The Death Shot: A Story Retold

In the old slave-owning times of the United States--happily now no more--there was much grievance to humanity; proud oppression upon the one side, with sad suffering on the othe...

Two years have elapsed since Ephraim Darke became the creditor of Archibald Armstrong. Apparently, no great change has taken place in the relationship between the two men, thoug...

From the harsh treatment of slaves sprang a result, little thought of by the inhuman master; though greatly detrimental to his interests. It caused them occasionally to abscond;...

The dark cloud, long lowering over Colonel Armstrong and his fortunes, is about to fall. A dialogue with his eldest daughter occurring on the same day--indeed in the same hour--...

On the third day, after that on which Richard Darke abstracted the letter from the magnolia, a man is seen strolling along the edge of the cypress swamp. The hour is nearly the...

Notwithstanding the solitude of the place where the strife, apparently fatal, has occurred, and the slight chances of its being seen, its sounds have been heard. The shots, the...

Unspeakably, incredibly atrocious is the behaviour of the man who has remained master of the ground. During the contest, Dick Darke has shown the cunning of the fox, combined wi...

During the time that Darke is engaged in covering up Clancy's body, and afterwards occupied in the attempt to kill his dog, the coon-hunter, squatted in the sycamore fork, stick...

Athwart the thick timber, going as one pursued--in a track straight as the underwood will allow--breaking through it like a chased bear--now stumbling over a fallen log, now cau...

The mortgage deed, so long held in menace over the head of Archibald Armstrong--suspended, as it were, by a thread, like the sword of Damocles--is to be put into execution. Dark...

Still stooping in her gait, casting furtive glances to right, to left, before and behind--at intervals stopping to listen--Helen Armstrong continues her nocturnal excursion. Not...

Disappointment were far too weak a word to express the pang that shoots through the heart of Helen Armstrong, on discovering the mistake she has made. It is bitter vexation, com...

Over the fields of Ephraim Darke's plantation a lingering ray of daylight still flickers, as Blue Bill, returning from his abandoned coon-hunt, gets back to the negro quarter. H...

Helen Armstrong goes to bed, with spiteful thoughts about Charles Clancy. So rancorous she cannot sleep, but turns distractedly on her couch, from time to time changing cheek up...

While the widowed mother, now doubly bereft--stricken down by the blow-- is still in a state of syncope, the faithful negress doing what she can to restore her, there are sounds...

The sun is up--the hour ten o'clock, morning. Around the residence of the widow Clancy a crowd of people has collected. They are her nearest neighbours; while those who dwell at...

Not all of the searching party leave the place. Two remain, staying as by stealth. Some time before the departure of the others, these had slipped aside, and sauntered off sever...

Still more terrible the night after their return--not without tidings of the missing man. Such tidings! The too certain assurance of his death--of his murder--with the added mys...

While search is still being made for the body of the murdered man, and he suspected of the crime is threatened with a prison cell, she, the innocent cause of it, is being borne...

The boat is slowly forging its course up-stream, its wheel in constant revolution, churning the ochre-coloured water into foam. This, floating behind, dances and simmers upon th...

On giving utterance to the ill-understood speech, Helen Armstrong imprints a kiss upon her sister's cheek, at the same time bedewing it with her tears. For she is now weeping--c...

Whatever has lifted Helen Armstrong aloft, for time holds her suspended. Only for a few seconds, during which she sees the boat pass on beneath, and her sister rush out to the s...

His wakefulness is not due to remorse; there is no such sentiment in his soul. It comes from two other causes, in themselves totally, diametrically distinct; for the one is fear...

This is the coon-hunter. In his case the disturbing cause _is_ conscience; though his crime is comparatively a light one, and should scarce rob him of his rest. It would not, we...

Arrested, Richard Darke is taken to jail. This not in Natchez, but a place of less note; the Court-house town of the county, within the limits of which lie the Darke and Armstro...

The simple, but solemn speech, makes an impression on the assembled backwoodsmen difficult to be described. All deem it a double-murder; her death caused by that of her son. The...

While the Lynchers are still in deliberation, the little clock on the mantel strikes twelve, midnight; of late, not oft a merry hour in the cottage of the Clancys; but this nigh...

With impatience Judge Lynch and his jurors await the hunter's return. Before his leaving them, they had well-nigh made up their minds to the verdict. All know it will be "Guilty...

About two hundred miles from the mouth of Red River--the Red of Louisiana--stands the town of Natchitoches. The name is Indian, and pronounced as if written "Nak-e-tosh." Though...

While thus pleasantly pass the days with Colonel Armstrong's younger daughter, to the elder they are drear and dark. No love lights up the path of _her_ life, no sun shines upon...

Colonel Armstrong is staying at the "Planters' House," the chief hotel in the town of Natchitoches. Not a very grand establishment, nevertheless. Compared with such a princely h...

"You'll excuse me, stranger, for interruptin' you in the readin' o' your newspaper. I like to see men in the way o' acquirin' knowledge. But we're all of us here goin' to licker...

A rattlesnake sounding its harsh "skirr" under the chair on which the stranger is sitting could not cause him to start up more abruptly than he does, when Borlasse says:--

Once inside his sleeping apartment, Borlasse shuts the door, points out a chair to his invited guest, and plants himself upon another. With the promised bottle of whisky between...

It is nearly a month since the day of Clancy's death; still the excitement caused by it, though to some extent subsided, has not died out. Curiosity and speculation are kept ali...

The men who thus mutually pronounce each other's names are they who bear them. For it is, in truth, Charles Clancy who stands by the grave, and Simeon Woodley who has saluted him.

Throughout all these days where has Clancy been? Dead, and come to life again? Or, but half killed and recovered? Where the while hidden? And why? Questions that in quick succes...

On that day when Dick Darke way-laid Charles Clancy, almost the same hour in which the strife is taking place between them, the fugitive slave is standing by the side of his hol...

For some time he retains his grasp of the wrist. To make more sure, he tries the artery at different points, with a touch as tender, as if holding in his hand the life of an inf...

Its significance lay in the fact, that fugitives from States' justice, once over the Sabine, felt themselves safe; extradition laws being somewhat loose in the letter, and more...

Nearly three weeks after Borlasse and his brigands crossed the Sabine, a second party is seen travelling towards the same river through the forests of Louisiana, with faces set...

Picture in imagination meadows, on which scythe of mower has never cut sward, nor haymaker set foot; meadows loaded with such luxuriance of vegetation--lush, tall grass--that to...

Scarce any stream of South-Western Texas but runs between bluffs. There is a valley or "bottom-land," only a little elevated above the water's surface, and often submerged durin...

After a long toilsome journey through Eastern Texas, the emigrant train has reached the San Saba, and is working its way up-stream. Slowly, for the bottom-land is in some places...

The site has been chosen with an eye to the pleasant and picturesque-- that keen look-out towards temporal enjoyment, which at all times, and in all countries, has characterised...

None more than their chief, Colonel Armstrong. His leaving Mississippi has been a lucky move; so far all has gone well; and if the future but respond to its promise, his star, l...

Pleasure has not been the sole purpose for which Colonel Armstrong is giving his little dinner party, else there would have been ladies invited along with the gentlemen. It is r...

On the frontier every settlement has its professional hunter. Often several, seldom less than two or three; their _metier_ being to supply the settlers with meat and game--venis...

To all appearance Fernand's fireworks are about to bear fruit, this likely to be bitter. As the sky, darker after the lightning's flash, a cloud is collecting over the new settl...

Still within the garden are the young girls--still standing under the shadow of the two trees that furnished the contrasting symbols,-- unconscious of danger near. Helen's speec...

At that same moment, when the red Sabines are carrying off his daughters, Colonel Armstrong is engaged, with his fellow-colonists, in discussing a question of great interest to...

_No_ need to tell who the Indians are that have shown their faces at the dining-room door, shutting and locking it. They are those seen by Hawkins and Tucker--the same Dupre's t...

On a log outside the tent sits Cris Tucker, with the fire before him, kindled for cooking the turkey. The bird is upon a spit suspended above the blaze. A fat young "gobbler," i...

Neither gets response. They on whom they call cannot hear. They are too far off; though nearer, it would be all the same; for both are at the moment hooded like hawks. The serap...

At this point the stream, several hundred yards wide, courses in smooth, tranquil current, between banks wooded to the water's edge. The trees are chiefly cottonwoods, with oak,...

But a short distance from where the travellers made stop, a side trace leads to the left, parallel to the direction of the river. Into this Woodley strikes, conducting the others.

Speechless with surprise, the two men stand gazing at the odd apparition; with something more than surprise, a supernatural feeling, not unmingled with fear. Such strange uneart...

No need to tell who are the strange equestrians seen coming across the river; nor to say, that those on the croup are not Indian women, but white ones--captives. The reader alre...

Almost at the same instant the double-mounted steeds are turning off the main road, Woodley and those with him enter upon it; only at a point further away from the ford.

At a pace necessarily slow, from the narrowness of the path and its numerous obstructions, the painted robbers, with their captives, have continued on; reaching their destinatio...

Wild thoughts has Helen Armstrong, thus apostrophised, with not a word to say in return. She knows it would be idle; but without this, her very indignation holds her dumb--that...

Baulked in their attempt to ambuscade the supposed Indians, Clancy and his companions thought not of abandoning the search for them. On the contrary, they continued it with rene...

No pen could portray the feelings of Helen Armstrong, on recognising her rescuer. Charles Clancy alive! Is she dreaming? Or is it indeed he whose arms are around, folding her in...

On Clancy and the hunter becoming engaged in their serious deliberation, the sisters also exchange thoughts that are troubled. The first bright flash of joy at their release fro...

Stillness is again restored around the crossing of the San Saba, so far as it has been disturbed by the sound of human voices. Nature has resumed her reign, and only the wild cr...

Throughout all this time, the scene of wild terror, and frenzied excitement, continues to rage around the Mission. Its walls, while echoing voices of lamentation, reverberate al...

A man on horseback making his way through a wood. Not on road, or trodden path, or trace of any kind. For it is a tract of virgin forest, in which settler's axe has never sounde...

The speech comes from one of two men making their way through a wood, the same across which Richard Darke has just retreated. But they are not retreating as he; on the contrary...

When once more upon the trail of the man he intends killing, Clancy keeps on after his hound, with eager eyes watching every movement of the animal. That Brasfort is dead upon t...

Perceiving some figures upon the plain, he supposes them to be Quantrell and Bosley with the captives. For his face is toward the west, where the sky is still night-shadowed, an...

The plain across which the freebooters are now journeying, on return to what they call their "rendyvoo," is one of a kind common in South-western Texas. An arid steppe, or table...

Silent is Clancy, sullen as a tiger just captured and encaged. As the moments pass, and he listens to the lawless speech of his captors, more than ever is he vexed with himself...

Charles Clancy thus calls upon his Maker. Hitherto sustained by indignation, now that the tormentor has left him, the horror of his situation, striking into his soul in all its...

A stream coursing through a canoned channel whose banks rise three hundred feet above its bed. They are twin cliffs that front one another, their _facades_ not half so far apart...

"Now, he won't need it; though he don't know that; can't, I think. If he but knew he ain't after all a murderer! See here, Luke; he may turn up yet. An' if so, for the life o' y...

Night has spread its sable pall over the desert plain, darker in the deep chasm through which runs Coyote Creek. There is light enough in the encampment of the prairie pirates;...

Borlasse joining in the debauch, orders brandy to be brought out of his tent, and distributed freely around. He drinks deeply himself; in part to celebrate the occasion of such...

He sees his horse tied to the tree, as he left him, but making violent efforts to get loose. For coyotes have come skulking around the copse, and their cry agitates the animal....

Out of the earth literally arose that cry, so affrighting Richard Darke; since it came from Charles Clancy. Throughout the live-long day, on to the mid hours of night, has he be...

To Clancy there is nothing strange in Darke's sudden and terrified departure. With the quickness of thought itself, he comprehends its cause. In their encounter under the live-o...

So reflects Clancy, as with keen apprehension he listens to the tread of the approaching horseman. For to a certainty he approaches, the dull distant thud of hooves gradually gr...

Never did man believe himself nigher death, or experience greater satisfaction at being saved from it, than Charles Clancy. For upon his life so near lost, and as if miraculousl...

So Richard Darke interrogates himself, retreating from the strangest apparition human eyes ever saw. A head without any body, not lying as after careless decapitation, but as th...

Scarce for an instant is Clancy puzzled by the sudden disappearance of him pursued. That is accounted for by the simplest of causes; a large rock rising above the level of the p...

While these tragic incidents are occurring on Coyote Creek and the plain between, others almost as exciting but of less sanguinary character, take place in the valley of the San...

On the far frontier of Texas, still unsettled by civilised man, no chanticleer gives note of the dawn. Instead, the _meleagris_ salutes the sunrise with a cry equally high-toned...

Beside the body of his fallen foe stands Charles Clancy, but with no intention there to tarry long. The companionship of the dead is ever painful, whether it be friend or enemy....

Perfectly sure that the band is that of Borlasse, which he almost instantly is, Clancy draws his horse behind the rock, directing Jupiter to do likewise. Thus screened, they can...