THE TRAIL TO YESTERYEAR
That afternoon, following a hint from Ralston, Burton made a point of
interviewing Watson, the chief of police, on the subject of the old
High Ridge disturbances which had been laid at Henry Underwood's door.
He found it a sore subject. Watson was a decent fellow and disposed to
be fair-minded, but Henry Underwood was a red rag to him. The way in
which the police force had been defied and outwitted in the former
outbreak was not likely to soften their attitude toward the culprit in
the present case. The hope of proving Henry guilty was evidently dear
to the official heart, and Burton departed, feeling that there was no
help to be looked for in that direction. The rigor of the law was all
that the Underwood family could expect. It was evening before he found
the time and opportunity to take his basket to the Red House. Mrs.
Bussey did not appear. Instead, it was Leslie herself who admitted
him, and conducted him to the surgery.
"See what a bargain I have found," said Burton, displaying his
purchase.
The doctor gave it a casual glance. "An Indian basket, isn't it? And
not a very good one."
"A very good--for my purpose. I wish I had another. Do you know any
one in town who could weave one for me?"
"No, I'm afraid not." The doctor made an obvious effort to respond to
his guest's trivial interests.
"Are there any Indians living in or near town?"
"No. They were all corralled on the Reservation years ago. There is a
squaw who comes down from the Reservation to sell beadwork and things
like that on the streets, but she is the only one I ever see
nowadays."
"Yes, I got this basket from her today. But I want a mate to it. Is
there any one in town who can weave in the Indian fashion?"
"I don't know of any one."
"Would you know if there were any one? Excuse the persistence of a
tourist and a faddist!"
Underwood aroused himself to a more genuine interest. "Why, if it is a
matter that you have your heart set upon, I certainly should be glad
to give you any information possible. But I don't believe there is any
one in town who makes any attempt at that sort of work, or takes any
interest in it. I should certainly know if any one made a profession
of it, or even had a well-developed fad for it, to use your own word.
Why? Is the basket rare?"
"I have never seen that particular knot before. What's more, I didn't
know that the mid-continent Indians did that sort of weaving at all. I
should guess that it is the work of some one individual weaver and
possibly those who have learned from her. Do you know any one in town
who has a personal acquaintance with the Indians?"
The doctor smiled whimsically. "Our dear and cherished friend Selby
has a first-hand acquaintance with them. When I first came to High
Ridge, it was just a frontier settlement. The Indians were the free
lances of the State. They still hunted in the northern woods with much
of their original freedom, and they came to town to do their trading
and to get what they wanted by a sort of proud and independent begging
that came near to having the ethical weight of natural law. How could
you refuse a fellow mortal a paper of tobacco when he came and took it
out of your pocket? To take it back with a dignity matching his own
was something that required more ancestral training in dignity than
most of us had. All the men that had a love for hunting came sooner or
later to pick out some Indian who would act as scout and show him the
best trails. There's an attraction about that sort of life."
"And Selby was one of them?"
"More than any of us. Selby and old man Bussey antedate my time. They
were here when there was only a beginning of a town, and it was mostly
wild country. Bussey was a born Bohemian who lived among the Indians
for years like one of themselves. Even after he was married, he would
go off for the whole summer, leaving his wife and the kid to shift for
themselves. Sometimes he took Ben along, and Mrs. Bussey would come
around and work for Mrs. Underwood."
"You linked Selby and Bussey together. Did he go among them also?"
"He often went off with Bussey, but he went for the trades he could
make, rather than for any innocent purpose like hunting. He was a mere
boy when he began selling them calicoes warranted to fade in the first
wash in exchange for muskrat and beaver skins. And he cheated them
when he could, at that."
"Did he take any interest in Indian basketmaking?"
"I'm sure I don't know. Old man Bussey could probably have woven your
basket for you and put in some extra kinks of his own in addition, but
I never paid much attention to that sort of thing,--old squaw's work!"
"I hope to convince you of its value and importance. If I went up to
the Reservation, should I find any of those old neighbors of yours?"
"You might, and you might not. The Indians do not live to be old under
the conditions of life that the white man provides for them. But it is
more than probable that some of them are still alive."
"What does Selby pay Ben Bussey for that woodcarving he buys?" Burton
asked abruptly.
"I don't know," said the doctor, with a look of helpless surprise.
"You think my questions irrelevant," smiled Burton. "I was wondering
if Selby cheated Ben as he used to cheat the Indians."
"Oh, I guess not. If he didn't take Ben's work, I don't know who
would, in High Ridge. There isn't much demand for that sort of thing.
I have always felt that Selby made a market for Ben out of old
friendship."
"That's an amiable trait which I should hate to discover in Mr. Selby.
It would be so lonesome. I wonder if it is friendship."
"Well, say merely old acquaintance, then. Selby as a boy was out and
about with Bussey, and they naturally would have come to have a
feeling of comradeship. Then Ben grew up, and Selby took him about as
Ben's father had taken him before. Especially after Bussey
disappeared. Ben was a sort of a waif, and Selby took him along in his
trips into the back country. I have no doubt he made him work for his
keep, all right."
"Then Ben would be likely to know whether Selby learned weaving from
the Indians, wouldn't he?" exclaimed Burton. "That's the way to find
out! Can I talk to Ben Bussey?"
"Certainly. He sees people whenever he likes. That back part of the
house, over the kitchen, is given over to them, and they are as
independent there as if they lived in their own house. But why are you
so curious about Selby's Indian experiences? If one is to believe
gossip, he had more experiences than he would care to have remembered
against him nowadays. But you are not inquiring into his morals?"
"No, merely his skill." He hesitated a moment, and then explained. "I
don't want to raise any false hopes, but I have an idea that the
person who tied Mr. Hadley in his bed and who braided the lilac
branches together over the Sprigg baby had learned weaving from the
same squaw who wove this basket I bought today. It's a peculiar
knot,--not at all a common one in such weaving, so far as I am
acquainted with it."
The doctor looked serious. "I wonder! Unquestionably Selby might have
learned Indian weaving. But--"
"That wouldn't prove very much. No, but it would be something. Suppose
you ask Mrs. Bussey to take me up to see Ben. His woodcarving will
supply a reason for my visit. And incidentally I'll find out what
Selby pays him."
Mrs. Bussey was obviously both surprised and flattered at the request
that she conduct this important visitor to her son's room. She had
evidently taken Dr. Underwood's chaffing use of the title "Doctor" in
good earnest, and insisted upon regarding Burton as a famous
physician.
"You can't do nothing for Ben, Doctor," she said, pursing up her lips
and shaking her head. "He's that bad nobody can do anything for him.
Henry Underwood done for him all right."
He found Ben Bussey in a wheeled chair near a window which in the
daytime must command a pleasant view of the garden. He was a
heavy-featured young man, somewhat gaunt and hollow-eyed from his
confinement, but nowise repulsive. His lower limbs were wrapped in an
afghan, but his hands, which held a piece of wood and his knife, were
strong and capable looking. A table with the material for his work was
drawn up beside his chair.
[Illustration: "_He found Ben Bussey in a wheeled chair near a
window_." Page 200]
"Dr. Underwood happened to mention that you did woodcarving," Burton
said, drawing up a chair for himself, "and I asked if I might come up
and see it. I'm interested in things of that sort. That's good work
you are doing. How did you come to learn carving?"
"Just picked it up," Ben answered. He was looking at his visitor with
an air of quiet indifference, as though the comings and goings of
other people could have nothing vital to do with his isolated life.
"Ben's real smart with his hands," said Mrs. Bussey proudly.
"Do you find any market for your carving?"
"Selby takes it."
"Selby the contractor," explained Mrs. Bussey. "Sometimes people want
hand-carved mantels and cornishes, and things like that. He makes
quite a bit that way, Ben does."
"I won't unless I want to," drawled Ben.
"Does Selby come here with his orders?"
Ben looked at him with a slow, peculiar smile. "I can't very well go
to him."
"I asked, because I had an impression that he was not on very friendly
terms with the Underwood family, and I wondered if he would come to
their house to see you."
"He don't see none of them," said Mrs. Bussey, with a lofty air. "He
can come in by the side door and right off here to Ben's room. The
doctor says as Ben and I shall have this part of the house for our
own, and little enough, too, seeing what Henry done to Ben."
"Is Selby an old friend of yours?"
"Guess we've known him as long as anybody. When my old man was alive,
he used to take Ort Selby out into the woods hunting and trapping with
the Indians. He was great for that, my man was."
Ben looked at his mother with a satirical smile. "He wasn't great for
much of anything else, was he?"
"That's not for you to say," she retorted sharply. "Here you lay, and
have everything done for you. You needn't say anything agin your dad."
Ben picked up his tool and board in contemptuous silence.
"That was before the Indians were put on a Reservation, wasn't it?"
asked Burton.
"Yes."
"How did they live? By hunting and fishing?"
"Yes."
"Anything else? Did they do any kind of work like carving?"
"Redstone pipes, and things like that."
"And baskets?"
"Birch-bark baskets. To sell."
"Other baskets, too, didn't they? I have a lot of Indian baskets at
home."
"Not from here," said Ben.
"No, you are right about that. But today I saw some baskets an Indian
woman was selling at the station. They are made at the Reservation,
aren't they?"
Ben looked up with the first sign of real interest he had shown. "That
was Pahrunta. She comes down sometimes to sell the baskets that her
mother makes. Her mother is Ehimmeshunka. She came from another
tribe,--many moons away, they said. She was stolen, I guess. She makes
baskets like the western Indians, not like the Indians here."
"You have seen her working, then?"
"Yes."
"Was that when you were with Selby?"
"Yes. My dad was chummy with Washitonka,--brothers, they called each
other. Ehimmeshunka was Washitonka's squaw."
"Did Selby learn how to make baskets like Ehimmeshunka?" asked Burton.
Immediately he regretted that he had put the question so bluntly, for
a surprised question came into Ben's face. He fixed his somber eyes on
Burton for a moment before he answered curtly: "No."
And Burton knew at once that the answer was merely prompted by a
desire to shut off questioning! He tried to turn the conversation into
another channel.
"Is that work you are doing an order?"
"Yes."
"What is it for?"
"Bookcase."
"What does Selby pay you for a piece of work like that?"
Ben did not open his lips to reply. He merely looked at Burton with a
gaze like a blank wall.
"Unless he pays you a fair price," Burton continued, "I might be able
to do something for you in some place where there is more demand for
that sort of work."
An unmistakable gleam of interest came into Ben's eyes, though he did
not answer. But Mrs. Bussey answered for him.
"Do you hear that, Ben? He'll get you better prices. I told you all
along that Selby wasn't paying you enough."
"What does he pay for a piece of work like this?"
"Whatever he likes," said Ben morosely. Burton saw that he had touched
a sensitive spot.
"One dollar,--two dollars, maybe. If he feels 'good.'"
"And then he doesn't pay what he says he will," added Mrs. Bussey.
"It's always come next week, and wait a little."
"Why, that's absurd! I'm sure I can get you ten to twenty times that
for it. May I see it?"
Ben dropped the piece of wood he held, and Burton picked it up. It was
intended for a panel in the side of a bookcase, and the design was cut
out in low relief. It was a spirited sketch of an Indian with a bent
bow drawn up to his shoulder.
"That's good," said Burton, in frank admiration. "Awfully good. Did
you copy it or design it yourself?"
"Just made it up."
"What is he shooting at?"
The answer was startling, in view of Burton's theory of the situation.
Ben glanced at him with a smile that held some hidden meaning. "Selby
says he is shooting at the brave that has stolen his squaw." Then he
lapsed back into his former attitude of somber indifference. "I think
he is just shooting for fun," he added carelessly.
"Can Selby shoot?" asked Burton, trying to draw the conversation
around again to the subject of Selby's Indian schooling.
Ben lifted himself on his elbow and looked up into Burton's face with
a grin of malicious amusement. "Not very well," he said, and opened
his mouth in a silent laugh that struck Burton as somehow horrible.
Was it possible that he connected the shot through Burton's window,
which had been talked of merely as an accident, with Selby?
"What makes you laugh?" he asked abruptly.
But Ben would not talk. He turned his head away with a gesture of
weariness that aroused Burton's conscience.
"I mustn't tire you now, but I'll see you again before I leave. I
think I can help you to get a better market for your work. Is there
anything you want now?"
"No. Only to be let alone," said Ben, without looking at him. He spoke
so indifferently that it was impossible to charge him with intentional
rudeness. The natural man was expressing himself naturally. Burton
suppressed an apology as he took his leave.
The door of the surgery was open when he came down the stairs to the
back hall, and Dr. Underwood, keen-eyed and eager, with a crutch under
his arm, stood in the doorway.
"Well," he asked. "What have you discovered?"
Burton pushed him gently inside the room and shut the door.
"For one thing, I have discovered that it isn't safe to talk secrets
in this house unless you know where Mrs. Bussey is," he laughed.
"Yes, she's an inveterate eavesdropper, I know. But we have no secrets
to discuss, so I haven't minded. She has the mother-instinct to purvey
for her helpless young,--gossip or food or anything else she may think
will be acceptable. She wants to keep Ben interested, that's all."
"Perhaps that's all. But she has so much to do with Selby that it
makes me uncomfortable for her to hear my casual remarks about him. I
couldn't get what I wanted from Ben. He shied off at once when I asked
if Selby had learned Indian weaving. I have decided to go up to the
Reservation to find out."
"Really?" exclaimed the doctor, in obvious surprise. "You attach so
much importance to this--idea of yours?"
"It is the only definite and positive clue I have found yet, and I am
going to follow it out. I am satisfied that Selby hates your son. So
does the mysterious unknown. The Unknown unconsciously ties his knots
in a very peculiar manner which he must have learned among the
Indians. Selby has had the opportunity to learn from the Indians.
There are two steps taken."
"Yes," mused the doctor thoughtfully.
"Is there any one else more likely?" asked Burton. "Have you any
enemies? Discharged servants, for instance?"
"No."
"Professional rivals?"
"If there is any poor devil of a doctor so unfortunate as to envy my
degree of success, let him go ahead with his revenge. He needs all the
barren consolation he can get."
"Then you really have no suspicion to better my own?"
The doctor shook his head. "I have believed it to be Henry," he said
simply.
"Not the hold-up?"
"Even that might have been,--though I confess that was the first event
that gave me hope, because it gave me a doubt."
"Then I hold to my theory. Did Selby hold himself up, and afterwards,
with Mrs. Bussey's connivance, get access to your surgery and hide his
chain here under the hearth and his handkerchief behind your books?
Does he write those typewritten accusations on your machine while Mrs.
Bussey plays sentry? In that case, instead of being a short-sighted
proceeding, as I at first thought, it is rather deep. The first
intelligent investigation would throw suspicion upon Henry, who of
course would have access to your room. In short, does Selby supply the
venom, and Mrs. Bussey the easy, ignorant and vindictive tool? That's
what is occupying my mind at present."
"Jumping Jerusalem!" gasped Dr. Underwood. "Aren't there some more
tenable hypotheses that you have overlooked? Have you given due
consideration to the possibility that Ben may be the son of an earl,
stolen in childhood, with a strawberry mark on his arm, and Henry my
first wife in disguise, and that I--Oh, I can't think of anything that
would not be an anticlimax to your imaginative effort. What do you do
for mental exercise when you are at home?"
But Burton refused to be diverted.
"I am willing to accept any other theory, but I am determined that
the mystery shall be named and known. The police don't seem equal
to it. I never had any experience in this direction, and I am not
over-confident of my own abilities, but I am better than nothing, and
I am going to do something,--something absurd, or futile, quite
possibly, but at any rate something."
"If you succeed," said Dr. Underwood quietly, "you will have lifted
the curse from my life and such a load from my heart as I pray you may
never have to carry for an hour. If I were a king of the old style,
I'd say: 'Ask what you will, even to the half of my kingdom.'"
Burton was about to make some light reply, when the sound of music
from the old piano in the drawing-room came in between them. Leslie
was playing. It was to the doctor's offer of half his kingdom what a
spark is to a train of powder. The flashing thought it conjured
up--though it was less a thought than a dazzling recognition--made him
dizzy. He dropped his eyes, dismayingly conscious that it was a
thought which he did not care to expose to the keen eyes of the old
doctor. He stood silent for a moment, ostensibly listening to the
music. Then he lifted his eyes, and put out his hand in farewell.
"Good night, Doctor. I shall go up to the Reservation to-morrow, and
may not be back for a few days, but I'll leave my address at the
hotel, in the event of your possibly wanting me. I'll say good night
to Miss Underwood as I go out. I assume I'll find her if I follow the
music."
"Yes, that's the way it seems, sometimes," said the doctor. The remark
was so unintelligible that Burton wondered whether he had dropped his
eyes soon enough.