The Third Western Megapack

by Barker, S. Omar

  “Of course,” replied Hugh wonderingly. “I shall be glad to answer anything that I can, Monsieur Dubois.”

  “Well then, about that half-brother of yours, what sort of a lad is he?”

  “As fine a lad as you will find anywhere, Monsieur,” Hugh answered promptly. “When I first received his letter, I was prejudiced against him, I admit.” He flushed and hesitated.

  Dubois nodded understandingly. “But now?” he questioned.

  “Now I love him as if he were my whole brother,” Hugh said warmly. “We went through much together, he saved me from a horrible fate, and I learned to know him well. A finer, truer-hearted fellow than Blaise never existed.”

  Again Dubois nodded, apparently well satisfied. “And his mother?”

  “I was surprised at his mother,” Hugh replied with equal frankness. “She is Indian, of course, but without doubt a superior sort of Indian. For one thing she was clean and neatly dressed. She is very good-looking too, her voice is sweet, her manner quiet, and she certainly treated me kindly. She loves Blaise dearly, and,—I think—she really loved my father.”

  Once more Monsieur Dubois nodded, a light of pleasure in his dark eyes. “I asked,” he said abruptly, “because, you see, she is my daughter.”

  “Your daughter? But she is an Indian!”

  “Only half Indian, but no wonder you are surprised. I will explain.”

  Monsieur Dubois then told the wondering boy how, about thirty-eight years before, when he was still a young man, he had taken to the woods. It was in the period between the conquest of Canada by the English and the outbreak of the American Revolution, long before the formation of the Northwest Fur Company, when the fur traders in the Upper Lakes region were practically all French Canadians and free lances, each doing business for himself. In due time, René Dubois, like most of the others, had married an Indian girl. A daughter was born to them, a pretty baby who had found a very warm spot in the heart of her adventurous father. Before she was two years old, however, he lost her. He had left his wife and child at an Indian village near the south shore of Lake Superior, while he went on one of his trading trips. On his return he found the place deserted, the signs plain that it had been raided by some unfriendly band. There was no law in the Indian country, and in that period, shortly after the so-called French and Indian War, when the Algonquin Indians had sided with the French and the Iroquoian with the English, conditions were more than usually unstable. For years Dubois tried to trace his wife and daughter or learn their fate, but never succeeded.

  “And now,” he concluded, his voice again trembling with feeling, “you bring me proof that my daughter still lives, that she was the wife of my friend, and that in his son and hers I have a grandson and an heir.” Monsieur Dubois took up the gold coin and handed it to Hugh. One face had been filed smooth and on it, cut with some crude tool, were the outlines of a coat-of-arms. “I did that myself,” Dubois explained. “It is the arms of my family. When the child was born, I made that and hung it about her neck on a sinew cord.”

  “And Blaise’s mother still had it?” exclaimed Hugh.

  “No, she had lost it, but your father recovered it. Read the letter yourself.” He handed Hugh the bark sheets.

  It was an amazing letter. Jean Beaupré merely mentioned how he had found the Indian girl a captive among the Sioux, had bought her, taken her away and married her. No doubt he had told all this to Dubois before. Beaupré had not had the slightest suspicion that his wife was other than she believed herself to be, a full-blooded Ojibwa. She had been brought up by an Ojibwa couple, but in a Sioux raid her supposed father and mother had been killed and she had been captured. Nearly two years before the writing of the letter, Beaupré had happened to receive a gold coin for some service rendered an official of the Northwest Company. His wife had examined the coin with interest, and had said that she herself had once had one nearly like it, the same on one side, she said, but different on the other. She had always worn it on a cord around her neck, but when she was captured, a Sioux squaw had taken it from her. At first Beaupré thought that the thing she had possessed had been one of the little medals sometimes given by a priest to a baptized child, but she had insisted that one side of her medal had been like the coin. Then he remembered that his old comrade Dubois had told of the coin, bearing his coat-of-arms, worn by his baby daughter. Jean Beaupré said nothing of his suspicions to his wife, but he resolved to find out, if he could, whether she was really the daughter of René Dubois. On this quest, he twice visited the Sioux country west of the Mississippi. The autumn before the opening of this story, he learned of the whereabouts of the very band that had held his wife a captive. After sending, by an Indian messenger, a letter to Hugh at the Sault, asking the boy to wait there until his father joined him in the spring, Beaupré left at once for the interior. He was fortunate enough to find the Sioux band and the chief from whom he had bought the captive more than fifteen years before. The chief, judiciously bribed and threatened, had sought for the medal and had found it in the possession of a young girl who said her mother had given it to her. When Beaupré questioned the old squaw, she admitted that she had taken the coin from the neck of an Ojibwa captive years before. How the Ojibwa couple who had brought the girl up had come by her, Beaupré was unable to find out, but he had no doubt that she was really the daughter of René Dubois. He resolved to send the proof of his wife’s parentage to Montreal by his elder son, if Hugh had really come to the Sault and had waited there. If Hugh was not there, the elder Beaupré would go to the city himself. It was plain that he had not received either of the letters Hugh had sent after him, nor had Hugh ever got the one his father had written him. Fearing that if any accident should happen to him, the coin and the story might never reach his old comrade, Beaupré had written down the tale and prepared the packet. Even in his dying condition he remembered it and told Blaise to go get it. Evidently, when he discovered he was in danger of falling into Ohrante’s hands, he had feared to keep the packet with him, so had hidden it with the furs. If he escaped the giant, he could return for both furs and packet, but if the coin came into Ohrante’s possession it would be lost forever. The letter, however, said nothing of all that. It had undoubtedly been written before Beaupré set out on his home journey.

  With deep emotion Hugh deciphered the fine, faint writing on the bark sheets. He was glad from the bottom of his heart that he and Blaise had been able to recover the packet and deliver it to the man to whom it meant so much. If Hugh had had any dreams of some strange fortune coming to himself through the packet, he forgot them when Monsieur Dubois began to speak again.

  “I shall go to the Kaministikwia at once, if I can find means of reaching there this autumn. At least I shall go as far as I can and finish the journey in the spring. Wherever my daughter and my grandson are, I will seek them out. I have no other heirs and Blaise, my grandson, shall take the place of a son. I will bring them back to Montreal, or, if that does not seem best, I will remain in the upper country with them. Whether my grandson chooses to live his life in civilization or in the wilderness, I can provide him with the means to make that life both successful and useful.”

  The elder brother’s heart was glowing with happiness. He knew that his own mother’s people would help him to a start in life, and now his younger brother, his half-breed,—no, quarter-breed—brother Blaise would have a chance too. Hugh had no doubt that Blaise Beaupré would make the most of his opportunities.

  It only remains to say that when René Dubois saw the mother of Blaise, her resemblance to himself and to her own mother thoroughly convinced him that there had been no mistake. He more than fulfilled to both his daughter and his grandson the promises Hugh had heard him make.

  BOOTHILL BOUND, by J. R. Jackson

  Blocky, silver-thatched Sheriff Cy Tenner did not think fit to get up when Ed Keel came into his office. He did not offer one of his big m
uscle-filled hands, either. He eyed at Keel coldly, his face stiff with dislike.

  Keel was a drifter, beady-eyed, and incredibly thin. He’d been working for Sun-Fisher Jones out at his spread fir the last few months. Now Keel jerked his head around to the door, nodding outside where the sheriff’s palomino stood. The magnificent animal glistened in the sun like a golden statue for which a conquering Spaniard might have sold his soul.

  “Want to sell your horse?” he asked.

  Tenner rubbed his gray mustache and, slitting his old blue eyes, probed the drifter.

  “You got that kind of money, Keel?”

  “Why, no I ain’t.” The question clearly upset Keel. “Matter of fact, I come to report a stealin’. Two Indians robbed old Sun-Fisher Jones of all his savin’s.”

  The old sheriff gulped his dismay and sat up straight.

  “Where’s Sun-Fisher?”

  “He cut out after them like a house afire—when he found the money gone.” Keel spread his hands. “I’d be with him, only my horse went lame. I come to you ’cause I feared the old codger might run into trouble.”

  “Hm-m.”

  “Sun-Fisher was always too trustin’ of strangers. Way I got it, the Indians asked for water. Sun Fisher went to the well. When he come back, they was gone—and the money.”

  “Where were you?”

  “Checkin’ Sun-Fisher’s traps in that jackpine thicket west of the cabin.” Keel watched the sheriff covertly out of a beady eye. “The old man was doin’ all right with his huntin’ and trappin’. We had to check ’bout every day.”

  “Sun-Fisher saved that money for thirty years,” said Tenner painfully. The old trapper was a good friend, though they only saw each other a few times a month. “How much you reckon he had?”

  Keel’s jacknife face took on a hurt look.

  “Why, Sheriff, I don’t know ’zactly. Sun-Fisher told me once he had about enough to quit. I warned him a tumbledown shack wasn’t no place to hide a horde of gold pieces. He wouldn’t listen.”

  “Yeah, I know he hid the money in the cabin,” mused the Sheriff. “You’re right, Keel. Old Sun-Fisher was far too trustin’.”

  Tenner noticed the fishy look Keel shot at him. There was more here, he thought, than met the eye. He wished old Sun-Fisher had kept his money in a bank. The rugged oldster, crowding eighty, had lost a pile in a bank crash once and wouldn’t trust one after that. Not that he hadn’t taken other precautions.

  “You want any more of me?” asked Keel.

  “Tell me about those Indians.”

  Keel described the Indians, glibly, as he claimed he had heard it from Sun-Fisher. While he talked, a fat, red-faced man with a sprinkling of sandy whiskers hurried into the office. The fat man nodded briefly at Keel, smiled at the sheriff. This was Tom Dawkes, shrewd and able horse dealer to the town of Lynx.

  “Mebbe you got a customer, Tom.” The blocky lawman nodded at Keel. “Ed’s horse’s gone lame. He wants a bronc so as to catch the thieves who robbed old Sun-Fisher Jones.”

  “Sun-Fisher robbed—too bad.” Dawkes turned his bulk toward the drifter. “How much are you interested in payin’, Ed?”

  Keel smiled uneasily like he smelled a trap of some sort.

  “I ain’t really interested, Dawkes. Don’t have the money to pay your prices. I figger to catch me a wild one and break him in.”

  “Fat chance of catching a wild one with your own horse lame,” said Dawkes shrewdly.

  Keel stirred uneasily. “I’ll make out somehow.”

  Allowing one lid to droop in a manner barely perceptible to the fat man, Tenner spoke to Dawkes.

  “I know you want to close that deal on my palomino, Tom. ’Fraid I can’t talk now—all this comin’ up about Sun-Fisher. How about seein’ me tomorrow.”

  At mention of the palomino, Ed Keel’s beady eyes slitted. Tom Dawkes’ fat face went slightly blank. Then he glanced at the sheriff, recovered himself.

  “Well, whatever you say,” agreed Dawkes. “Don’t want to interefere with the wheels of law.” He nodded and hustled out of the office.

  Tenner got up, plopped on a battered black John B., strapped a belt around his still solid middle.

  “Sun-Fisher say how long he’d stay out?”

  “No, he didn’t,” said Keel hesitantly.

  “I’d better ride out with you. Want to talk to Sun-Fisher, if that’s possible now.”

  * * * *

  They rode north out of Lynx—going slowly on account of Keel’s lame horse. Tenner rode without talk, following the trail over the sun-hardened plateau on which the town sat. Then they began a slow ascent, winding through great wooded tracts of murmering pine and fir. Tall, oblique shafts of sunlight lanced through the towering branches.

  The sheriff’s black-hatted head was sunk on his chest in troubled thought. The trail wound on ahead, dying out in the distance in great barren, elevated flats. Nomadic Indians, shunning this desolate country, called it the Land of Skulls.

  “Ain’t that where Sun-Fisher had his accident,” said Tenner suddenly, nodding at a rough dip in the trail.

  Keel nodded.

  “Horse fell on him and broke his leg in two places. I run onto him twenty-four hours afterwards, lookin’ like a bearded prophet—but not talkin’ like one. Carried him to his cabin and nursed him a month. That’s why Sun-Fisher insisted on makin’ me his partner in this year’s catch?’

  “Sun-Fisher must have been grateful.”

  “He sure was. The old man spelled out a sort of will not long ago. Left me all his traps, pelts, and such in case anything happened to him.”

  “You think something happened to Sun-Fisher?”

  Keel’s jaw went slack and his thin head wobbled a bit like he had made a kind of mistake.

  “Why, I sure hope not,” he said.

  * * * *

  Half an hour later, they rode up on Sun-Fisher’s cabin built on the margin of a hemlock thicket. Tenner hollered for his old friend. No answer. Ed Keel looked mighty surprised not to find the old man back. They dismounted and poked around the cabin and outbuildings, but found no sign of the old man.

  “Which way did Sun-Fisher go,” asked the sheriff softly.

  Keel pointed—to the north, to the Land of Skulls.

  “Sun-Fisher wouldn’t be fool enough to track Indians into the badlands,” reasoned Tenner. “Funny he ain’t back.”

  “It is—for a fact,” Keel agreed.

  “I’ll ride out a ways. Mebbe I can learn something about the old feller.”

  Tenner hoisted his old but still solid bulk up and put the palomino’s head to the north. Riding slowly, he scanned the country for some any of his old friend. He rode about three miles until vegetation dropped away and alkaline flats began.

  Beyond this, Tenner dared not venture. He knew it for hostile land incredibly difficult for tracking. He had no provisions, and only a small amount of water.

  He was swinging the palomino around for the trip home when his narrowed blue eyes picked up a crumpled heap off to his left. An involuntary cry of dismay broke from his lips. Even at the distance, he could make out the white, prophet-like whiskers of old Sun-Fisher Jones. He galloped over, leaped from the saddle, and bent over the body.

  Dead. Shot in the back.

  He inspected the corpse briefly, but learned nothing beyond the obvious. As he stood up, he brushed a roughened hand to his faded old eyes. Then, bringing up the palomino, he prepared to carry the body back home.

  As he worked, he eyed the dark, stiff stain in the back of the old hunter’s leather shirt.

  * * * *

  “So the dirty skunks killed Sun-Fisher,” swore Ed Keel, appearing greatly angered and sorrowed.

  Tenner nodded.

  “
Shot in the back at close range. Surprisin’ an old hunter like Sun-Fisher would let anything get that close behind him. You might almost think it was somebody he trusted.”

  Keel shot a look at the sheriff.

  “One of the Indians must’ve sneaked up on him. Old Sun-Fisher was gettin’ kind of feeble.”

  “Why, the old man never knew a sick day in his life,” protested Tenner. “Sun-Fisher could hear and see better’n any Indian I ever saw.”

  “Sun-Fisher was eighty. Nobody’s much good that old.”

  Tenner held his tongue, although he disagreed. A hot flame of anger filled in his chest when he talked to this pious-acting drifter.

  Together, they dug a grave and buried Sun-Fisher Jones. Tenner whittled out a crude cross and they stuck it in the ground to mark his place.

  * * * *

  When Tenner got back to Lynx, he rode immediately to Tom Dawkes’ place of business. The fat horse trader was going over some accounts, but he listened sorrowfully to the account of Sun-Fisher’s murder. Then Dawkes thought of something.

  “What was that this mornin’ about a deal on the palomino? You know I came over about those two sacks of feed that had been stolen from me.”

  “Never mind, Tom. I want you to do something.”

  “Sure,” said Dawkes agreeably. “Let me guess. You suspect Keel of being mixed up in all this?”

  “Mebbe. Now, here’s what I want.” They talked a while. When they parted, they looked like two cats who had just got the cream off a pan of milk.

  Next morning, Sheriff Tenner got through a hasty breakfast of eggs and steak, cleaned up some paperwork, then hustled by a back-alley route over to Tom Dawkes’ stable. Speaking to no one, he secreted himself in a small, partitioned-off space Dawkes used for an offece. He left the door open so he could hear everything outside.