They came slowly toward us, the two captive women for whom we waitedThey came slowly toward us, the two captive women for whom we waited
There was another type of woman whom he misjudged—that of Lettie Conlow. In his dictatorial little spirit, he did not give a second thought beyond the use he could make of her in his greedy swooping in of money.
"O'mie knows too much," Judson informed his friend. "He's better out of this town. And Lettie, now, I can just do anything with Lettie. You know, Mapleson, a widower's really more attractive to a girl than a young man; and as for me, well, it's just in me, that's all. Lettie likes me."
Whatever Tell thought, he counselled care.
"You can't be too careful, Judson. Girls are the unsafest cattle on this green earth. My boy fancied Conlow's girl once. I sent him away. He's married now, and doing well. Runs on a steamboat from St. Louis to New Orleans. I'd go a little slow about gettin' a girl like Lettie in here."
"Oh, I can manage any girl on earth. Old maids and young things'll come flockin' round a man with money. Beats all."
This much O'mie had overheard as the two talked together in tones none too low, in Judson's little cage of an office, forgetting the clerk arranging the goods for the night.
When Judson had found out how Mrs. Whately had tried to help his cause by appealing to my father, his anger was a fury. Poor Mrs. Whately, who had meant only forthe best, beset with the terror of disgrace to Marjie through the dishonorable acts of her father, tried helplessly to pacify him. Between her daughter and herself a great gulf opened whenever Judson's name was mentioned; but in everything else the bond between them was stronger than ever.
"She is such a loving, kind daughter, Amos," Mrs. Whately said to the anxious suitor. "She fills the house with sunshine, and she is so strong and self-reliant. When I spoke to her about our coming poverty, she only laughed and held up her little hands, and said, 'They 're equal to it.' The very day I spoke to her she began to do something. She found three music pupils right away. She's been giving lessons all this Fall, and has all she can give the time to. And when I hinted about her father's name being disgraced, she kissed his picture and put it on the Bible and said, 'He was true as truth. I won't disgrace myself by ever thinking anything else.' And last of all, because she did so love Phil once" (poor Mrs. Whately was the worst of strategists here), "when I tried to put his case she said indifferently, 'If he did wrong, let him right it. But he didn't.' Now, Amos, you must talk to her yourself. I don't know what John Baronet advised her to do."
Talking to Marjie was the thing Amos could not do, and the mention of John Baronet was worse than the recollection of that callow stripling, Phil. The widower stormed and scolded and threatened, until Mrs. Whately turned to him at last and said quietly:
"Amos, I think we will drop the matter now. Go home and think it over."
He knew he had gone too far, and angry as he was, he had the prudence to hold his tongue. But his purpose was undaunted. His temper was not settled, however, when Mapleson called on him later in the day. Lettie was busy marking down prices on a counter full of small articles and the two men did not know how easily they could be overheard. Judson had no reason to control himself with Tell, and his wrath exploded then and there. Neither did Mapleson have need for temperance, and their angry tones rose to a pitch they did not note at the time.
"I tell you, Amos," Lettie heard Tell saying, "you've got to get rid of this Conlow girl, or you're done for. Phil's lost that Melrose case entirely; and he's out where a certain Kiowa brave we know is creepin' on his trail night and day. He'll never come back. If his disappearance is ever checked up to Jean, I'll clear the Injun. You can't do a thing to the Baronets. If this thing gets up to Judge John, you're done for. I'll never stand by it a minute. You can't depend on me. Now, let her go."
"I tell you I'm going to marry Marjie, Lettie or no Lettie. Good Lord, man! I 've got to, or be ruined. It's too late now. I can get rid of this girl when I want to, but I'll keep her a while."
Lettie dropped her pencil and crept nearer to the glass partition over the top of which the angry words were coming to her ears. Her black eyes dilated and her heart beat fast, as she listened to the two men in angry wrangle.
"He's going to marry Marjie. He'll be ruined if he doesn't. And he says that after all he has promised me all this Fall and Winter! Oh!" She wrung her hands in bitterness of soul. Judson had not counted on having to reckon with Lettie, any more than with Marjie.
That night at prayer meeting, a few more prominent people were quietly let into the secret of the comingevent, and the assurance with which the matter was put left little room for doubt.
John Baronet sat in his office looking out on the leafless trees of the courthouse yard and down the street to where the Neosho was glittering coldly. It was a gray day, and the sharp chill in the air gave hint of coming rough weather.
Down the street came Cris Mead on his way to the bank, silent Cris, whose business sense and moral worth helped to make Springvale. He saw my father at the window, and each waved the other a military salute. Presently Father Le Claire, almost a stranger to Springvale now, came up the street with Dr. Hemingway, but neither of them looked toward the courthouse. Other folks went up and down unnoted, until Marjie passed by with her music roll under her arm. Her dark blue coat and scarlet cap made a rich bit of color on the gray street, and her fair face with the bloom of health on her cheek, her springing step, and her quiet grace, made her a picture good to see. John Baronet rose and stood at the window watching her. She lifted her eyes and smiled a pleasant good-morning greeting and went on her way. Some one entered the room, and with the picture of Marjie still in his eyes, he turned to see Lettie Conlow. She was flashily dressed, and a handsome new fur cape was clasped about her shoulders. Self-possession, the lifetime habit of the lawyer and judge, kept his countenance impassive. He bade her a courteous good-morning and gave her a chair, but the story he had already read in her face made him sick at heart. He knew the ways of the world, of civil courts, of men, and of some women; so he waited to see what turn affairs would take. His manner, however, had that habitual dignified kindliness that boundpeople to him, and made them trust him even when he was pitted with all his strength against their cause.
Lettie had boasted much of what she could do. She had refused all of O'mie's well-meant counsel, and she had been friends with envy and hatred so long that they had become her masters.
It must have been a strange combination of events that could take her now to the man upon whom she would so willingly have brought sorrow and disgrace. But a passionate, wilful nature such as hers knows little of consistency or control.
"Judge Baronet," Lettie began in a voice not like the bold belligerent Lettie of other days, "I've come to you for help."
He sat down opposite her, with his back to the window.
"What can I do for you, Lettie?"
"I don't know," the girl answered confusedly. "I don't know—how much to tell you."
John Baronet looked steadily at her a moment. Then he drew a deep breath of relief. He was a shrewd student of human nature, and he could sometimes read the minds of men and women better than they read themselves. "She has not come to accuse, but to get my help," was his conclusion.
"Tell me the truth, Lettie, and as much of it as I need to know," he said kindly. "Otherwise, I cannot help you at all."
Lettie sat silent a little while. A struggle was going on within her, the strife of ill-will against submission and penitent humiliation. Some men might not have been able to turn the struggle, but my father understood. The girl looked up at length with a pleading glance. She had helped to put misery in two lives dear to the man before her. She had even tried to drag down to disgrace theson on whom his being centred. In no way could she interest him, for his ideals of life were all at variance with hers. Small wonder, if distrust and an unforgiving spirit should be his that day. But as this man of wide experience and large ideals of right and justice looked at this poor erring girl, he put away everything but the determination to help her.
"Lettie," he said in that deep strong voice that carried a magnetic power, "I know some things you do not want to tell. It is not what you have done, but what you are to do that you must consider now."
"That's just it, Mr. Baronet," Lettie cried. "I've done wrong, I know, but so have other people. I can't help some things I've done to some folks now. It's too late. And I hated 'em."
The old sullen look was coming back, and her black brows were drawn in a frown. My father was quick to note the change.
"Never mind what can't be helped, Lettie," he said gravely. "A good many things right themselves in spite of our misdoing. But let's keep now to what you can do, to what I can do for you." His voice was full of a stern kindness, the same voice that had made me walk the straight line of truth and honor many a time in my boyhood.
"You can summon Amos Judson here and make him do as he has promised to do." Lettie cried, the hot tears filling her eyes.
"Tell me his promise first," her counsel said. And Lettie told him her story. As she went on from point to point, she threw reserve to the winds, and gave word to many thoughts she had meant to keep from him. When she had finished, John Baronet sat with his eyes on the floor a little while.
"Lettie, you want help, and you need it; and you deserve it on one condition only," he said slowly.
"What's that?" she asked eagerly.
"That you also be just to others. That's fair, isn't it?"
"Yes, it is," she agreed. Her soul was possessed with a selfish longing for her own welfare, but she was before a just and honorable judge now, in an atmosphere of right thinking.
"You know my son Phil, have known him many years. Although he is my boy, I cannot shield him if he does wrong. Sin carries its own penalty sooner or later. Tell me the truth now, as you must answer for yourself sometime before the almighty and ever-living God, has Philip Baronet ever wronged you?"
How deep and solemn his tones were. They drove the frivolous trifling spirit out of Lettie, and a sense of awe and fear of lying suddenly possessed her. She dropped her eyes. The old trickery and evil plotting were of no avail here. She durst do nothing but tell the truth.
"He never did mistreat me," she murmured, hardly above a whisper.
"He took you home from the Andersons' party the night Dave Mead was at Red Range?" queried my father.
Lettie nodded.
"Of his own choice?"
She shook her head. "Amos asked him to," she said.
"And you told him good-bye at your own door?"
Another nod.
"Did you see him again that night?"
"Yes." Lettie's cheeks were scarlet.
"Who took you home the second time?"
A confusion of face, and then Lettie put her head on the table before her.
"Tell me, Lettie. It will open the way for me to help you. Don't spare anybody except yourself. You need not be too hard on yourself. Those who should befriend you can lay all the blame you can bear on your shoulders." He smiled kindly on her.
"Judge Baronet, I was a bad girl. It was Amos promising me jewelry and ribbons if I'd do what he wanted, making me think he would marry me if he could. I hated a girl because—" She stopped, and her cheeks flamed deeply.
"Never mind about the girl. Tell me where you were, and with whom."
"I was out on the West Prairie, just a little way, not very far. I was coming home."
"With Phil?" My father did not comment on the imprudence of a girl out on the West Prairie at this improper hour.
"No, no. I—I came home with Bud Anderson." Then, seeing only the kind strong pitying face of the man before her, she told him all he wanted to know. Would have told him more, but he gently prevented her, sparing her all he could. When she had finished, he spoke, and his tones were full of feeling.
"In no way, then, has Philip ever done you any wrong? Have you ever known him to deceive anybody? Has he been a young man of double dealing, coarse and rude with some company and refined with others? A father cannot know all that his children do. James Conlow has little notion of what you have told me of yourself. Now don't spare my boy if you know anything."
"Oh, Judge Baronet, Phil never did a thing but be a gentleman all his life. It made me mad to see how everybody liked him, and yet I don't know how they could help it." The tears were streaming down her cheeks now.
And then the thought of her own troubles swept other things away, and she would again have begged my father to befriend her, but his kind face gave her comfort.
"Lettie, go back to the store now. I'll send a note to Judson and call him here. If I need you, I will let you know. If I can do it, I will help you. I think I can. But most of all, you must help yourself. When you are free of this tangle, you must keep your heart with all diligence. Good-bye, and take care, take care of every step. Be a good woman, Lettie, and the mistakes and wrong-doing of your girlhood will be forgotten."
As Lettie went slowly down the walk, to the street, my father looked steadily after her. "Wronged, deceived, neglected, undisciplined," he murmured. "If I set her on her feet, she may only drop again. She's a Conlow, but I'll do my best. I can't do otherwise. Thank God for a son free from her net."
Though the mills of the gods grind slowly,Yet they grind exceeding small.—FRIEDRICH VON LOGAN.
Half an hour later Amos Judson was hurrying toward the courthouse with a lively strut in his gait, answering a summons from Judge Baronet asking his immediate presence in the Judge's office.
The irony of wrong-doing lies much in the deception it practices on the wrong-doer, blunting his sense of danger while it blunts his conscience, leading him blindly to choose out for himself a way to destruction. The little widower was jubilant over the summons to the courthouse.
"Good-morning, Baronet," he cried familiarly as soon as he was inside the door of the private office. "You sent for me, I see."
My father returned his greeting and pointed to a chair. "Yes, I sent for you. I told you I would when I wanted to see you," he said, sitting down across the table from the sleek little man.
"Yes, yes, I remember, so you did. That's it, you did. I've not been back since, knowing you'd send for me; and then, I'm a business man and can't be loafing. But now this means business. That's it, business; when a man like Baronet calls for a man like me, it means something. After all, I'm right glad that the widow did speak to you. I was a little hard on her, maybe. But, confound it, a mother-in-law's like a wife, only worse. Your wife's got to obey, anyhow. The preacher settles that, but you must up and make your mother-in-law obey. Now ain't that right? You waited a good while; but I says, 'Let him think. Give him time.' That's it, 'give him time.' But to tell the truth I was getting a little nervous, because matters must be fixed up right away. I don't like to boast, but I've got the whip hand right now. Funny how a man gets to the top in a town like this." Oh, the poor little knave! Whom the gods destroy they first make silly, at least.
"And by the way, did you settle it with the widow, too? I hope you did. You'd be proud of me for a son, now Phil's clear out of it. And you and Mrs. Whately'd make the second handsomest couple in this town." He giggled at his own joke. "But say now, Baronet, it's took you an awful time to make up your mind. What's been the matter?" His familiarity and impudence were insufferable in themselves.
"I hadn't all the evidence I needed," my father answered calmly.
In spite of his gay spirits and lack of penetration that word "evidence" grated on Judson a little.
"Don't call it 'evidence'; sounds too legal, and nobody understands the law, not even the lawyers." He giggled again. "Let's get to business." A harsher tone in spite of himself was in his voice.
"We will begin at once," my father declared. "When you were here last Summer I was not ready to deal with you. The time has come for us to have an understanding. Do you prefer any witness or counsel, or shall we settle this alone?"
Judson looked up nervously into my father's face, but he read nothing there.
"I—well, I don't know quite what you mean. No, I don't want no witnesses, and I won't have 'em, confound it. This is between us as man to man; and don't you try to bring in no law on this, because you know law books. This is our own business and nobody else's. I'd knock my best friend out of the door if he come poking into my private matters. Why, man alive! this is sacred. That's it—an affair of the heart. Now be careful." His voice was high and angry and his self-control was slipping.
"Amos Judson, I've listened patiently to your words. Patiently, too, I have watched your line of action, for three years. Ever since I came home from the war I have followed your business methods carefully."
The little man before him was turning yellow in spite of his self-assurance and reliance on his twin gods, money and deception, to carry him through any vicissitude. He made one more effort to bring the matter to his own view.
"Now, don't be so serious, Baronet. This is a little love affair of mine. If you're interested, all right; if not, let it go. That's it, let it go, and I'm through with you." He rose to his feet.
"But I'm not through with you. Sit down. I sent for you because I wanted to see you. I am not through with this interview. Whether it's to be the last or not will depend on conditions."
Judson was very uncomfortable and blindly angry, but he sat as directed.
"When I came home, I found you in possession of all the funds left by my friend, Irving Whately, to his wife and child. A friend's interest led me to investigate thebusiness fallen to you. Irving begged me, when his mortal hours were few, to befriend his loved ones. It didn't take long to discover how matters were shaping themselves. But understanding and belief are one thing, and legal evidence is another."
"What was it your business?" Judson stormed. My father rose and, going to his cabinet, he took from an inner drawer a folded yellow bit of paper torn from a note book. Through the centre of it was a ragged little hole, the kind a bullet might have cut.
"This," he said, "was in Whately's notebook. We found it in his pocket. The bullet that killed him went through it, and was deadened a trifle by it, sparing his life a little longer. These words he had written in camp the night before that battle at Missionary Ridge:
"'If I am killed in battle I want John Baronet to take care of my wife and child.' It was witnessed by Cris Mead and Howard Morton. Morton's in the hospital in the East now, but Cris is down in the bank. Both of their signatures are here."
Judson sat still and sullen.
"This is why it was my business to find out, at least, if all was well with Mrs. Whately and her daughter. It wasn't well, and I set about making it well. I had no further personal interest than this then. Later, when my son became interested in the Whately family, I dropped the matter—first, because I could not go on without giving a wrong impression of my motives; and secondly, because I knew my boy could make up to Marjie the loss of their money."
"Phil hasn't any property," the widower broke in, the ruling passion still controlling him.
"None of Whately's property, no," my father replied; "but he has a wage-earning capacity which is better thanall the ill-begotten property anybody may fraudulently gather together. Anyhow, I reasoned that if my boy and Whately's girl cared for each other, I would not be connected with any of their property matters. I have, however, secured a widow's pension and some back-pay for Mrs. Whately, and not a minute too soon." He smiled a little. "Oh, yes, Tell Mapleson went East on the same train I did in October. I just managed to outwit him in time, and all his affidavits and other documents were useless. He would have cut off that bit of assistance from a soldier's widow to help your cause. It would have added much value to your stock if Irving Whately's name should have been so dishonored at Washington that his wife should receive no pension for his service and his last great sacrifice. But so long as Phil and Marjie were betrothed, I let your business alone."
Judson could not suppress a grin of satisfaction.
"Now that there is no bond other than friendship between the two families, and especially since Marjie has begged me to take hold of it, I have probed this business of yours to the bottom. Don't make any mistake," he added, as Judson took on a sly look of disbelief. "You will be safer to accept that fact now. Drop the notion that your tracks are covered. I've waited for some time, so that one sitting would answer."
There was a halting between cowardly cringing and defiance, overlaid all with a perfect insanity of anger; for Judson had lost all self-control.
"You don't know one thing about my business, and you can't prove a word you say, you infernal, lying, old busybody, not one thing," he fairly hissed in his rage.
John Baronet rose to his full height, six feet and two inches. Clasping his hands behind his back he looked steadily down at Judson until the little man trembled.No bluster, nor blows, could have equalled the supremacy of that graceful motion and that penetrating look.
"It takes cannon for the soldier, the rope for the assassin, the fist for the rowdy; but, by Heaven! it's a ludicrous thing to squander gunpowder when insect powder will accomplish the same results. I told you, I had waited until I had the evidence," he said. "Now you are going to listen while I speak."
It isn't the fighter, but the man with the fighting strength, who wins the last battle. Judson cowered down in his chair and dropped his eyes, while my father seated himself and went on.
"Before Irving Whately went to the war he had me draw up a will. You witnessed it. It listed his property—the merchandise, the real estate, the bank stock, the cash deposits, and the personal effects. One half of this was to become Marjie's at the age of twenty (Marjie was twenty on Christmas Day), and the whole of it in the event of her mother's death. He did not contemplate his wife's second marriage, you see. That will, with other valuable papers, was put into the vault here in the courthouse for safe keeping, and you carried the key. While most of the loyal, able-bodied men were fighting for their country's safety, you were steadily drawing on the bank account in the pretence of using it for the store. Nobody can find from your bookkeeping how matters were in that business during those years.
"On the night Springvale was to be burned, you raided the courthouse, taking these and other papers away, because you thought the courthouse was to be burned that night. Mapleson got mixed up in his instructions, you remember, and Dodd nearly lost his good name in his effort to get these same papers out of the courthouse to burn them. You and Tell didn't 'tote fair' with him,and he thought you were here in town. You wouldn't have treated the parson well, had your infamous scheme succeeded. But you were not in town. You left your sick baby and faithful wife to carry that will and that property-list out to the old stone cabin, where you hid them. You meant to go back and destroy them after you had examined them more carefully. But you never could find them again. They were taken from your hiding-place and put in another place. You thought you were alone out there; also you thought you had outwitted Dodd. You could manage the Methodist Church South, but you failed to reckon with the Roman Catholics. While you were searching the draw to get back across the flood, Father Le Claire, wet from having swum the Neosho up above there, stopped to rest in the gray of the morning. You didn't see him, but he saw you."
My father paused and, turning his back on the cowardly form in the chair, walked to the window. Presently he sat down again.
"Mrs. Whately was crushed with grief over her husband's death; she was trustful and utterly ignorant in business matters; and in these circumstances you secured her signature to a deed for the delivery of all her bank stock to you. She had no idea what all that paper meant. She only wanted to be alone with her overwhelming sorrow. I need not go through that whole story of how steadily, by fraud, and misuse, and downright lie, you have eaten away her property, getting everything into your own name, until now you would turn the torture screw and force a marriage to secure the remnant of the Whately estate, you greedy, grasping villain!
"But defrauding Irving Whately's heirs and getting possession of that store isn't the full limit of your 'business.' You and Tell Mapleson, after cutting Dodd andConlow out of the game, using Conlow only as a cat's paw, you two have been conducting a systematic commerce on commission with one Jean Pahusca, highway robber and cut-throat, who brings in money and small articles of value stolen in Topeka and Kansas City and even St. Louis, with the plunder that could be gathered along the way, all stored in the old stone cabin loft and slipped in here after dark by as soft-footed a scoundrel as ever wore a moccasin. You and Tell divide the plunder and promise Jean help to do his foes to death—fostering his savage blood-thirsty spirit."
"You can't prove that. Jean's word's no good in law; and you never found it out through Le Claire. He's Jean's father; Dodd says so." Judson was choking with rage.
"The priest can answer that charge for himself," my father said calmly. "No, it was your head clerk, Thomas O'Meara, who took a ten days' vacation and stayed at night up in the old stone cabin for his health. You know he has weak lungs. He found out many things, even Jean's fear of ghosts. That's the Indian in Jean. The redskin doesn't live that isn't afraid of a ghost, and O'mie makes a good one. This traffic has netted you and Mapleson shamefully large amounts.
"Where's my evidence?" he asked, as Judson was about to speak. "Ever since O'mie went into the store, your books have been kept, and incidentally your patronage has increased. That Irishman is shrewd and to the last penny accurate. All your goods delivered by Dever's stage, or other freight, with receipts for the same are recorded. All the goods brought in through Jean's agency have been carefully tabulated. This record, sworn to before old Joseph Mead, Cris's father, as notary, and witnessed by Cam Gentry, Cris Mead, and Dr. Hemingway, lies sealed and safe in the bank vault.
"One piece of your trickery has a double bearing; here, and in another line. Your books show that gold rings, a watch chain, sundry articles of a woman's finery charged to Marjory Whately, taken from her mother's income, were given as presents to another girl. Among them are a handsome fur collar which Lettie Conlow had on this very morning, and some beautiful purple ribbon, a large bow of which fastened with a valuable pin set with brilliants I have here."
He opened a drawer of his desk and lifted out the big bow of purple ribbon which Lettie lost on the day Marjie and I went out to the haunted cabin. "In your stupid self-conceit you refused to grant a measure of good common sense and powers of observation to those about you. I have seen your kind before; but not often, thank God!"
My father paused, and the two sat in silence for a few moments. Judson evidently fancied his case closed and he was beginning to hunt for a way out, when his accuser spoke again.
"Your business transactions, however, rank as they are, cannot equal your graver deeds. Human nature is selfish, and a love of money has filled many a man's soul with moth and rust. You are not the only man who, to get a fortune, turned the trick so often that when an opportunity came to steal, he was ready and eager for the chance. Some men never get caught, or being known, are never brought to the bar of account; but you have been found out as a thief and worse than a thief; you have tried to destroy a good man's reputation. With words that were false, absolutely false, you persuaded a defenceless woman that her noble husband—wearing now themartyr's crown of victory—you persuaded her, I say, that this man had done the things you yourself have done in his name—that he was a business failure, a trickster, and an embezzler. With Tell Mapleson and James Conlow and some of that Confederate gang from Fingal's Creek, swearing to false affidavits, you made Mrs. Whately believe that his name was about to be dishonored for wrongs done in his business and for fraudulent dealing which you, after three years of careful sheltering, would no longer hide unless she gave her daughter to you in marriage. For these days of wearing grief to Mrs. Whately you can never atone. You and Tell, as I said a while ago, almost succeeded in your scheme at Washington. To my view this is infinitely worse than taking Irving Whately's property.
"All this has been impersonal to me, except as the wrongs and sorrows of a friend can hurt. But I come now to my own personal interest. And where that is concerned a man may always express himself."
Judson broke out at this point unable to restrain himself further.
"Baronet, you needn't mind. You and me have nothing in the world in common."
My father held back a smile of assent to this.
"All I ever did was to suggest a good way for you to help Mrs. Whately, best way in the world you could help her if you really feel so bad about her. But you wouldn't do it. I just urged it as good for all parties. That's it, just good for all of us; and it would have been, but I didn't command you to it, just opened the way to help you."
My father did not repress the smile this time, for the thought of Judson commanding him was too much to bear unsmilingly. The humor faded in a moment, however, and the stern man of justice went on with his charge.
"You tried to bring dishonor upon my son by plans that almost won, did win with some people. You adroitly set on foot a tale of disgraceful action, and so well was your work done that only Providence prevented the fulfilling of your plans."
"He is a fast young man; I have the evidence," Judson cried defiantly. "He's been followed and watched by them that know. I guess if you take Jean Pahusca's word about the goods you'll have to about the doings of Phil Baronet."
"No doubt about Phil being followed and watched, but as to taking Jean Pahusca's word, I wouldn't take it on oath about anything, not a whit more than I would take yours. When a man stands up in my court and swears to tell the truth the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, he must first understand what truth is before his oath is of any effect. Neither Jean nor you have that understanding. Let me tell you a story: You asked Phil to escort Lettie Conlow home one night in August. About one o'clock in the morning Phil went from his home down to the edge of the cliff where the bushes grow thick. What took him there is his own business. It is all written in a letter that I can get possession of at any time that I need it, Lettie was there. Why, I do not know. She asked him to go home with her, but he refused to do so."
Judson would have spoken but my father would not permit it here.
"She started out to that cabin at that hour of the night to meet you, started with Jean Pahusca, as you had commanded her to do, and you know he is a dangerous, villainous brute. He had some stolen goods at the cabin,and you wanted Lettie to see them, you said. If she could not entrap Phil that night, Jean must bring her out to this lonely haunted house. You led the prayer meeting that week for Dr. Hemingway. Amos Judson, so long as such men as you live, there is still need for guardian angels. One came to this poor wilful erring girl that night in the person of Bud Anderson, who not only made her tell where she was going, but persuaded her to turn back, and he saw her safe within her own home."
"It's Phil that's deceived her and been her downfall. I can prove it by Lettie herself. She's a very warm friend and admirer of mine."
"She told me in this room not two hours ago that Phil had never done her wrong. It was she who asked to have you summoned here this morning, although I was ready for you anyhow."
The end of Judson's rope was in sight now. He collapsed in his chair into a little heap of whining fear and self-abasement.
"Your worst crime, Judson, is against this girl. You have used her for your tool, your accomplice, and your villainously base purposes. You bribed her, with gifts she coveted, to do your bidding. You lived a double life, filling her ears with promises you meant only to break. Even your pretended engagement to Marjie you kept from her, and when she found it out, you declared it was false. And more, when with her own ears she heard you assert it as a fact, you sought to pacify her with promises of pleasures bought with sin. You are a property thief, a receiver of stolen goods, a defamer of character. Your hand was on the torch to burn this town. You juggled with the official records in the courthouse. You would basely deceive and marry a girl whose consent could be given only to save her father's memory from stain, andher mother from a broken heart. And greatest and blackest of all, you would utterly destroy the life and degrade the soul of one whose erring feet we owe it to ourselves to lead back to straight paths. On these charges I have summoned you to this account. Every charge I have evidence to prove beyond any shadow of question. I could call you before the civil courts at once. That I have not done it has not been for my son's sake, nor for Marjie's, nor her mother's, but for the sake of the one I have no personal cause to protect, the worst one connected with this business outside of yourself and that scoundrel Mapleson—for the sake of a woman. It is a man's business to shield her, not to drag her down to perdition. I said I would send for you when it was time for you to come again, when I was ready for you. I have sent for you. Now you must answer me."
Judson, sitting in a crumpled-up heap in the big armchair in John Baronet's private office, tried vainly for a time to collect his forces. At last he turned to the one resource we all seek in our misdoing: he tried to justify himself by blaming others.
"Judge Baronet," his high thin voice always turned to a whine when he lowered it. "Judge Baronet, I don't see why I'm the only one you call to account. There's Tell Mapleson and Jim Conlow and the Rev. Dodd and a lot more done and planned to do what I'd never 'a dreamed of. Now, why do I have to bear all of it?"
"You have only your part to bear, no more; and as to Tell Mapleson, his time is coming."
"I think I might have some help. You know all the law, and I don't know any law." My father did not smile at the evident truth of the last clause.
"You can have all the law, evidence, and witnesses you choose. You may carry your case up to the highest court.Law is my business; but I'll be fair and say to you that a man's case is sometimes safer settled out of court, if mercy is to play any part. I've no cause to shield you, but I'm willing you should know this."
"I don't want to go to court. Tell's told me over and over I'd never have a ghost of a show"—he was talking blindly now—"I want somebody to shake you loose from me. That's it, I want to get rid of you."
"How much time will it require to get your counsel and come here again?"
If a man sells his soul for wealth, the hardest trial of his life comes when he first gets face to face with the need of what money cannot buy; that is, loyalty. Such a trial came to Judson at this moment. Mapleson had warned him about Baronet, but in his puny egotistic narrowness he thought himself the equal of the best. Now he knew that neither Mapleson nor any other of the crew with whom he had been a law-breaker would befriend him.
"They ain't one of 'em 'll stand by a fellow when he's down, not a one," the little man declared.
"No, they never do; remember that," John Baronet replied.
"Well, what is it you want?" he whined.
"What are you going to do? Settle this in court or out of it?"
"Out of it, out of it," Judson fairly shrieked. "I'd be put out of the Presbyterian Church if this gets into the courts. I've got a bank account I'm not ashamed of. How much is it going to take to settle it? What's the least will satisfy you?"
"Settle it? Satisfy me? Great heavens! Can a career like this be atoned for with a bank check and interest at eight per cent?" My father's disgust knew no bounds.
"You are going to turn over to the account of Marjory Whately an amount equal to one-half the value of Whately's estate at the time of his death, with a legal rate of interest, which according to his will she was to receive at the age of twenty. The will," my father went on, as he read a certain look in Judson's face, "is safe in the vault of the courthouse, and there are no keys available to the box that holds it. Also, you are going to pay in money the value of all the articles charged to Marjory Whately's account and given to other people, mostly young ladies, and especially to Lettie Conlow. Your irregular business methods in the management of that store since O'mie began to keep your records you are going to make straight and honest by giving all that is overdue to your senior partner, Mrs. Irving Whately. Furthermore, you are going to give an account for the bank stock fraudulently secured in the days of Mrs. Whately's deep sorrow. This much for your property transactions. You can give it at once or stand suit for embezzlement. I have the amounts all listed here. I know your bank account and property possession. Will you sign the papers now?"
"But—but," Judson began. "I can't. It'll take more than half, yes, all but two-thirds, I've got to my name. I can't do it. I'll have to hire to somebody if I do."
"You miserable cur, the pity is you can't make up all that you owe but that cannot be proved by any available record. Only one thing keeps me back from demanding a full return for all your years of thieving stewardship."
"Isn't that all?" Judson asked.
"Not yet. You cannot make returns for some things. If it were all a money proposition it would be simple. The other thing you are going to do, now mark me, I've left you the third of your gains for it. You are going tomake good your promise to Lettie Conlow, and you will do it now. You will give her your name, the title of wife. Your property under the Kansas law becomes hers also; her children become the heirs to your estate. These, with an honest life following, are the only conditions that can save you from the penitentiary, as an embezzler, a receiver of stolen goods, a robber of county records, a defamer of innocent men, an accomplice in helping an Indian to steal a white girl, and a libertine.
"I shall not release the evidence, nor withdraw the power to bring you down the minute you break over the restrictions. Amos Judson," (there was a terrible sternness in my father's voice, as he stood before the wretched little man), "there is an assize at which you will be tried, there is a bar whose Judge knows the heart as well as the deed, and for both you must answer to Him, not only for the things in which I give you now the chance to redeem yourself, but for those crimes for which the law may not now punish you. There is here one door open beside the one of iron bars, and that is the door to an honest life. Redeem your past by the future."
For the person who could have seen John Baronet that day, who could have heard his deep strong voice and felt the power of his magnetic personality, who could have been lifted up by the very strength of his nobility so as to realize what a manhood such as his can mean—for one who could have known all this it were easy to see to how hard a task I have set my pen in trying to picture it here.
"No man's life is an utter failure until he votes it so himself." My father did not relax his hold for a moment. "You must square yours by a truer line and lift up to your own plane the girl you have promised to marry, and prosperity and happiness such as you could neverknow otherwise will come to you. On this condition only will you escape the full penalty of the law."
The little widower stood up at last. It had been a terrible grilling, but his mind and body, cramped together, seemed now to expand.
"I'll do it, Judge Baronet. Will you help me?"
He put out his hand hesitatingly.
My father took it in his own strong right hand. No man or woman, whether clothed upon with virtue or steeped in vice, ever reached forth a hand to John Baronet and saw in his face any shadow of hesitancy to receive it. So supreme to him was the ultimate value of each human soul. He did not drop the hand at once, but standing there, as father to son he spoke:
"I have been a husband. Through all these long years I have walked alone and lonely, yearning ever for the human presence of my loved one lying these many years under the churchyard grasses back at old Rockport. Judson, be good to your wife. Make her happy. You will be blessed yourself and you will make her a true good woman."
There was a quiet wedding at the Presbyterian parsonage that evening. The name of only one witness appeared on the marriage certificate, the name in a bold hand of John Baronet.
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 fatherwere 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 Fé, New Mexico, was on his way east witha 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 aboutthe 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, uninfluentialIrish 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 theyoung 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 byorder 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 preëmpted, 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 Kiowaswas 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 someway 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 ashe 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.