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"Issy" was a lover of certain kinds of literature and reveled in lurid fiction. As a youngster he had, at the age of thirteen, after a course of reading in the "Deadwood Dick Library," started on a pedestrian journey to the Far West, where, being armed with home-made tomahawk and scalping knife, he contemplated extermination of the noble red man.
I've got him with the goods this time and, so help me God, I'm going to make him pay. Don't shoot," she cautioned Gregory. "Wait till we get closer. I want to get him with the deadwood. Wide open, Tom, we'll run him off his legs. I'll " A puff of white smoke drifted upward from the deck of the launch ahead and floated lazily above the rigging.
Even the Mansion House was dismantled, and the Wingdam stage deserted the highway for a shorter cut by Quicksilver City. Only the bared crest of Deadwood Hill, as of old, sharply cut the clear blue sky, and at its base, as of old, the Stanislaus River, unwearied and unresting, babbled, whispered, and hurried away to the sea. A midsummer's day was breaking lazily on the Atlantic.
How came they here, when the hand of Deadwood Dick guarded the only accessible entrance there was to the valley? The answer was: they came secretly through the pass on the night preceding the arrival of the road-agents, and had been lying in close concealment ever since.
Never mind, though let 'em keep on! Let them just continue their hounding game, and see which comes up on top when the bag's shook. If more than one of 'em don't get their fingers burned when they snatch Deadwood Dick bald-headed, why I'm a Spring creek sucker, that's all.
I see right off that Billings was the livin' image of Deadwood Dick and Wild Bill and the rest in them books; they yelled and howled and hadn't no regard for life and property any more'n he had. No, sir! He wa'n't no crazier'n they was; it was in the breed, I judged. "'I sure wish I had you on the ranch, Grace, says he. 'Why don't you come West some day?
A pause of a moment, then the stillness is broken by the ominous click! click! of a score of rifles; this alone announces that the stage is "covered." Then the lone horseman rides leisurely down toward the stage, and Jehu recognizes him. It is Deadwood Dick, Prince of the Road!
"Alexander Filmore, you here!" he ejaculated, his voice betraying his surprise. "Yes," replied the elder Filmore, coldly "here to shoot you, you dastardly dog," and quickly raising a pistol, he took rapid and deadly aim, and fired. With a groan Deadwood Dick fell to the ground, blood spurting from a wound in his breast. The bullet of the elder Filmore had indeed struck home.
Again he made his escape, and soon afterwards he organized a desperate gang of outlaws who infested the country north of the Union Pacific railroad, and when the stages began to run between Cheyenne and Deadwood, in the Black Hills, they robbed the coaches and passengers, frequently making large hauls of plunder.
A few years later, with his proof sheets extending through the Black Hills, he bought a newspaper in Deadwood, the notorious old mining town which is usually associated in people's minds with the more lurid aspects of the Wild West.
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