O'MIE'S INHERITANCE
In these cases we still have judgment here.
--SHAKESPEARE.
True to his word, Tell Mapleson's time followed hard on the finishing up
of Judson. My father did not make a step until he was sure of what the
next one would be. That is why the supreme court never reversed his
decisions. When at last he had perfected his plans, Tell Mapleson grew
shy of pushing his claims. But Tell was a shrewd pettifogger, and his
was a different calibre of mind from Judson's. It was not until my
father was about to lay claim in his client's behalf to the valuable
piece of land containing the big cottonwood and the haunted cabin, that
Tell came out of hiding. This happened on the afternoon following the
morning scene with Judson. And aside from the task of the morning, the
news of Bud Anderson's untimely death had come that day. Nobody could
foretell what next this winter's campaign might hold for the Springvale
boys out on the far Southwest Plains, and my father's heart was heavy.
Tell Mapleson was tall and slight. He was a Southern man by birth, and
he always retained something of the Southern air in his manner. Active,
nervous, quick-witted, but not profound, he made a good impression
generally, especially where political trickery or nice turns in the law
count for coin. Professionally he and my father were competitors; and
he might have developed into a man of fine standing, had he not kept
store, become postmaster, run for various offices, and diffused himself
generally, while John Baronet held steadily to his calling.
In the early afternoon Tell courteously informed my father that he
desired an interview with the idea of adjusting differences between the
two. His request was granted, and a battle royal was to mark the second
half of the day. John Baronet always called this day, which was Friday,
his black but good Friday.
"Good-afternoon, Mr. Mapleson, have a chair."
"Good-afternoon, Judge. Pretty stiff winter weather for Kansas."
So the two greeted each other.
"You wanted to see me?" my father queried.
"Yes, Judge. We might as well get this matter between us settled here as
over in the court-room, eh?"
My father smiled. "Yes, we can afford to do that," he said. "Now,
Mapleson, you represent a certain client in claiming a piece of property
known as the north half of section 29, range 14. I also represent a
claim on the same property. You want this settled out of court. I have
no reason to refuse settlement in this way. State your claim."
Mapleson adjusted himself in his chair.
"Judge, the half section of land lying upon the Neosho, the one
containing among other appurtenances the big cottonwood tree and the
stone cabin, was set down in the land records as belonging to one
Patrick O'Meara, the man who took up the land. He was a light-headed
Irishman; he ran off with a Cheyenne squaw, and not long afterwards was
killed by the Comanches. This property, however, he gave over to a
friend of his, a Frenchman named Le Claire, connected in a business way
with the big Choteau Fur-trading Company in St. Louis. This Frenchman
brought his wife and child here to live. I knew them, for they traded at
the 'Last Chance' store. That was before your day here, Baronet. Le
Claire didn't live out in that cabin long, for his only child was stolen
by the Kiowas, and his wife, in a frenzy of grief drowned herself in the
Neosho. Then Le Claire plunged off into the Plains somewhere. Later he
was reported killed by the Kiowas. Now I have the evidence, the written
statement signed by this Irishman, of the turning of the property into
Le Claire's hands. Also the evidence that Le Claire was not killed by
the Indians. Instead, he was legally married to a Kiowa squaw, a sister
of Chief Satanta, who is now a prisoner of war with General Custer in
the Indian Territory. By this union there was one child, a son, Jean
Pahusca he is called. To this son this property now belongs. There can
be no question about it. The records show who entered the land. Here is
the letter sworn to in my store by this same man, left by him to be
given to Le Claire when he should come on from St. Louis. The Irishman
was impatient to join these Cheyennes he'd met on a fur-hunting trip way
up on the Platte, and with his affidavit before old Judge Fingal (he
also was here before you) he left this piece of land to the Frenchman."
Mapleson handed my father a torn greasy bit of paper, duly setting forth
what he had claimed.
"Now, to go on," he resumed. "This Kiowa marriage was a legal one, for
the Frenchman had a good Catholic conscience. This marriage was all
right. I have also here the affidavit of the Rev. J. J. Dodd, former
pastor of the Methodist Church South in Springvale. At the time of this
marriage Dodd, who was then stationed out near Santa Fe, New Mexico, was
on his way east with a wagon train. Near Pawnee Rock Le Claire with a
pretty squaw came to the train legally equipped and was legally married
by Dodd. As a wedding fee he gave this letter of land grant to Dodd.
'Take it,' he said, 'I'll never use it. Keep it, or give it away.' Dodd
kept it."
"Until when?" my father asked.
Mapleson's hands twitched nervously.
"Until he signed it over to me," he replied. "I have everything
secured," he added, smiling, and then he went on.
"Le Claire soon got tired of the Kiowas of course, and turned priest,
repented of all his sins, renounced his wife and child, and all his
worldly goods. It will be well for him to keep clear of old Satanta in
his missionary journeys to the heathen, however. You know this priest's
son, Jean Pahusca. He got into some sort of trouble here during the war,
and he never comes here any more. He has assigned to me all his right to
this property, on a just consideration and I am now ready to claim my
own, by force, if necessary, through the courts. But knowing your
position, and that you also have a claim on the same property, I figured
it could be adjusted between us. Baronet, there isn't a ghost of a show
for anybody else to get a hold on this property. Every legal claimant is
dead except this half-breed. I have papers for every step in the way to
possession; and as a man whose reputation for justice has never been
diminished, I don't believe you will pile up costs on your client, nor
deal unfairly with him. Have you any answer to my claim?"
At that moment the door opened quietly and Father Le Claire entered. He
was embarrassed by his evident intrusion and would have retreated but my
father called him in.
"You come at a most opportune time, Father Le Claire. Mapleson here has
been proving some things to me through your name. You can help us both."
John Baronet looked at both men keenly. Mapleson's face had a look of
pleasure as if he saw not only the opportunity to prove his cause, but
the chance to grill the priest, whose gentle power had time and again
led the Indians from his "Last Chance" saloon on annuity days, when the
peaceful Osages and Kaws came up for their supplies. The good Father's
face though serious, even apprehensive, had an undercurrent of serenity
in its expression hard to reconcile with fear of accusation.
"Mr. Mapleson, will you repeat to Le Claire what you have just told me
and show him your affidavits and records?" John Baronet asked.
"Certainly," Tell replied, and glibly he again set forth his basis to a
claim on the valuable property. "Now, Le Claire," he added, "Baronet and
I have about agreed to arbitrate for ourselves. Your name will never
appear in this. The records are seldom referred to, and you are as safe
with us as if you'd never married that squaw of old Satanta's household.
We are all men here, if one is a priest and one a judge and the other a
land-owner."
Le Claire's face never twitched a muscle. He turned his eyes upon the
judge inquiringly, but unabashed.
"Will you help us out of this, Le Claire?" my father asked. "If you
choose I will give you my claim first."
"Good," said Mapleson. "Let him hear us both, and his word will show us
what to do."
"Well, gentlemen," my father began, "by the merest chance a few years
ago I came upon the entry of the land in question. It was entered in the
name of Patrick O'Meara. Happening to recall that the little red-headed
orphan chore-boy down at the Cambridge House bore the same name, I made
some inquiry of Cam Gentry about the boy's origin and found that he was
an orphan from the Osage Mission, and had been brought up here by one of
the priests who stopped here a day or two on his way from the Osage to
St. Mary's, up on the Kaw. Cam and Dollie were kind to the child, and he
begged the priest to stay with them. The good man consented, and while
the guardianship remained with the people of the Mission, O'mie grew up
here. It seemed not impossible that he might have some claim on this
land. Everything kept pointing the fact more and more clearly to me.
Then I was called to the war."
Tell Mapleson's mobile face clouded up a bit at this.
"But I had by this time become so convinced that I called in Le Claire
here and held a council with him. He told me some of what he knew, not
all, for reasons he did not explain" (my father's eyes were on the
priest's face), "but if it is necessary he will tell."
"Now that sounds like a threat," Mapleson urged. Somehow, shrewd as he
was, solid as his case appeared to himself, the man was growing
uncomfortable. "I've known Le Claire's story for years. I never
questioned him once. I had my papers from Dodd. Le Claire long ago
renounced the world. His life has proved it. The world includes the
undivided north half of section 29, range 14. That's Jean Pahusca's.
It's too late now for his father to try to get it away from him,
Baronet. You know the courts won't stand for it." Adroit as he was, the
Southern blood was beginning to show in Tell's nervous manner and
flashing eyes.
"When I came back from the war," my father went on, ignoring the
interruption, "I found that the courthouse records had been juggled
with. Some of them, with some other papers, had been stolen. It happened
on a night when for some reason O'mie, a harmless, uninfluential Irish
orphan, was hunted for everywhere in order to be murdered. Why? He stood
in the way of a land-claim, and human life was cheap that night."
Tell Mapleson's face was ashy gray with anger; but no heed was given to
him, as my father continued.
"It happened that Jean Pahusca, who took him out of town by mistake and
left him unconscious and half dead on the bank of Fingal's Creek, was
ordered back by the ruffians to find his body, and if he was alive to
finish him in any way the Indian chose. That same night the courthouse
was entered, and the record of this land-entry was taken."
"I have papers showing O'Meara's signing it over--" Tell began; but my
father waved his hand and proceeded.
"Briefly put, it was concealed in the old stone cabin by one Amos
Judson. Le Claire here was a witness to the transaction."
The priest nodded assent.
"But for reasons of his own he did not report the theft. He did,
however, remove the papers from their careless hiding-place in an old
chest to a more secure nook in the far corner of the dark loft. Before I
came home he had left Springvale, and business matters called him to
France. He has not been here since, until last September when he spent a
few days out at the cabin. The lead box had been taken from the loft and
concealed under the flat stone that forms the door step, possibly by
some movers who camped there and did some little harm to the property.
"I have the box in the bank vault now. Le Claire turned it over to me.
There is no question as to the record. Two points must be settled,
however. First, did O'Meara give up the land he entered? And second, is
the young man we call O'mie heir to the same? Le Claire, you are just
back from the Osage Mission?"
The priest assented.
"Now, will you tell us what you know of this case?"
A sudden fear seized Tell Mapleson. Would this man lie now to please
Judge Baronet? Tell was a good reader of human nature, and he had
thoroughly believed in the priest as a holy man, one who had renounced
sin and whose life was one long atonement for a wild, tragic, and
reckless youth. He disliked Le Claire, but he had never doubted the
priest's sincerity. He could have given any sort of bribe had he deemed
the Frenchman purchasable.
"Just one word please, Judge," he said suavely. "Look here, Le Claire,
Baronet's a good lawyer, a rich man, and a popular man with a fine
reputation; but by jiminy! if you try any tricks with me and vary one
hair from the truth, I'll have you before the civil and church courts so
quick you'll think the Holy Inquisition's no joke. If you'll just tell
the truth nobody's going to know through me anything about your former
wives, nor how many half-breed papooses claim you. And I know Baronet
here well enough to know he never gossips."
Le Claire turned his dark face toward Mapleson, and his piercing black
eyes seemed to look through the restless lawyer fidgeting in his chair.
In the old days of the "Last Chance" saloon the two had played a quiet
game, each trying to outwit the other--the priest for the spiritual and
financial welfare of the Indian pensioners, Mapleson for his own
financial gain. Yet no harsh word had ever passed between them. Not even
after Le Claire had sent his ultimatum to the proprietor of the "Last
Chance," "Sell Jean Pahusca another drink of whiskey and you'll be
removed from the Indian agency by order from the Secretary of Indian
affairs at Washington."
"Mr. Mapleson, I hope the truth will do you no harm. It is the only
thing that will avail now, even the truth I have for years kept back. I
am no longer a young man, and my severe illness in October forced me to
get this business settled. Indeed, I in part helped to bring matters to
an issue to-day."
Mapleson was disarmed at once by the priest's frankness. He had waited
long to even up scores with the Roman Catholic who had kept many a
dollar from his till.
"You are right, gentlemen, in believing that I hold the key to this
situation. The Judge has asked two questions: 'Did Patrick O'Meara ever
give up his title to the land?' and 'Is O'mie his heir, and therefore
the rightful owner?' Let me tell you first what I know of O'mie.
"His mother was a dear little Irish woman who had come, a stranger, to
New York City and was married to Patrick O'Meara when she was quite
young. They were poor, and after O'mie was born, his father decided to
try the West. Fate threw him into the way of a Frenchman who sent him to
St. Louis to the employment of a fur-trading company in the upper
Missouri River country. O'Meara knew that the West held large
possibilities for a poor man. He hoped in a short time to send for his
wife and child to join him."
The priest paused, and his brow darkened.
"This Frenchman, although he was of noble birth, had all the evil traits
and none of the good ones of all the generations, and withal he was a
wild, restless, romantic dreamer and adventurer. You two do not know
what heartlessness means. This man had no heart, and yet," the holy
man's voice trembled, "his people loved him--will always love his
memory, for he could be irresistibly charming and affectionate when he
chose. To make this painful story short, he fell in love--madly as only
he could love--with this pretty little auburn-haired Irish woman. He had
a wife in France, but Mrs. O'Meara pleased him for the time; and he was
that kind of a beast.
"O'Meara came to Springvale, and finding here a chance to get hold of a
good claim, he bought it. He built a little cabin and sent money to New
York for his wife and child to join him here. Mails were slow in
preterritorial days. The next letter O'Meara had from New York was from
this Frenchman telling him that his wife and child were dead. Meanwhile
the villain played the kind friend and brother to the little woman and
helped her to prepare for her journey to the West. He had business
himself in St. Louis. He would precede her there and accompany her to
her husband's new home. Oh, he knew how to deceive, and he was as
charming in manner as he was dominant in spirit. No king ever walked the
earth with a prouder step. You have seen Jean Pahusca stride down the
streets of Springvale, and you know his regal bearing. Such was this
Frenchman.
"In truth," the priest went on, "he had cause to leave New York. Word
had come to him that his deserted French wife was on her way to America.
This French woman was quick-tempered and jealous, and her anger was
something to flee from.
"It is a story of utter baseness. From St. Louis to Springvale Mrs.
O'Meara's escort was more like a lover than a friend and business
director of her affairs. This land was an Osage reservation then.
O'Meara's half-section claim was west of here. The home he built was
that little stone cabin near where the draw breaks through the bluff up
the river, this side of the big cottonwood."
Le Claire paused and sat in silence for a while.
"Much as I have dealt with all sorts of people," he continued, "I never
could understand this Frenchman's nature. Fickle and heartless he was to
the very core. The wild frontier life attracted him, and he, who could
have adorned the court of France or been a power in New York's high
circles, plunged into this wilderness. When they reached the cabin the
cause for his devoted attentions was made plain. O'Meara was not there,
had indeed been gone for weeks. Letters left at Springvale directed to
this Frenchman read:
"'I'm gone for good. A pretty Cheyenne squaw away up on the Platte is
too much for me. Tell Kathleen I'm never coming back. So she is free to
do what she wants to. You may have this ground I have preempted, for
your trouble. Good-bye.'
"This letter, scrawled on a greasy bit of paper, was so unlike anything
Patrick O'Meara had ever said, its spirit was so unlike his genial
true-hearted nature that his wife might have doubted it. But she was
young and inexperienced, alone and penniless with her baby boy in a
harsh wilderness. The message broke her heart. And then this man used
all the force of his power to win her. He showed her how helpless she
was, how the community here would look upon her as his wife, and now
since she was deserted by her husband, the father of her child, her only
refuge lay with him, her true lover.
"The woman's heart was broken, but her fidelity and honor were founded
on a rock. She scorned the villain before her and drove him from her
door. That night she and O'mie were alone in that lonely little cabin.
The cruel dominant nature of the man was aroused now, and he determined
to crush the spirit of the only woman who had ever resisted him. Two
days later a band of Kiowas was passing peaceably across the Plains.
Here the Frenchman saw his chance for revenge by conniving with the
Indians to seize little O'mie playing on the prairie beyond the cabin.
"The women out in Western Kansas have had the same agony of soul that
Kathleen O'Meara suffered when she found her boy was stolen. In her
despair she started after the tribe, wandering lost and starving many
days on the prairie until a kind-hearted Osage chief found her and took
her to our blessed Mission down the river. Here a strange thing
happened. Before she had been there a week, her husband, Thomas O'Meara,
came from a trapping tour on the Arkansas River. With him was a little
child he had rescued from the Kiowas in a battle at Pawnee Rock. It was
his own child, although he did not know it then. In this battle he was
told that a Frenchman had been killed. The name was the same as that of
the Frenchman he had known in New York. Can you picture the joy of that
reunion? You who have had a wife to love, a son to cherish?"
My father's heart was full. All day his own boy's face had been before
him, a face so like to the woman whose image he held evermore in sacred
memory.
"But their joy was short-lived, for Mrs. O'Meara never recovered from
her hardships on the prairie; she died in a few weeks. Her husband was
killed by the Comanches shortly after her death. His claim here he left
to his son, over whom the Mission assumed guardianship. O'mie was
transferred to St. Mary's for some reason, and the priest who started to
take him there stopped here to find out about his father's land. But the
records were not available. Fingal, for whom Fingal's Creek was named,
also known as Judge Fingal, held possession of all the records,
and--how, I never knew--but in some way he prevented the priest from
finding out anything. Fingal was a Southern man; he met a violent death
that year. You know O'mie's story after that." Le Claire paused, and a
sadness swept over his face.
"But that doesn't finish the Frenchman's story," he continued presently.
"The night that O'mie's mother left her home in the draw, the French
woman who had journeyed far to find her husband came to Springvale. You
know what she found. The belongings of another woman. It was she who
slipped into the Neosho that night. The Frenchman was in the fight at
Pawnee Rock. After that he disappeared. But he had entered a formal
claim to the land as the husband of Patrick O'Meara's widow, heir to her
property. You see he held a double grip. One through the letter--forged,
of course--the other through the claim to a union that never existed."
"Seems to me you've a damned lot to answer for," Tell Mapleson hissed in
rage. "If the Church can make a holy man out of such a villain, I'm glad
I'm a heretic."
"I'm answering for it," the priest said meekly. Only my father sat with
face impassive and calm.
"This half-section of land in question is the property of Thomas
O'Meara, son and heir to Patrick O'Meara, as the records show. These
stolen records I found where Amos Judson had hastily concealed them, as
Judge Baronet has said. I put them in the dark loft for safer keeping,
for I felt sure they were valuable. When I came to look for them, they
had been moved again. I supposed the one who first took them had
recovered them, and I let the matter go. Meanwhile I was called home.
When I came here last Fall I found matters still unsettled, and O'mie
still without his own. I spent several days in the stone cabin searching
for the lost papers. The weather was bad, and you know of my severe
attack of pneumonia. But I found the box. In the illness that followed I
was kept from Springvale longer than I wished. When I came again O'mie
had gone."
The priest paused and sat with eyes downcast, and a sorrowful face.
"Is this your story?" Tell queried. "Your proof of O'mie's claim you
consider incontestable, but how about these affidavits from the Rev. Mr.
Dodd who married you to the Kiowa squaw? How--"
But Le Claire lifted his hand in commanding gesture. A sudden sternness
of face and attitude of authority seemed to clothe him like a garment.
"Gentlemen, there is another story. A bitter, painful story. I have
never told it, although it has sometimes almost driven me from the holy
sanctuary because of my silence."
It was a deeply impressive moment, for all three of the men realized the
importance of the occasion.
"My name," said the priest, "is Pierre Rousseau Le Claire. I am of a
titled house of France. We have only the blood of the nobility in our
veins. My father had two sons, twins--Pierre the priest, and Jean the
renegade, outlawed even among the savages; for his scalp will hang from
Satanta's tepee pole if the chance ever comes. Mapleson, here, has told
you the truth about his being married to a sister of Chief Satanta. He
also is the father of Jean Pahusca. You have noticed the boy's likeness
to me. If he, being half Indian, has such a strong resemblance to his
family, you can imagine how much alike we are, my brother and myself. In
form and gesture, everything--except--well, I have told you what his
nature was, and--you have known me for many years. And yet, I have never
ceased to pray for him, wicked as he is. We played together about the
meadows and vine-clad hill slopes of old France, in our happy boyhood.
We grew up and loved and might both have been happily wedded
there,--but--I've told you his story. There is nothing of myself that
can interest you. That letter of Mapleson's, purporting to be from
Patrick O'Meara, is a mere forgery. I have just come up from the
Mission. The records and letters of O'Meara have all been kept there.
This handwriting would not stand, in court, Mapleson. The land was
O'Meara's. It is now O'mie's."
Mapleson sat with rigid countenance. For almost fifteen years he had
matched swords with John Baronet. He had felt so sure of his game, he
had guarded every possible loophole where success might escape him, he
had paved every step so carefully that his mind, grown to the habitual
thought of winning, was stunned by the revelation. Like Judson in the
morning, his only defence lay In putting blame on somebody else.
"You are the most accomplished double-dealer I ever met," he declared to
the priest. "You pretend to follow a holy calling, you profess a love
for your brother, and yet you are trying to rob his child of his
property. You are against Jean Pahusca, son of the man you love so much.
Is that the kind of a priest you are?"
"The very kind--even worse," Le Claire responded. "I went back to France
before my aged father died. My mother died of a broken heart over Jean
long ago. While our father yet lived I persuaded him to give all his
estate--it was large--to the Holy Church. He did it. Not a penny of it
can ever be touched."
Mapleson caught his breath like a drowning man.
"It spoiled a beautiful lawsuit, I know," Le Claire continued looking
meaningly at him. "For that fortune in France, put into the hands of
Jean Pahusca's attorneys here, would have been rich plucking. It can
never be. I fixed that before our father's death. Why?"
"Yes, you narrow, grasping robber of orphans, why?" Tell shouted in his
passion.
"For the same reason that I stood between Jean Pahusca and this town
until he was outlawed here. The half-breed cares nothing for property
except as it can buy revenge and feed his appetites. He would sell
himself for a drink of whiskey. You know how dangerous he is when drunk.
Every man in this town except Judge Baronet and myself has had to flee
from him at some time or other. Sober, he is a devil--half Indian, half
French, and wholly fiendish. Neither he nor his father has any property.
I used my influence to prevent it. I would do it again. Jean Le Claire
has forfeited all claims to inheritance. So have I. Among the Indians he
is a renegade. I am only a missionary priest trying as I may to atone
for my own sins and for the sins of my father's son, my twin brother.
That, gentlemen, is all I can say."
"We are grateful to you, Le Claire," John Baronet said. "Mapleson said
before you began that your word would show us what to do. It has shown
us. It is now time, when some deeds long past their due, must be
requited." He turned to Tell sitting defiantly there casting mentally in
every direction for some legal hook, some cunning turn, by which to win
victory away from defeat.
"Tell Mapleson, the hour has come for us to settle more than a property
claim between an Irish orphan and a half-breed Kiowa. And now, if it was
wise to settle the other matter out of court, it will be a hundred times
safer to settle this here this afternoon. You have grown prosperous in
Springvale. In so far as you have done it honestly, I rejoice. You know
yourself that I have more than once proved my sincerity by turning
business your way, that I could as easily have put elsewhere."
Tell did know, and with something of Southern politeness, he nodded
assent.
"You are here now to settle with me or to go before my court for some
counts you must meet. You have been the headpiece for all the evil-doing
that has wrecked the welfare of Springvale and that has injured
reputation, brought lasting sorrow, even cost the life of many citizens.
Sooner or later the man who does that meets his own crimes face to face,
and their ugly powers break loose on him."
"What do you mean?" Tell's voice was suppressed, and his face was livid.
"I mean first: you with Dick Yeager and others, later in Quantrill's
band, in May of 1863 planned the destruction of this town by mob
violence. The houses were to be burned, every Union man was to be
murdered with his wife and children, except such as the Kiowa and
Comanche Indians chose to spare. My own son was singled out as the
choicest of your victims. Little O'mie, for your own selfish ends, was
not to be spared; and Marjory Whately, just blooming into womanhood, you
gave to Jean Pahusca as his booty. Your plan failed, partly through the
efforts of this good man here, partly through the courage and quick
action of the boys of the town, but mainly through the mercy of
Omnipotent God, who sent the floods to keep back the forces of Satan.
That Marjory escaped even in the midst of it all is due to the
shrewdness and sacrifice of the young man you have been trying to
defraud--O'mie.
"In the midst of this you connived with others to steal the records from
the courthouse. You were a treble villain, for you set the Rev. Mr.
Dodd to a deed you afterwards held over him as a threat and drove him
from the town for fear of exposure, forcing him to give you the papers
he held against Jean Le Claire's claims to the half-section on the
Neosho. Not that his going was any loss to Springvale. But Dodd will
never trouble you again. He cast his lot with the Dog Indians of the
plains, and one of them used him for a shield in Custer's battle with
Black Kettle's band last December. He had not even Indian burial.
"Those deeds against Springvale belong to the days of the Civil War, but
your record since proves that the man who planned them cannot be trusted
as a safe citizen in times of peace. Into your civil office you carried
your war-time methods, until the Postmaster-General cannot deal longer
with you. Your term of office expires in six days. Your successor's
commission is already on its way here. This much was accomplished in the
trip East last Fall." My father spoke significantly.
"It wasn't all that was accomplished, by Heaven! There's a lawsuit
coming; there's a will that's to be broken that can't stand when I get
at it. You are mighty good and fine about money when other folks are
getting it; but when it's coming to you, you're another man." Tell's
voice was pitched high now.
"Father Le Claire, let me tell you a story. Baronet's a smooth rascal
and nobody can find him out easily. But I know him. He has called me a
thief. It takes that kind to catch a thief, maybe. Anyhow, back at
Rockport the Baronets were friends of the Melrose family. One of them,
Ferdinand, was drowned at sea. He had some foolish delusion or other in
his head, for he left a will bequeathing all his property to his brother
James Melrose during his lifetime. At his death all Ferdinand's money
was to go to John Baronet in trust for his son Phil. Baronet, here, sent
his boy back East to school in hopes that Phil would marry Rachel
Melrose, James's daughter, and so get the fortune of both Ferdinand and
James Melrose. He went crazy over the girl; and, to be honest, for
Phil's a likable young fellow, the girl was awfully in love with him.
Baronet's had her come clear out here to visit them. But, you'll excuse
me for saying it, Judge, Phil is a little fast. He got tangled up with a
girl of shady reputation here, and Rachel broke off the match. Now, last
October the Judge goes East. You see, he's well fixed, but that nice
little sum looks big to him, and he's bound Phil shall have it, wife or
no wife. But there's a good many turns in law. While Baronet was at
Rockport before I could get there, being detained at Washington" (my
father smiled a faint little gleam of a smile in his eyes more than on
his lip)--"before I could get to Rockport, Mr. Melrose dies, leaving his
wife and Rachel alone in the world. Now, I'm retained here as their
attorney. Tillhurst is going on to see to things for me. It's only a few
thousand that Baronet is after, but it's all Rachel and her mother have.
The Melroses weren't near as rich as the people thought. That will of
Ferdinand's won't hold water, not even salt water. It'll go to pieces in
court, but it'll show this pious Judge, who calls his neighbors to
account, what kind of a man he is. The money's been tied up in some
investments and it will soon be released."
Le Claire looked anxiously toward my father, whose face for the first
time that day was pale. Rising he opened his cabinet of private papers
and selected a legal document.
"This seems to be the day for digging up records," he said in a low
voice. "Here is one that may interest you and save time and money. What
Mapleson says about Ferdinand Melrose is true. We'll pass by the motives
I had in sending Phil East, and some other statements. When I became
convinced that love played no part in Phil's mind toward Rachel Melrose,
I met him in Topeka in October and gave him the opportunity of signing a
relinquishment to all claims on the estate of Ferdinand Melrose. Phil
didn't care for the girl; and as to the money gotten in that way" (my
father drew himself up to his full height), "the oxygen of Kansas breeds
a class of men out here who can make an honest fortune in spite of any
inheritance, or the lack of it. I put my boy in that class."
I was his only child, and a father may be pardoned for being proud of
his own.
"When I reached Rockport," he continued, "Mr. Melrose was ill. I hurried
to him with my message, and it may be his last hours were more peaceful
because of my going. Rachel will come into her full possessions in a
short time, as you say. Mapleson, will you renounce your retainer's fees
in your interest in the orphaned?"
It was Tell's bad day, and he swore sulphureously in a low tone.
"Now I'll take up this matter where I left off," John Baronet said.
"While O'mie was taking a vacation in the heated days of August, he
slept up in the stone cabin. Jean Pahusca, thief, highwayman, robber,
and assassin, kept his stolen goods there. Mapleson and his mercantile
partner divided the spoils. O'mie's sense of humor is strong, and one
night he played ghost for Jean. You know the redskin's inherent fear of
ghosts. It put Jean out of the commission goods business. No persuasion
of Mapleson's or his partner's could induce Jean to go back after night
to the cabin after this reappearance of the long quiet ghost of the
drowned woman."
Le Claire could not repress a smile.
"I think I unconsciously played the same role in September out there,
frightening a little man away one night. I was innocent of any harm
intended."
"It did the work," my father replied. "Jean cut for the West at once,
and joined the Cheyennes for a time--and with a purpose." Then as he
looked straight at Tell, his voice grew stern, and that mastery of men
that his presence carried made itself felt.
"Jean has bought the right to the life of my son. His pay for the
hundreds of dollars he has turned into the hands of this man was that
Mapleson should defame my son's good name and drive him from Springvale,
and that Jean in his own time was to follow and assassinate him.
Mapleson here was in league to protect Jean from the law if the deed
should ever be traced to his door. With these conditions in addition,
Mapleson was to receive the undivided one-half of section 29, range 14.
"Tell Mapleson, I pass by the crime of forging lies against the name of
Irving Whately; I pass by the plotted crimes against this town in '63; I
ignore the systematic thievery of your dealings with the half-breed Jean
Pahusca; but, by the God in heaven, my boy is my own. For the crime of
seeking to lay stain upon his name, the crime of trying to entangle him
hopelessly in a scandal and a legal prosecution with a sinful erring
girl, the crime of lending your hand to hold the coat of the man who
should stone him to death,--for these things, I, the father of Philip
Baronet, give you now twenty-four hours to leave Springvale and the
State. If at the end of that time you are within the limits of Kansas,
you must answer to me in the court-room over there; and, Tell Mapleson,
you know what's before you. I came to the West to help build it up. I
cannot render my State a greater service than by driving you from its
borders; and so long as I live I shall bar your entrance to a land that,
in spite of all it has to bear, grows a larger crop of honest men with
the conquest of each acre of the prairie soil."