weight of his suit of mail enabled him to meet the fierce rush of the beast without losing his footing. It also saved his arm and shoulder from being torn by the grip of the animal's jaws. It only dented him as the expression goes. Then with a short arm thrust of his sword he put the hound out of business. Determined to follow up his advantage and make the rout thorough, he advanced to the head of the staircase.

The dwarf had just reached the foot of the stairs, and looking up he saw the giant figure in armor and with a snarl he took quick aim and fired, the bullet glancing from the helm of Jim's armor and making a long furrow in the plaster of the ceiling.

Jim had no idea of quietly standing there as a tin target for his enemy to fire at. There was, he noted, a small marble bust on a pedestal near the top of the staircase. This he seized in his iron grasp and hurled it at the elfish figure in the hall below. Now James was "quite some" thrower as they say in the state of Jersey. The dwarf was marvelously quick, too, but the white flash of stone came near getting him and as he dodged he slipped and fell and the bust busted in all directions, one fragment cutting his cheek, with its sharp impact.