A Fortune Hunter Or The Old Stone Corral Part 25

"Oh, I am inexpressibly relieved. It is not Bruce, as we feared, but it's that blood-stained Eagle Beak, Olin Estill's partner in crime and final victim."

"Why, Maud! how do you know?" said he, breathless with suspense.

"They found a silver breastplate, such as were worn by chiefs in the early days, and on the medal was an engraving of the beak of an eagle; while on the reverse, now worn dim, was the name, 'Eagle Beak.' This large plate was hung about his neck by a heavy chain of silver, which was riveted so it is impossible to remove it without filing it through, and the links have worn into the flesh--oh, horrible!" she replied, with a shudder of disgust.

With reluctant steps Clifford sought the cavern, where his parents and the Moreland family were grouped about the door; and after a few minutes of greeting, he went in alone to where the corpse was lying cold and still; and when he had removed the white sheet from its face, he stood long and silently regarding the revolting picture of depravity and ferocious cunning that even yet showed on every feature, frozen in the rigid calm of death.

"No, thank G.o.d! this is not the face of n.o.ble Bruce; but still it is that of a white man--some wretched desperado, who had fled from the avenging arm of justice, and had gained sway over a band of savages as brutal and vicious, but less daring and cunning than himself," thought young Warlow. "This certainly is a sermon on the retribution which Providence holds in store for those who perpetrate such crimes of inhuman atrocity as this wretch is stained with," he said, as Maud came into the cell.

They buried the remains upon a lofty hill near by, the top of which was visible from their homes in the valley; no ceremony was observed, but the horrible details of burial were delegated to a few workmen from the hay-field, and by three that afternoon only a small mound of clay remained to tell of a life that had been but a fever of b.l.o.o.d.y deeds.

Once--long years after--as Clifford stood in the twilight with Maud, they heard the jabbering wail of a wolf on the grave-crowned hill, and Clifford said:--

"If the departed soul does hover about the grave after death, seeking re-embodiment, then Eagle Beak has surely been born again in the form of a wolf; for he was the very incarnation, no doubt, of such a beast during his existence here. I never pa.s.s by that thistle-grown and nettle-hidden grave without a shudder; and often in the dismal night, when just such a piercing howl resounds from that hill-top, I vaguely fancy it is the soul of Eagle Beak mourning because of the limited sphere of deviltry in which his 'wolf-life' constrains his savage spirit."

"Oh, Clifford! will you never outgrow such idle fancies?" Maud exclaimed.

"No, never so long as I meet foxes, jackals, and hyenas every day, that are only veiled by a human form--very thinly disguised often--and it is G.o.d's goodness, alone, that finally denies them that mask."

"Clifford, my brother, what a strange belief for 'Deacon' Warlow, pillar of the Church, and first in all good deeds of Christian charity and enterprise in his community, to entertain and express," she replied, with a look of strange interest dawning in her beautiful but matronly face.

"Well, Maud, I find abundant proof in the Bible to substantiate this faith," he answered, gravely, "while our lives teem with the evidence of its truth."

But I have digressed too long already, and will return to my theme.

As they drove back home from the death-haunted cell, Clifford told his parents of his search for the treasure; how, after discovering the gems, he had been convinced that the gold was also secreted near, and his ultimate success in discovering it buried in the grave that Roger Coble had noticed when he rescued his father after the ma.s.sacre. The finding of Ivarene's Journal, his engagement to Mora, and discovery that she was the daughter of Bruce and his ill-fated wife, and the successful speculation in which he had figured with such great profit at Abilene, were left unrevealed, as Clifford thought his father was not strong enough to bear the strain of such excitement yet.

With Maud he was not so reticent, and after supper he told of the success at the land-office, and the use he had made at Mora's request of part of the recovered treasure.

After Maud had expressed her unbounded joy at the substantial results of that venture, Clifford noticed a shade of anxiety and sadness settle down on her face, and he hastened to say, while reaching up to gather a spray of trumpet-flowers that swung its blossoms of black, crimson, and salmon in heavy festoons over the latticed gateway: "Maud, you dear, unselfish creature, I know that you and Ralph are about to begin life together, and, when father offered me half of the twenty thousand dollars, I just mentally concluded to give you the benefit of it. It seems to me you ought to keep the pot boiling with twenty thousand acres of good land."

While Maud hung about his neck, her tearful face hidden on his shoulder, her brother continued:--

"Poor Ralph will need a great deal of encouragement from you. I have been in that very kind of a boat myself lately, and know how to sympathize with him."

Soon he was galloping down to the Estill ranch; but I will not intrude upon the privacy of that meeting between himself and Mora, only leaving it all to the imagination of the reader. Mr. Estill had not returned yet, so they still deferred making any explanation of the strange discoveries made since his departure. It was agreed, however, to reveal all on his return. Plans for the future were discussed as they strolled out on the terrace; and before he left, young Warlow had won a promise that their wedding-day would be an early one--some time in September, Mora said.

"I have had such a strange dream, twice on successive nights, lately, Clifford. It seemed as though I was Ivarene, and that I led a dual sort of an existence, part of the time as myself, and at other times I was that ill-fated Mexican bride, longing to meet Bruce once more. Some way, Clifford, I never can reconcile myself to the belief that they are my parents, and the suspense of this uncertainty is growing unbearable."

Clifford was very thoughtful for a long while after this; but at length he begged her to await the return of Mr. Estill before they divulged the secret. Then, after a lingering parting, he returned home to begin, on the morrow, preparations for the new life that was before him.

Before leaving Abilene he had engaged a skillful stone-mason, who was to begin enlarging his dwelling at once with a large force of workmen at his command; and I will only briefly tell how soon the cottage grew into a many-gabled mansion of red sandstone, with bay-windows and long wings, terraces of stone, with bal.u.s.trades of white magnesia, and marble vases filled with blooming plants, that trailed down their sides with blossoms of rose, creamy white and scarlet.

A thousand head of cattle were bought, and hurrying workmen were busy stacking vast ricks of prairie-hay near the large barn that was rising like magic under the trowels of a score of masons.

In these details I have antic.i.p.ated somewhat, but will return to the thread of my story.

The suspicions of the colonel and Mrs. Warlow were at once aroused by seeing a force of workmen beginning to enlarge Clifford's dwelling; and on perceiving this, Clifford hastened to reveal all the discoveries and transactions of the past few weeks. The journal deeply afflicted his father, who at once came to the same conclusion which the younger members of the family had arrived at on reading that doc.u.ment,--that Bruce and his wife had been murdered by Olin Estill, who had stolen their child and had left it at the Estill ranch; that Mora was that child, and that the family had raised her as their own daughter. When Clifford told of his success in the land transaction and of wis.h.i.+ng that Maud should have the twenty thousand acres meant for himself, his parents seemed both pleased and proud of his course, although his father cautioned him against using any more of the treasure until Mr. Estill was made aware of the discovery.

"Did not the Estills tell you that Mora was the daughter of Bruce and Ivarene when they made their first visit here?" said Clifford, in surprise.

"Why, no, indeed!" replied his father; "they told us of the part which they feared their nephew took in the ma.s.sacre. They believed he murdered the originals of the pictures which he left at their house soon after that tragedy, but he appeared to be insane and they never saw him alive again. It was months after when his skeleton was found on the prairie, barely recognizable, which they buried on a hill near the ranch."

"And that was all?" said Clifford, in a tone of anxiety. "But do you not think that Mora is Bruce's daughter?"

"I have no doubt of it; for she is the perfect counterpart of Ivarene in voice, face, and expression, although her eyes are blue while those of Ivarene were black. Still the same look is there that I shall never forget. Why, when I meet her gaze, it always seems that Ivarene is trying to speak to me once more," said the colonel with deep emotion.

After this interview, Clifford lost no time in hurrying down to the Estill ranch to seek an interview with Mora; and after they had met, with all the demonstrations peculiar to lovers, he noticed a strange look of trouble on her face, and when he tenderly asked its cause, she faltered a moment, then bursting into tears, and hiding her face on his breast, she confessed that the suspense of awaiting her father's return had become at last unendurable, and she had told her mother all the particulars of their engagement, the discovery of the treasure, their subsequent use of a portion of it, and their well-founded belief that she was the daughter of Bruce and Ivarene Walraven.

"She confessed, then, that it was true?" said Clifford, in a tone of suspense.

"No, stranger still!" said Mora, as she raised a tear-stained face to his--"no, Clifford, she seemed struck dumb with astonishment, and reiterated the a.s.sertion solemnly that I was her only daughter, born five years after that tragedy. I am convinced that it is true, Clifford; nothing can convince me that she is trying to deceive us, for she is too sincere to keep the truth from us now. Yes, I am an Estill; but she said that my strange resemblance to the picture in the locket had always perplexed her, and my father and they were very sensitive on the subject. She saw you were startled by my lack of resemblance to any one of the family, when you made your first visit here; but she is glad to know that you are to be her son at last, Clifford." Had a thunderbolt fallen at his feet, young Warlow could not have been more startled than he was at this announcement. Then, after a moment of silence, he said: "Ah! Mora darling, it does not matter whose daughter you may be, so your heart is mine; but how strange it is that we should have arrived at such a wrong conclusion!" Then, as he began to reflect, he found that her mysterious resemblance to Ivarene was their strongest proof that she was not an Estill.

An interview with Mrs. Estill followed, in which she gave a willing a.s.sent to the lovers' union; then she again a.s.serted, with truth and sincerity stamped upon her face and tone, that Mora was her only daughter, born of her own flesh and blood, but that there was a mystery connected with her birth which she had never revealed to any one but her husband.

"Mother! mother! what is it?" said Mora in great agitation, while Clifford sprang up with a look of intense interest depicted upon his face.

"It is a strange and unreal thing to relate in this enlightened and skeptical age, and I should never divulge it but for the events of the last few days; but Mora's unaccountable resemblance to the face in the locket, which is that of Ivarene, is not the only mystery that surrounds her birth. In the autumn of 1849, September 16th--I remember the date perfectly--one of our herders came in at night very much terrified by a sight which he had just witnessed. He had seen two mysterious lights flitting about the base of Antelope b.u.t.te, several miles up the valley, where he had been looking after our cattle that had become scattered while we were at Fort Riley--driven to take refuge there from the Cheyenne Indians that were raiding the frontier settlements during August. Why I remember the date so distinctly is from the fact that we had only returned that day, finding our cabin in ashes.

"Fearing it might be some signal of lurking savages, Mr. Estill and myself ran with the herder to the bluff which overlooks the house on the north, and saw a sight that was full of mystery; and which, in fact, was never explained.

"There were two large blue lights, of such an unnatural color and appearance as to attract instant attention, flitting about up the valley. They would seem to skim along in long, undulating swells, like the flight of swallows, often rising hundreds of feet in the air, but always darting back to the base of the b.u.t.te. We were relieved to know it was not Indians, and thinking it was one of those gaseous or igneous phenomena peculiar to water-courses, we did not investigate further, but only regarded their appearance with curiosity.

"Their visits finally reached our premises, and I was horrified to see them hovering about the house later in the season; but all our attempts to approach them were frustrated, for they would recede as we advanced; then we really began to feel how very unaccountable they were, and became perplexed with the mystery. This state of affairs continued until Christmas eve, 1852. As I was standing at a window with Hugh in my arms, I saw the two lights come flitting down the valley together. When they reached a point close to the house they halted, and, after hovering about together for a while, the larger light darted off eastward, and was never seen again. The lesser one remained flitting about the house, or to and fro between here and Antelope b.u.t.te. Until, one night in May, 1854, the light, after hovering near by, disappeared forever. _That very night Mora was born._ Seeing a resemblance in her childish face to that within the locket--a likeness that has increased with her age, until now she is the very image of poor, dead Ivarene--we named her Morelia (shortened to Mora by her friends), a name that was engraved and set with rubies upon the locket. We thought this the name, of course, of the female face within the locket, but from the Journal of Ivarene it is apparent that it was the name of her dead mother instead.

"This precious locket had been flung at my feet by Olin Estill, a renegade nephew of my husband, whom he had discarded on account of his vicious tendencies, and who had been leading a mysterious existence, connected, I now fear, with a band of outlaws that committed the ma.s.sacre at the corral. He had been absent from our house several months, until the day after our return he suddenly appeared at the tent-door, and, after glaring at me a moment, had flung the locket at my feet, then, with a blood-chilling shriek, had fled away. We never saw him alive after that day; but his skeleton, torn asunder by wolves and barely recognizable, was found months after, and buried upon a hill-top near here."

"Did you never search Antelope b.u.t.te?" Clifford asked, with grave thoughtfulness depicted in his face.

"No; we never did, although we once talked of doing so, but forgot it soon in the anxiety and care of our life," she answered.

"I shall do so to-morrow," he said, "for I believe the mystery of their fate is hidden there. Yes, Bruce and Ivarene must have died some terrible death there at that bluff, and I shall never rest until the cloud that wraps their fate is dispelled."

On his return home he related to his parents the story which Mrs. Estill had told. When he had finished, his mother was pale with a strange excitement; and his father exclaimed in a hoa.r.s.e voice of agitation:--

"Clifford, you should make a careful search on Antelope b.u.t.te in the morning. I fear that Bruce and Ivarene perished there."

"My son, I never have told you that only a few months before you were born just such a light flashed into my room as the one that flitted about the Estill ranch," said Mrs. Warlow, pale and trembling with emotion. "It was on Christmas Eve, 1852, that I was sitting in the firelit room waiting your father's return, when I saw a pale blue haze dart past the window, hover a moment, then return; and as I raised the sash I seemed to be smothered by a flash of thick, luminous fog, and fell prostrated as by a stroke of lightning. I did not lose consciousness, however, but called one of the negro women, who helped me to a lounge, and lit the lamp. I was nervous about the occurrence; but your father explained the phenomenon as being only a collection of natural gas, generated in damp localities. The light flitted about for a few months; but on the night of your birth, Clifford, it disappeared, and was never seen again. How strange that one of those lights should disappear from her house that night, and appear at mine, hundreds of miles away! Then the similar circ.u.mstances under which those mysterious halos vanished--the very night, it appears, of your birth and that of Mora! She was born in May, 1854, so Mrs. Estill says."

"We must search Antelope b.u.t.te in the morning," said Clifford, trying to conceal his agitation and to speak calmly; "for I fear that the final tragedy of Bruce and Ivarene was enacted there. I dread the discovery that we may make, while, at the same time, I long to unravel the dark mystery which enwraps their fate." Then he hurriedly left the room and sought slumber in the quiet of his own bed-chamber; but it was in vain, for strange fancies kept him awake and thoughtful while the hours slowly dragged by.

Since the night when he had seen that weird and unearthly phantom war-dance around the long grave, Clifford had begun to entertain some strange fancies, which slowly grew upon him as he reviewed the stories which Mrs. Estill and his mother had told that evening, until finally he said, as the gray of morning began to tinge the eastern sky with its ashy pallor:--

"I am almost convinced that Bruce's theory is a true one. Father has long believed me to be the reincarnation of the spirit of Bruce Walraven. This, if true, will account for my strange resemblance to a man who died, in all probability, long before I was born, and will also account for the mysterious memories which always haunt me, like the glimpses of a former life. Can it be possible that the soul, at will, can take on a new body again after death, and profit by its past mistakes? That would be a resurrection, indeed! Can it be that all the air about us is peopled by the spiritual outlines of dead and half-forgotten friends, only waiting their time to be re-born, and we ourselves may be but bodies that are inhabited by the souls of people who have lived before? If this theory is as correct as it is comforting, then death has lost all its terrors; for what could inspire more delight in the heart of an aged and care-worn person than the knowledge that, after he had cast off his faded and wrinkled body, by that process which we call death, he could walk again in all the freshness of youth and beauty on earth, which, say what we may, is dearer than any other place can ever be.

"This theory I shall put to the test to-day," our hero said; "for if the remains of Bruce and Ivarene are found near Antelope b.u.t.te--as I am convinced that they will be--then my conjectures are confirmed and the mystery of eternity, which has mocked and puzzled man from his creation, is revealed. It will prove that those mysterious lights were their spirits still hovering about their grave, waiting their opportunity to be re-born. This looks no more improbable than many of the mysteries of science did a few years ago. But, then, life itself would still remain a grand mystery, as would sight, sound, and hearing."

By this time he had arisen, and, after dressing, he seated himself before the tall mirror.