Manch

Front matter

iV, y -v

« r o

V

Chapter I

The sun rose above the great wall of woods that girt the horizon : the mist rolled up from the river like a curtain and revealed the village of Bear’s Bend. Village it could hardly be called — a mere border settlement in a Western Territory — a handful of log cabins scattered along the eastern bank of a river, and along the bayou that here returned to its parent stream. Fertile though halfcultivated fields lay immediately about this little nucleus of civilization, and beyond these stretched the virgin forest. The houses were grouped mostly along the lower portion of a broad elbow of the river, which seemed to bend in here to meet the bayou — a mere rivulet in dry seasons, but a stream of formidable width during the ‘‘ rainy spell.”

As the first rays of the sun pierced the mist of the river, the blacksmith swung open the door of his shanty and began to kindle a fire in his forge. He was not the first to be astir ^t Bear’s Bend. “ Cheap Jacob,” the proprietor of the one “store” — a combination of dry-

MAKCH.

goods store, grocery, and grog-shop — was before him, and had been standing some time, pipe in mouth, at the door of his establishment, on the lookout for customers. A flatboat had brought him a fresh supply of goods and whisky the evening before, and he anticipated lively trade. “ Sheap Jacob, der People’s friend,” as he styled himself, was a huge-nosed, keen-eyed specimen of that indefatigable race which is sure to follow, with budget of “ dry goots,” in the footsteps of the adventurous pioneer. Jacob’s transactions were by no means confined to cash. Dried meats, hides, furs, tallow, wax, and other results of backwoods marksmanship and industry, were piled in the back part of his shop, until such time as his partner shpuld convey them in his flatboat to Fair town, a more important village fifty miles down the river, and there exchange them for civilized products or for money. Sometimes, though rarely, a bag or a handful of the precious dust itself came into the clutches of the little Jew ; for miners, returning from the gold-hills farther west, occasionally took a route that led them by Bear’s Bend, and refreshed their inner man with liquor, and their outer with new clothes from Jacob’s shelves. He had thriven by his trade, and instead of his former shanty had now, as his “store,” a cabin more pretentious than his neighbors’, built just at the junction of the river and bayou, streaked here and there with red paint, and surmounted by a sign that announced, in astonishing letters, “Wear House here, and fine whisky and dry goots for sale.”

As the morning advanced, Jacob’s customers began to drop in, some of them bringing fresh skins of deer, bear, or wildcat, which having disposed of in trade, they proneeded to tack tip on tke outside of tke store, giving that building a sinister aspect. By the time the sun was an hour high quite a group had collected upon the little stoop in front of the shop. They sat perched upon barrels, or sprawled upon the hewn-log benches, discussing old or recent hunts, the crop prospects, the probability of an Indian raid, or gravely commenting upon such tidings of the busy world as could be gleaned from a newspaper a month old, brought by Jacob’s partner of the flatboat. No matter what its date, a newspaper was a godsend to the citizens of Bear’s Bend, and was by common consent put into the hands of Captain Brown, who read it aloud to the attentive group in a voice that sounded like a general’s addressing his troops.

He was a remarkable-looking personage, this Captain Brown, notwithstanding his very common name. In any crowd the eye would have singled him out as beyond the ordinary. Here, at Bear’s Bend, he was looked upon as 0 a kind of chief, by virtue of the inherent right to rule expressed in his eye and voice. As for his antecedents, the settlers knew nothing and cared but little. All they • knew was that he appeared among them suddenly at the close of an autumn day, riding a blooded but jaded horse, and carrying as his only baggage a female child upon the pommel of his saddle and a rifle across his shoulder. The possession of the child won for him the sympathy of the women, and his superior handling of the gun secured the respectful consideration of the men. Indeed, so skilled did he show himself in the use of this trusty friend of the backwoodsman, and so cool and keen in the hunt, that he was chosen leader in an affray with the Indians that took place shortly after his settling at Bear’s Bend.

MAJ^CIt,

The dignified reserve of his manner, and his reputation for high laming,’’ as well as for unflinching integrity, caused him to be invested with the authority of a kind of judge, and he was appealed to to settle all disputes and give judgment on all important matters occurring in the community. On only one point did he show weakness — his treatment of his daughter. He at the same time indulged and neglected her, until it was no marvel that she grew up warm-hearted, passionately fond of her father, but impulsive and willful. But utterly as he neglected the improvement of her mind, he seemed to build hopes of some kind upon the girl, and often spoke of sending her back to the States to be educated, “ after a while,” seeming strangely unconscious of the fact that she was fast growing up, and was no longer a little child ; and it was therefore a most unlooked-for shock to him when the girl, in her fifteenth year, married into a family that was contemned and looked down upon in the settlement. Border society is by no means nice or difficult of access ; but when it chooses to ostracize it does so more effectually and terribly than can be done by the leaders of the Jiaut monde.

The father of the young man who married Milly Brown had committed the unpardonable crime of turning traitor to his race and color ; was accused of painting himself as an Indian, and joining the savages in a raid upon the whites. There was no positive proof, but circumstantial evidence was so strong that the settlers served Lynch law upon him, by hanging him on the great Live Oak, near the old block-house that had been the nucleus of their settlement. The family was thenceforth shunned and degraded below the level of savages. The fierce, bitter old motlier acquired the reputation of a witch, and was said to “ conjure ” any unfortunate horse or pig that might stray into her corn-field ; according to the report, these always came out blind or with a shriveled leg. The two sons hunted and fished by themselves, and avoided meeting their neighbors, while the girl plied her wheel and loom in solitude, and peeped shyly at passers-by as though they were beings of a different order from herself.

Neil Griffin’s marriage with the daughter of the ‘‘ Cap’n ” was a matter of great astonishment to the neighbors, but it came about in a natural way. The young man rendered the girl some service — ^fished her out of the river into which her heedlessness had upset her — and so excited at the same time her gratitude and her admiration of his pluck and promptitude. Her sympathy was also awakened for a being so isolated ; and it all ended in a marriage to which she would not suffer the young man to ask her father’s consent, knowing well that it would not have been given. It was a terrible blow to Captain Brown, but he bore it in silence and gave no sign. Indeed, after a time, he seemed reconciled in part to his daughter, and even showed some appreciation of the earnest and patient efforts made by Neil Griffin to gain his good will.

See him now as he reads, in a soiled and crumpled copy of the Chicago Times,” the account of an exciting political mass meeting in that city. Note how his bony fingers twist nervously in his long, iron-gray hair and beard. News of politics, of successful speculation, of goldgambling, or any similar stirring occurrence in the busy world, always excited him in this way. Ordinarily it was not apparent, unless to a nice observer. Now, however.

MAJfCH.

the vivid description produced an unusual effect ; there was a tremor in his firm, military voice, and when he looked up you caught a flash from his eye that startled you. It was eager — almost wild. It made you fancy that the reason he drooped his eyes in his habitually ab-' stracted fashion was to hide the fire of a restless soul — a fire which leaped up at a breath from the outer world. Looking at him, you wondered if this grim, taciturn hunter was ever an actor in that world of politics, trade, and speculation, whose distant echo now stirred him as a bugle-blast stirs the idle war-horse.

It is not likely that his companions indulged in any such speculations. One at least did not. Cheap Jacob’s imagination seldom extended beyond the radius of the dollar. His keen eye just then discove ed a flat coming across the bayou, containing three men, and he interrupted the reader by exclaiming :

‘^Well! dat ish Tom lieed and Dick Allan coming back ! What for dey cooms so soon, I wonder ! ”

“ They went out on a bear-hunt to be gone all day,” remarked another, half raising himself and leaning on his elbow. They’ve left their horses on yon side.”

“ I lets ’em have hard-tack, and powder, and whisky, and dey bees to pay in meat and skins ; and now dey cooms back mit noting, as I can see.”

‘‘ There’s Neil Griffin with them,” said another. “ Did he go bear-hunting too ? ”

“ Not he,” was the answer. He is too busy working on his house. That fellow looks as if he wanted to kill himself with work since he married. I suppose he wants to make a fortune for his little e^al.”

‘‘Wants to please the Cap’n, you’d better say. I’m blamed if he wouldn’t be willing to sign papers and agree to be a slave for the Cap’n all his life, just to get into his good graces,” spoke another of the group, glancing at Captain Brown, who had been wont to smile grimly when similar remarks were made in his hearing. But now his face was shaded by his hand, and its expression was concealed.

“Well, dere ish someting at the bottom of the flat,” said the Jew, continuing his examination, “but I makes it out more man dan bear.”

“ It is a man ! ” cried another — “ a man lying down there asleep, or dead. I say, men, ain’t that blood on his face and breast ? ”

Instantly every man sprang to his feet and hurried down to the bank to which the flat was now approaching.

A little farther down the bayou, in a log-cabin close to the water-side, another person was watching the approach of the flat in which the loungers at the store were so much interested. It was a very girlish face that looked from the small window hung with purple-blossomed “ traveler’s delight.” Indeed, the immature features, the youthful droop and curve of the shoulders, and that wistful, someway pathetic look about the eyes and mouth gave the impression of its being almost a child’s face. She looked out a little anxiously along the river, and her eyes lighted up as she caught sight of the flat.

“ Yes, there’s Neil,” she said. “ I am glad he’s coming back so soon. I’ll have breakfast all ready and be pleasant-like to make amends for what I said last night. After all, I ought not to grumble about being poor with such a kind husband. I never did such a thing before. It all came of that man showing his gold and jewels, and

MAJfCH.

telling about the fine things he meant to give the wife and children he had not seen for so long. Oh ! I do love beautiful things ! I should like so much to wear jewels and long, fiowing dresses, bright-colored like the clouds, and to live in a house with white walls and pictures, and be able to hear music, and be accomplished as my mother must have been. I know my mother was a lady. She looks like I suppose a lady must look.”

She opened a little carved wooden box that Neil had made for her, and which contained her few small treasures, and took from it a miniature in a plain case attached to a ribbon. It represented a lovely woman handsomely dressed.

‘‘ Yes, my mother was a lady. How sweet and grand she looks ! She has a ring on her pretty hand. I wonder if it is a diamond like the one the old miner showed us last night? What would I give to wear such a ring as that ? But if I had it I would sell it. No doubt it would bring a great price, and the money would help Neil to get rich ; and if he were rich, perhaps my father would like him. Oh ! if my father would but like Neil, I should be happy enough.”

She sighed, and the long brown lashes dropped for an instant upon her cheek. Then turning to the window she looked out again, and saw that the fiat had landed opposite the store, and the three men had got out.

“Neil has brought over some men in the fiat,” thought Milly. “ They are hunters and have some kind of big game — bear, it looks like. They’ll go to the store, but Neil will be here directly.”

She put up her miniature carefully, and went to put the breakfast, that had been kept warm by the fire, upon

MAJfCH.

the table in readiness for him. But the oatmeal cakes grew stiff, and the broiled venison was cold, before she heard a footstep at the door. Then it was not NeiPs quick tread, but a hesitating, shuffling bare footstep. She was sitting down upon the floor giving the kitten its breakfast, but rose quickly and went to the door. There stood a hard-featured youth with a shock of red hair and small eyes, that made a point of looking everywhere but at your face while he spoke to you.

“ You are wanted at the store,” he said suddenly, rolling his eyes in a direction opposite the girl.

“Me! Wanted at the store? What’s the matter? Is IN’eil sick ? ” asked Milly excitedly.

“JSTo.”

“ Is my father there ? ”

“He’s there.”

“Is anything the matter with him ? ”

“ What am I wanted for ? What has happened ? ” inquired Milly.

“ I was told to tell you you was wanted at the store, and I tolled you,” said the boy, rolling his marble between his Angers and staring hard at the rafters overhead.

“ Well, that’s comical,” said Milly, laughing nervously as she tied a handkerchief over her short curls and followed the boy.

As she neared the store, she saw that something unusual had occurred. Every male individual in the settlement, boy and man, was there. They were standing in groups, and talking and gesticulating excitedly ; but all became quiet as Milly stepped upon the porch. She looked around at their grave, agitated faces, and her

MAKCH.

heart beat wildly. She saw her father standing a little to one side, his tall stature and iron-gray head showing above the rest. In front of her, leaning against the wall, was Ileil, very pale and strange-looking, as she saw at a glance. His eye was upon her, and she was at his side in an instant.

‘‘ Heil, what is it ? What has happened ? ”

“ Don’t be frightened,” he said. “ Don’t do yourself a hurt, Milly ; be calm.”

“ Why have they sent for me, Heil ? ”

‘‘ They want to ask you some questions.”

“ Questions ? about what ? What is the matter with your hand, Heil?” she asked, trying to take his right hand out of his bosom, in which he had been keeping it while she talked to him. He resisted her attempt to do so for a moment ; then suddenly, while an expression of intense pain passed over his face, he drew it out and held it before her eyes. She started ; there was blood upon it.

“ Heil, you are hurt,” she exclaimed, as she examined the bloody hand eagerly to see the extent of the injury. But she found no wound.

‘‘ Heil, what blood is this ?”

He shook his head. She looked sharply into his face, then turned and looked into the faces of those around him, while a sick feeling crept to her heart.

‘‘ Your father will tell you about it,” said Neil huskily, as he gave her over to Captain Brown, who had now come to her side. ‘‘ Don’t be too sudden with her,” he said. “ Eemember her condition.” Then turning himself half round, he locked his hands before him, and stood staring down at his blood-stained fingers, like one in a

MAJfCH.

dream. Milly turned to her father with eyes full of anxious appealing.

“ Men,” he said, with a slight wave of his hand toward the assembled villagers, “ here is my daughter ; ask her what you wish.”

‘‘No, no, Cap’n,” demurred several voices at once. “ Ask her yourself ; you miderstand all about it.”

“ And you know how to be easy with her, poor thing,” added an old hunter, whose heart was in the right place.

“ Milly,” said her father — and it was noticeable that his usually firm voice trembled with pardonable emotion — “what time did your husband leave the house this morning ? ”

“ He went off at daybreak, to put a man across the river who had stopped with us all night. The man asked Neil to go with him a little way to put him on the road to Fairtown.”

“ Who was this man, and what was his age and appearance ? ”

“ He was a miner, all the way from the gold-diggings, and was going home. He was a middle-aged man, with long, grayish hair and beard, and wore dressed buckskin breeches and — ”

“ Did he have mooch money, child ? ” interrupted the Jew.

Milly hesitated, and looked back at her husband, but he did not raise his eyes.

“ Speak out,” said her father./ “ Did he have money ? ”

“ Yes ; he had gold and diamonds. He did not want any one to know it, for fear of being robbed. He showed it to us, because he seemed to take to my husband ; and, besides, I think he was drinking a good deal

MAXCII.

of whisky. He was in high spirits about going home, and was very open with us about his money.”

“ Where did he carry it \ ”

“ In a leather belt around his waist, a part of it, and some of it was quilted in a vest he had on, made out of a rattlesnake’s skin. He had lumps of gold and a bag of diamonds, which he said came from Brazil.”

“ Mein Fader ! ” exclaimed the Jew. ^

Had the man any diamond rings, Milly ? ” asked the Captain of the bewildered and troubled girl.

“ Yes, he had one. It was roughly set. I think he told ns he did it himself.”

‘‘ Like this ? ” cried the Jew, running up to Is eil, and holding up the prisoner’s hand, on the little finger of which shone a diamond rudely set in a heavy gold band.

Milly looked in wonder. “ That is like the ring he made me try on my finger last night. Heil must have bought it.”

‘‘ Joost so,” sneered the Jew. “ Yes, I reckon so.”

“I gave my knife for it, Milly,” said Heil — “the dagger-knife that came from my grandfather. You know the old man wanted to buy it. I let him have it for the ring for you.”

“We come upon him with that knife in his hand, a-stoopin’ over the body,” said the hunter, Tom Heed, holding out the silver-mounted Mexican knife, red with blood.

“ The body ! ” repeated Milly, looking wildly at her father. “ Where is the old miner % ”

“ He is dead.”

“Murdered!” exclaimed the Jew, “and de pody robbed. Pelt and vest, loomps of gold and pag of diamonds, all gone ! ”

‘‘ Murdered ! Oh ! who did it ? ’’

“ Who did it ? Dot ish plain. Look dere at de ploody hand, and den look here, vill yon ? ”

He threw open the door of the store before Captain Brown could interfere, and Milly caught a glimpse of a ghastly, gory figure, stretched out on a bench just within the door, the breast and long grizzly beard matted with blood.

“ Wretch ! what do you mean by showing her that ? ” cried Captain Brown, catching the dealer by the collar and throwing him to the farther extremity of. the porch. Then he stooped to raise Milly, who had dropped to her knees, but IS’eil was before him. He had Milly in his arms, rubbing her forehead with his blood-stained fingers.

She was not insensible, and soon stood upon her feet, clinging to her husband.

“Take her home. Captain,” said Heil — “take her home and be good to her, for God’s sake ! ”

But Milly kept her hands upon her husband’s arm.

“ I won’t go, Heil, till I hear from your own mouth that you did not kill the old man. I don’t believe you did ; I never can believe it ; but I want to hear you deny it with your own lips.”

“ I did not kill the man, Milly,” said ISTeil, looking in her face. It was remarkable that, though his tone was impressive, he spoke sadly and without animation. There was nothing of the indignant accent of denial, such as might have been expected.

“ What right had they to accuse you of such a thing ? ” “ They came upon me by the body, with the bloody

MAJSVH.

knife, in my hand — my knife there, that I had swapped to him, as I told you, for the ring you wanted. I parted with him at the road — left him a-fixing his stirrup-strap ; and when I had gone about a couple of hundred yards I heard a loud cry, and, while I stood listening, the miner’s horse come galloping by with his head up and snortin.’ I run back as fast as I could, and there lay the old man under Gallows Oak, dyin’. He’d been knocked down, and then stabbed with the knife he got from me. It was stickin’ in his breast, and he motioned me to draw it out. I pulled it out, and the blood come in a spurt as thick as my wrist. The man gasped and died without saying a word. Then Keed and Allan came up and found me there.”

“ Go on,” said Tom Reed. “Why don’t you tell the rest? Tell how, when we come upon you, you was a-starin’, now at the knife, and now at the woods, and a-mutterin’ some kind o’ gibberish, after the fashion of your conjurin’ old marm. I’m blest if we didn’t hear him mutterin’ about his wife. He didn’t seem to notice us, and, when we asked about the murder, he said he didn’t do it. Then we asked who did do it, and he shook his head, mum as a mole. Afterward he burst out with somethin’ that meant he had seen the murderer. ‘ Where is he now ? ’ asked my comrade here, and Heil Griffin stared around like mad, and said : ^ Gone for good and all, he hoped. He trusted never to set eyes upon him again.’ But nary time would he tell ns who he was. Just put the question to him straightforward-like, Cap’n. Ask him if he saw the man that did the killin’.”

Captain Brown did not speak immediately. Some undercurrent of feeling, perhaps pity, perhaps mortifica-

MAXCH.

lY tion, seemed to stir within him ; for the muscles of his mouth and forehead twitched slightly, and his olive cheek went a shade paler. He hesitated, and w^hile he did so Heil Griffin raised his eyes, and looked him full in the face for a minute. It would be hard to decide upon the expression or analyze the meaning of that look. Whatever it was, it seemed to have some effect upon his stern father-in-law. The contracted lines of the Captain’s face gave way, and he put the question in almost his ordinary tone, but not in the form suggested by Tom Reed.

“Did you see any person in the act of committing this murder ? ”

“ Not in the act^ Cap’n,” interposed Reed. “ The act w^as already committed. He give us to understand that there was a man stoopin’ over the body as he run up, and the man was robbin’ the body. Says he made off with the plunder, he thinlcsP

“ He tinks ! ” exclaimed Cheap Jacob. “ Where pees his eyes? Dat ish one likely shtory ! Yell, who was de murderer ? ”

“ That’s what w^e want to know,” sounded the stentorian voice of Dick Allan, speaking for the first time. “Who is the murderer? Tell us that^ Neil Griffin.”

“ Yes, tell us that,” echoed a dozen voices, and the circle of stem, excited faces began to narrow around Neil. “ Tell us who did the murder.”

He did not reply, but kept his eyes fixed upon his hands, as though the stain of blood upon them fascinated his gaze.

“ He said it was somebody he knew,” cried Allan. “We asked him, and he threw up his arms and said : ‘ O Lord ! yes. Who would have thought it ! ’”

MAJfCH.

‘‘ It was one of his redskin friends, may be,” sneered another, in allusion to the Griffins’ suspected complicity with the Indian marauders — the crime for which hTeil’s father had been hanged on the Cross Eoads Oak.

‘‘ May be it was Gabe,” observed another, “ his big bud Gabe. A chip of the same block.”

“ Gabe’s down with the fever, you know.”

‘‘ Pshaw ! old Hagar could cure that quick enough with her witch-yarbs, if there was any devil’s work to be done.”

‘‘ Bosh ! ” cried Allan’s clarion voice, as he threw out one brawny leg, and swept around his arm impatiently. “This is all child’s play. That fellow’s story carries the lie on its face. If he knew the murderer, he’d speak out soon enough to save his own neck from the noose. We’ll help him to a knowledge of the murderer. That ring and them bloody hands and knife does the business, let alone lots of other suspicious things. 3£en^ there stands the fellow that hilled the old man ! ” And he leveled his great forefinger at Neil Griffin’s face.

“ Yes / there he stands. We know that ! ” responded a chorus of voices.

“ Neil, do you hear that ! ” cried Milly, turning to her husband. “ Have you lost your senses ? Don’t you see your life is in danger % Why do you not tell them the name of the man you saw ? ”

He looked down tenderly at her, but said nothing.

“ Won’t you tell who it was, Neil ? ”

“No, Milly,” he whispered, grasping tightly the hands that clutched him so vehemently.

“ Father, speak to him. He can’t be in his right mind. Tell him to speak out, and clear himself of this black deed.”

He will do it sooner for you than any one else, Milly. It is his duty to think of you. If he thinks it best for you that he should tell the name of the man who did the murder, he ought to tell it at once.’’

“ Best for me ! ” cried Milly. ‘‘ Of course it is best for me and for him that he should clear himself at once. Neil, speak out, and tell who it was that did the murder. Won’t you for my sake — for my sake, Neil?”

“ For your sake, Milly, I would die,” he said low, holding her hands tightly in his, and looking at her with passionate fire burning up through the troubled depths of his eyes — “ for your sake, I would die.”

Then, as if forgetting the presence of others, he went on in that impassioned undertone :

“ Most like, it would be best for you if I did die. I’ve spoilt your life, my girl, well as I love you. I see that now. I’ve made you marry where you’ll always be ashamed. I was not good enough for you, and my people are not fit for you to call kin. You’ve had to give up your friends, and well-nigh your father, for me. I know you care more for your father than you do for me. I don’t wonder at it either. I know he could do a better part by you than I can. He’d have made a lady of you if you hadn’t married me: as you said last night.”