Chapter XXXVIII: Some Light on the Subject

“Do you consider yourself squelched, Westy?” Mr. Wilde teased him. “About the haunted topic, I mean?”

“No, I don’t,” Westy said and meant it. “Any lake and forest that could make a fellow feel like that is supernatural and I don’t care what any hard-boiled scientist says.”

“Tell Westy what Old Scout said about the Redmond affair, too,” Billy reminded him.

“Yes. He knew all about that story, too, from John Redmond the first. He said that he was a fine fellow, but he liked adventure and was always getting into some innocent scrape when he was a boy in England. Then he ran away from home when he heard about the first cry of gold in this country. His father was a baronet or something and his mother, the countess, was prostrated after her son went away. She almost died and it so enraged his father to see his wife go on so that he sent word to his son never to bring disgrace upon them in any way. If he did, the father wrote him, the next shock would kill his mother and he, the son, would be responsible and as good as guilty of her murder.

“They must have been awful prudes that family, because John Redmond knew what would happen if they found out about Lone Star. Probably they were so snobbish they would never understand that in her way the Indian girl was as noble and gentle as they. And of course at that time all Europe thought American Indians were a lot of drunkards, thieves and murderers. At any rate, the fear of causing his mother any more anguish kept him back from writing to them after he married Lone Star.

“This Paul Mitchell was a rascal and had had Redmond’s confidence about his family affairs. Also, Mitchell, as we have already been told, hated the Indians fiercely and also Lone Star, whom he thought just roped his partner into the whole business to get his money. And he hated his partner for caring for her. Thought he was just spineless and said he’d never give any gold that he had helped to find to an Indian.

“After Mitchell had escaped no one heard of him for a long while, and Redmond had too much family pride and was too much of a gentleman to hunt his former friend down as a culprit. And when he did hear it was Mitchell himself who wrote to him and warned him that if Redmond tried to make any trouble for him he’d reveal everything to his family. Now it seems that Redmond had a first cousin in England who had great sympathy and understanding for him. They corresponded as often as it was possible for people to correspond in those times and out of the way places. Eventually the cousin’s daughter came here, who is the present Mrs. Redmond. She is a high-born woman.

“Mitchell and Redmond were equal partners and they struck it rich. Redmond alone was worth over two million when he died if Mitchell had given it to him.

“One fine day Mitchell moved to Santa Fe along about the time that John Redmond the second was born. So after a short time they met and Mitchell laughed in Redmond’s face and told him about never sharing his money with a man who had married an Indian. Besides, Redmond’s parents were still both alive and very old, and this he held as a sword over the Englishman’s head.

“When Redmond returned he swore he would never go near Mitchell again and in later years he extracted promises from his son and grandson that they wouldn’t either in deference to Lone Star whose race Mitchell had insulted.

“Then the present Mrs. Redmond came into a little money from her mother’s estate and this she shared with all and they’ve been living on it ever since.

“With nothing coming in and all going out, they’re about down to the last cent, Old Scout said, but they’re too proud to go to the present generation of Mitchells and tell them their plight.”

“Where are the present Mitchells?” Westy asked eagerly.

“Living in gilded splendor in Santa Fe, Old Scout told me,” Mr. Wilde answered.

“But how can they prove their claim now?” Westy was all interest. “Mitchell stole the paper that was all the witness Redmond had, didn’t he?”

“That’s the interesting thing. Mitchell with all his antagonism and prejudice against the Indians and which he took out on John Redmond all his life must have had a troubled conscience.

“At all events, it is whispered around Santa Fe and, in fact, some one said it was in the Santa Fe paper at the time, that when old Paul Mitchell died he willed a certain sealed envelope to his son.

“In it was a document and the envelope was never to be opened during his son’s life nor his son’s lifetime. But the first son or daughter of his grandson was to open the sealed envelope on the event of their twenty-first birthday, and it hasn’t been opened yet. They know nothing of the Redmonds at all, I believe.”

“He must have been crazy!” Rip piped up shrilly.

“Not crazy, Rip,” his uncle answered. “Just an eccentric, prejudiced, old man who let hate grow like a weed in his life, obliterating honor and everything else that’s worth while.”

“Why,” asked Billy, perplexed, “didn’t he want that envelope opened until his great-grandson’s maturity? And what makes you think it has something to do with Redmond?”

“Because I think the ingenious old scoundrel figured that the Indian strain would be about faded out in this generation. You see? He wanted his hate to live after him until the Indian was almost forgotten and the race was deteriorating. I may be wrong, but I don’t think so.”

“Where,” Westy asked Mr. Wilde, “do they keep the envelope?”

“In their home, I believe.”