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$4 DIAMOND DICK. JR.-THE BOYS’ BEST WEEKLY.
“Ah, and you think it strange that she
should not have found it easier to shield the
child against her unscrupulous enemy in the
populous, well-policed East than out here
in the wild and woolly West? Well, in the
first place, she is a hopeless invalid; in the
next place. she could have had no idea of
George Carbury having at odd times aliiliated
with the mountain outlaws of this very sec-
tion, and, thirdly, she has an unbounded and
perhaps highly exaggerated faith in me.
There you are, sir.”
“You have contracted for my services in
the complication, ma‘am,” observed Dia-
mond Dick, rising from his seat with a satis-
hed nod. “Let me ask if you are content
with them as thus far demonstrated?"
"What a question! Of course I am, Dia-
mond Dick, and a thousandfold more than I
can express.” ,
“Thank you, ma’am. I then furthermore
engage to either completely extirpate these
Killers of Kootenai, root and branch, or to
drivethem, broken and scattered, out of this
Territory, so that they will never venture to
return.”
He looked at her fully and steadily as he
spoke.
“This, as I understand it, is what you
wish?"
“Yes," without betraying a flutter under
his searching, soul-reading gaze. “Oh, yes,
to be sure! Of course there can be no peace
nor stability until they are-disposed of."
“Very good, ma'am. Then I shall take full
and complete command and responsibility
in the work before me. You will please bear
this in mind?"
She colored, biting her lip, but for all,
bending her head in haughty acquiescence.
And that moment one of her women servants
entered the room and whispered something.
"VVait--do not go just yet, Diamond
Dick," said Miss Fanshaw, after dismissing
the woman. "I wish you would accompany
me on a rather painful errand."
“Certainly, ma'am; anything in the world.
What is it?"
“You remember the wounded outlaw, An-
telope Andy?"
“Certainly.”
“Here is a dying message from him. A
few months ago he ventured, almost single-
handed, upon a drunken raid down this way.
At the head of a few of my men, I drove him
05. and captured his horse, Black Chief. un-
questionably as swift and valuable a brute
as there is in all Idaho. Andy now begs that
I shall be present, with the animal fully
equipped, when he is borne out on the prairie
to die. beside his open and freshly dug grave,
in obedience to his dying caprice. He would
look upon both myself, whom he. seems to
admire, and upon the noble brute that he so
loved, before the last shadows darken over
him, you understand?”
“Yes, ma'am,” bluntly; “and I wouldn't
grant it. I’d be suspicious of any Killer
while a breath of life remained in his body."
"But I propose to see him first, to make
sure of this. Will you accompany me?”
“Oh, yes, ma’am, of course!"
And they forthwith quitted the room to-
gether.
She gave some orders in accordance with
the dying man’s request, and then they were
in the apartment where he already lay, to all
appearances a pitiable wreck at his last gasp,
on the litter on which he was to be borne
away.
“How is this, Malatta?" said Captain Fan-
ny, turning to the old medicine woman, who,
with others, was standing about the litter;
“you haven’t even dressed this man's
wound.”
She pointed to the rent and blood-stained
hunting-shirt still covering the man’s injured
chest, apparently just as when he had first
been carried into the ranch.
“He wouldn't have it, chieftainess,” grunt-
ingly replied the old squaw, in her Shoshone
dialect. “Said ’twas no use. Ugh! guess he
was right. But then robber white men
mighty tough."
And she shook her head dubiously.
CHAPTER IX.
AN OUTLAW’S RUSE-DIAMOND DICK’S UN-
LOOKED-FOR PERIL.
Antelope Andy here made a feeble but
emphatic gesture of impatience, and he gave
the lady an imploring look out of his hag-
gard eyes.
“Right, right-no use!" he managed to
say, in a hoarse whisper. “Medicine for a
man with a big hole in his ribs? Bah! past
surgery. Tell me, tell me, Captain Fanny,
you’ll grant my last request?”
“Yes, yes," replied Miss Fanshaw, more
sympathetically than she liked it to appear
before ‘her men, for the young outlaw had
been undeniably handsome, howsoever
wrecked and emaciated he now appeared, and
men will have their own thoughts in such a
connection. “Don’t try to speak any more.”
“And you-you will, indeed, stand by me
at the last?” persisted the m0ril)un(l. “You
-you will have Black Chief, my noble horse.
there, too?" His dim eyes lighted up. “He
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