“Do you consider yourself squelched, Westy?” Mr. Wilde teased him.
“About the haunted topic, I mean?”
“No, I don’t,” Westy said and meant it. “Any lake and forest that could
make a fellow feel like that is supernatural and I don’t care what any
hard-boiled scientist says.”
“Tell Westy what Old Scout said about the Redmond affair, too,” Billy
reminded him.
“Yes. He knew all about that story, too, from John Redmond the first. He
said that he was a fine fellow, but he liked adventure and was always
getting into some innocent scrape when he was a boy in England. Then he
ran away from home when he heard about the first cry of gold in this
country. His father was a baronet or something and his mother, the
countess, was prostrated after her son went away. She almost died and it
so enraged his father to see his wife go on so that he sent word to his
son never to bring disgrace upon them in any way. If he did, the father
wrote him, the next shock would kill his mother and he, the son, would
be responsible and as good as guilty of her murder.
“They must have been awful prudes that family, because John Redmond knew
what would happen if they found out about Lone Star. Probably they were
so snobbish they would never understand that in her way the Indian girl
was as noble and gentle as they. And of course at that time all Europe
thought American Indians were a lot of drunkards, thieves and murderers.
At any rate, the fear of causing his mother any more anguish kept him
back from writing to them after he married Lone Star.
“This Paul Mitchell was a rascal and had had Redmond’s confidence about
his family affairs. Also, Mitchell, as we have already been told, hated
the Indians fiercely and also Lone Star, whom he thought just roped his
partner into the whole business to get his money. And he hated his
partner for caring for her. Thought he was just spineless and said he’d
never give any gold that he had helped to find to an Indian.
“After Mitchell had escaped no one heard of him for a long while, and
Redmond had too much family pride and was too much of a gentleman to
hunt his former friend down as a culprit. And when he did hear it was
Mitchell himself who wrote to him and warned him that if Redmond tried
to make any trouble for him he’d reveal everything to his family. Now it
seems that Redmond had a first cousin in England who had great sympathy
and understanding for him. They corresponded as often as it was possible
for people to correspond in those times and out of the way places.
Eventually the cousin’s daughter came here, who is the present Mrs.
Redmond. She is a high-born woman.
“Mitchell and Redmond were equal partners and they struck it rich.
Redmond alone was worth over two million when he died if Mitchell had
given it to him.
“One fine day Mitchell moved to Santa Fe along about the time that John
Redmond the second was born. So after a short time they met and Mitchell
laughed in Redmond’s face and told him about never sharing his money
with a man who had married an Indian. Besides, Redmond’s parents were
still both alive and very old, and this he held as a sword over the
Englishman’s head.
“When Redmond returned he swore he would never go near Mitchell again
and in later years he extracted promises from his son and grandson that
they wouldn’t either in deference to Lone Star whose race Mitchell had
insulted.
“Then the present Mrs. Redmond came into a little money from her
mother’s estate and this she shared with all and they’ve been living on
it ever since.
“With nothing coming in and all going out, they’re about down to the
last cent, Old Scout said, but they’re too proud to go to the present
generation of Mitchells and tell them their plight.”
“Where are the present Mitchells?” Westy asked eagerly.
“Living in gilded splendor in Santa Fe, Old Scout told me,” Mr. Wilde
answered.
“But how can they prove their claim now?” Westy was all interest.
“Mitchell stole the paper that was all the witness Redmond had, didn’t
he?”
“That’s the interesting thing. Mitchell with all his antagonism and
prejudice against the Indians and which he took out on John Redmond all
his life must have had a troubled conscience.
“At all events, it is whispered around Santa Fe and, in fact, some one
said it was in the Santa Fe paper at the time, that when old Paul
Mitchell died he willed a certain sealed envelope to his son.
“In it was a document and the envelope was never to be opened during his
son’s life nor his son’s lifetime. But the first son or daughter of his
grandson was to open the sealed envelope on the event of their
twenty-first birthday, and it hasn’t been opened yet. They know nothing
of the Redmonds at all, I believe.”
“He must have been crazy!” Rip piped up shrilly.
“Not crazy, Rip,” his uncle answered. “Just an eccentric, prejudiced,
old man who let hate grow like a weed in his life, obliterating honor
and everything else that’s worth while.”
“Why,” asked Billy, perplexed, “didn’t he want that envelope opened
until his great-grandson’s maturity? And what makes you think it has
something to do with Redmond?”
“Because I think the ingenious old scoundrel figured that the Indian
strain would be about faded out in this generation. You see? He wanted
his hate to live after him until the Indian was almost forgotten and the
race was deteriorating. I may be wrong, but I don’t think so.”
“Where,” Westy asked Mr. Wilde, “do they keep the envelope?”
“In their home, I believe.”