Chapter XIV.

Early next morning Clifford rode away, on the pretext that he was going to buy cattle of a ranchman in the next county; but his absence was mainly owing to the fact that he suspected the Estill visit was in some way connected with his intimacy with Mora; so he had decided that he would take himself off, and thereby avoid a disagreeable scene.

The cattle-king and his wife arrived at an early hour, although they had called a moment at the Moreland homestead and given a promise that they would stop for an early tea on their return homeward from the Warlows. When they had been introduced by Maud, the colonel and Mr. Estill went to the stable to care for the team, and when that important rite of hospitality had been duly observed the gentlemen rejoined their wives in the Warlow parlor.

Robbie was away in the fields with the farm men; Maud was busy with household cares, on the plea of which she had absented herself from the parlor. The kitchen, which was the scene of her culinary operations, was situated in an ell of the building, and as she stood by a window that looked directly through into one in the parlor, she could see and hear a great deal that was transpiring therein.

An hour after the arrival of the guests she was standing by this open window, putting the last touches of frosting on a cocoa-nut cake, and so deeply, indeed, was she engrossed with her labors that she had failed to observe what the situation really was in the parlor, until she heard a hoarse cry:--

"Oh God! it is Bruce and Ivarene!" and as she glanced hastily into the room she beheld a sight that perplexed and mystified her for long days thereafter. Her father stood by the window holding a jeweled locket in his hand; but at that moment he lowered the window-curtain, thus shutting off all view of the parlor.

When, an hour later, Mrs. Warlow came into the kitchen, traces of tears were visible on her usually placid face; and when Maud, unable any longer to restrain her curiosity, eagerly asked the meaning of the mysterious conclave in the parlor, her mother evaded answering; so Maud wisely concluded to await her parents' confidence, which she felt certain of sharing at the proper time.

At dinner Colonel Warlow ate but little of the tempting food; and the guests, although they praised the roast-chicken with its savory dressing, the delicate float and frosted cake, left their plates almost untouched.

When the constrained and quiet meal was finished, and all had returned to the parlor but Maud, Rob came back again to the table, and as that youth, with an unappeasable appetite, helped himself to a plateful of "stuffing" and gravy, he turned to his sister and said:--

"What's the matter now, Maud? The colonel seems to be all broke up; and that old Lady Estill--by grab!--_she_ looked like death on a--a--white pony! Mother, too, appeared as if she might have been sniffling; but that's nothing but a common pastime with her. You know that all women, more or less--yourself included, madam--are very much given to the chicken-hearted habit of dribbling at the nose."

"Chicken-hearted, indeed! It is a great wonder, then, that you did not devour us long ago, sir!" said Maud, with a great show of asperity, but very glad to lead the subject into other channels and elude further questioning; for she saw by her mother's manner that there was something about the Estill visit which they wished, for unknown reasons, to keep secret, and it was a matter of honor with the noble-hearted girl to help them conceal what she herself was longing to know.

"Well, big guns of the Estill calibre don't _go off_ on slight occasions," persisted Rob, with his mouth half-full of the adored "stuffing," and as he reached for a tall glass of ruby-colored plum-jelly, Maud quickly said:--

"Won't you have a bit of the cake, Rob?"

"Thanks--yes," said he, as he helped himself to the last solitary quarter of that frosted dainty; "and I would be pleased to taste a morsel of that chicken also," he mumbled.

"What choice, sir?" she asked sarcastically.

"The running-gears, if you please," he replied with polite gravity.

With a gesture of scorn and disgust, Maud passed him the carcass of the fowl; then, after filling a large platter with crusts, bones, and egg-shells, she placed them before him with the injunction to help himself. Retiring to the window, she watched him devour cake, chicken, jam, and potatoes with an appetite that knew no discrimination.

"I am afraid you have not done justice to my dishes," she said, as Rob at length arose from the table.

"Oh, now don't give us any more sarcasm," said he, while picking his teeth with a broom-split. "It is so long from breakfast to noon, Maud, that I just get faint waiting on that slow old dinner-bell."

"No doubt; but you remember how ravenously hungry you were last week, when the pup got the bell-rope in his mouth and summoned you in from the field at nine in the morning," she retorted, laughingly.

"Well, that was a cloudy day," he said, good-naturedly; then, taking his straw hat from its hook on the porch, he hurried away to the field.

After finishing her domestic duties, Maud joined the guests in the parlor, with a faint hope of learning something further of the mystery which seemed to enshroud their visit, of which she had got such a tantalizing glimpse an hour before; but her expectations were, however, sadly doomed to disappointment, for nothing was said that would throw any light on the subject; and, after spending a while at the piano, she invited the guests out to look at her flowers.

The party thereupon adjourned to the garden; and when they had admired the flowers and shrubs, they sauntered on to the barn-yard, to look at the peacocks and other fowls, of which Mrs. Warlow was justly proud.

"I should like to take a nearer view of your crops, Colonel. It has been so long since I saw a well-conducted farm, that it appears quite a novelty to me," said Mr. Estill, with evident interest.

In a few moments they all embarked in the boat, and were rowed up to Clifford's dwelling; for if there was one thing of which the colonel was vain it was his son's farming.

As they stood in the level valley south of the river, a scene of perfect rural beauty was visible. On the north was Clifford's gothic cottage, half hidden by the drooping elm; to the east, the chimneys and gables of the Warlow homestead peeped above the trees; while out to the south, on a green knoll, stood the stone school-house, with its tower and rose-window.

The yellow wheat-stubble shone like gold beside the silvery oats, fast ripening for the harvest; the rank corn stood in clean, dark rows--great squares of waving green; scores of ricks were standing along the valley; while the clank of the header and shouts of the workmen were borne on the breeze from the neighboring field.

"Ah! this is a very home-like scene, indeed--a great contrast to the one presented here just two years ago when last I visited this spot," said Mr. Estill. "My ranch, ten miles below here, was then the last settlement on the frontier. There was not a human habitation in sight--only antelope and buffalo to vary the monotony of perfect solitude. In fact, there had never been an owner for the land nor a furrow turned here since the dawn of creation. Marvelous change!" he added.

After crossing the stream on a foot-log, which here formed a rustic bridge, they all walked up to Clifford's dwelling, and while standing by the vine-mantled wall of the Old Corral, the colonel said in a musing tone:--

"If this inanimate ruin could but speak, we might learn the sequel to that tragedy which has risen again, as it were, from the grave of the past. The robbers were led by white men, who no doubt divided the treasure among themselves while the savages were stupefied with liquor."

He was interrupted by a cry of wonder from Maud, who could not repress her astonishment at his assertion that white men had led the Indians--a fact which Hugh Estill seemed to have been aware of also, and which, taken in connection with the incident of the miniature, led her to believe that the Estills were in some way connected with the massacre.

"Maud, dear, will you go and see how Clifford's young catalpa-trees, down the drive, are growing? and if they need cultivating again, we will send one of the boys over with a plow soon," said Mrs. Warlow, with a warning glance; and Miss Maud moved quickly away, somewhat chagrined at her summary dismissal.

As she passed along, she was pondering over the strange fact that her father had at last obtained a clue to the perpetrators of the outrage at the corral; and she became so deeply engrossed with the thought that she was quite unmindful which way her steps led, until her eye was attracted to a place where the earth appeared to have been recently disturbed, and she paused a moment, vaguely wondering what could have been buried there.

The tall blue stem-grass was tangled and dead, while the square outlines of a cavity showed through the mass of dead vines and leaves, which had been suspiciously strewn over the place, with a view, it seemed, of concealing all trace of the disturbance. She became also aware of a most disgusting odor near the old cottonwood-tree; but, unmindful of this, she raked away the grass and litter to examine more closely the cavity in which the soil had been firmly trampled, but her curiosity was in no wise abated when she discovered that it was Clifford's boot-tracks that were visible in the soft, yielding earth.

"What has he buried here, that he seems so anxious to conceal?" she was asking herself, when a puff of wind brought the odor with such added strength that she nearly fainted, and was hastily retreating from the proximity of that mysterious place, where she feared some strange, dead thing was buried, when she saw the bloated and mottled form of that hideous reptile which the reader may remember as having greeted a "Young Fortune Hunter" one weird and murky night the week before.

With a stifled shriek, Maud fled by the vile-smelling and repulsive object, which she saw at a glance was mangled and dead; then, as she slowly returned and walked south of the reptile, she surveyed it carefully, and saw, with a shudder, that it was a hideous rattlesnake, with its head severed from the body. Appalled at the thought that it was her brother who had slain this formidable monster, the bite of which, while living, she knew meant certain death, she was retreating again from the place, pale and trembling, but paused at the excavation, to wonder, even then, what it meant, when her eye, which was scanning the ground carefully, caught sight of a curious, small object lying at her feet.

Stooping and picking it up, she was disgusted and surprised to see that it was a human tooth. She was about to dash it down again, when a thought seemed to occur that caused her to look carefully about for some minutes; then, as nothing else was found, she stripped some leaves from a grape-vine near, and, after wrapping them about the tooth, she put it carefully away in her purse, and then returned to where her parents and guests were embarking for home. As they rowed down the willow-fringed stream, nothing was said concerning the strange discoveries that had been made that day, and on arriving at the house, the visitors prepared to take an early departure. As Mrs. Estill stepped into the carriage, Mrs. Warlow gave a promise that she would drive down to the Estill ranch one day that week.

Clifford returned late that evening with some animals which he had bought; and, as all was hurry and bustle, and several laborers remained over night, there was no chance for confidential conversation among the younger members of the Warlow family. But the next morning broke with a lowering sky, and the misty rain which followed precluded any effort at farm-work; so the laborers went to their respective homes, leaving the house to its customary quiet.

As Rob was plodding about in the rain and whistling shrill as a locust, he was signaled by Maud, who stood out by the gate, and when the youth joined her they held a low, hurried conversation for a few minutes; then Bob darted down to the boat, and rowed rapidly up the stream.

He was gone but a few minutes, however, when he returned flushed and excited, and placed something, which was wrapped in leaves, into Maud's outstretched hand.

"How did you manage it?" she said in a low tone, as they paused under an ash-tree near the river.

"Why, that was easy enough--I just put my boot on his snakeship's tail, then taking hold of the rattles with a handful of leaves--and--here they are. But--oh fury!--how it did smell, though!" he added in disgust. "Fourteen rattles and a button! Don't that beat the snake-tale of the oldest inhabitant, Maud?"

Then, without awaiting a reply, he added, out of breath with excitement:--

"Cliff had a shocking time of it up there last Friday night, for this is only a small part of his experience."

"Rob--what--oh, what can you mean?" cried Maud, in wildest excitement.

"Well, I don't know much; but this much I did learn by guessing at it first, then making him own up; for Cliff is as close-mouthed as an oyster. From what I could learn, it appears that, while prowling about that night like a vagrant tom-cat, our good-looking brother ran into that old spectre which shrieked so like a demon that night by the camp-fire. This time, of course, it gave him the slip, as it always does," he answered.

"You do not mean to say that horrible sight has been seen again, Rob?"

After cautioning her not to raise such a racket, Rob proceeded to tell of his encounter, and also what he had learned of Clifford's experience likewise.

"Oh, Rob--what a horribly unreal thing it all seems! But everywhere there is so much of mystery that I am almost wild," she cried, with a good deal of incoherence.

"Why was Clifford digging about the old cottonwood that night, Rob?" she added, after a moment's pause; but, as her brother only expressed both surprise and ignorance, she continued: "But this is not all, Robbie; for I made a most startling discovery to-day--one which throws a gloomy light on the old tragedy of Bruce and his wife."

"Why, thicker and thicker!" cried Rob. "But what kind of a mare's-nest did you run into this time, Maud?" he added.

In reply, Maud told of seeing the locket, and of hearing her father exclaim that it contained the pictures of Bruce and his wife, and the strange assertion which he had made while the Estills were standing by the ruined wall.

"But how did the locket ever get into the Estills' hands?" Rob said, with a perplexed look; then, after a moment, he added, excitedly:--

"Oh, now I know what father and Mr. Estill were talking about in the barn. I had just stepped into the upper hall-way to lay a fork on the rack--you know how strict father always was about our putting everything in its proper place--so, to save myself a blowing up, I went out of my way and had left the fork there, and was about to hurry on to the well for a jug of water, when I heard Mr. Estill say:--

"'This must be a matter of sacred confidence between us, Colonel; for if it were known that any one of my people had participated in that affair, or had been engaged in the murder, there are people who are malicious enough, no doubt, to connect myself and wife with the crime; and for that reason alone I have always kept the matter a profound secret, even from Hugh and Mora. The locket was set with rubies and engraved with the name which, you see, we have used, and have only shortened; but she has never learned its origin, nor anything of the tragedy.'

"Then, after a moment, he continued, after father had said something which I could not quite catch:--

"'If Olin Estill had only lived, the mystery might have been explained; but I found him dead and mangled beyond all resemblance to a human--nothing to identify his remains but the tattered clothing, which I recognized; for the wolves had torn his limbs away, and left his skeleton bleaching out on the prairie. Yet the strangest part of it all is the mysterious resemblance of the faces in that miniature to Mora and your son. Why, my wife was terribly agitated when she first met that boy of yours; for he is the perfect counterpart of the picture of your friend, who must have died years before either of those children were born. Mora's resemblance to Ivarene--'

"About that time I grew weary of such rot, and did not pay any further attention to what they said. How much more I might have heard I can't guess; for I hurried away to the well, as I was mortal thirsty and tired. I am sorry now that I didn't stay and hear it out, for there certainly is something up."

While talking thus they had sauntered on into the house; and while they stood by the parlor door Rob had made the concluding remark, which Clifford chanced to overhear, as he came upon them silently through the carpeted hall.

"Here, you young conspirators--out with it, and confess at once 'what's up,' as this bold robber says with such an air of deep mystery," Clifford said, with a smile of curiosity.

Maud looked up with a flash of resentment in her honest Warlow eyes; for she did not half like the idea of this Adonis-like brother keeping anything from her. Thrusting her hand into her pocket, she drew out her _porte-monnaie_, as he continued:--

"Well, Maud, did you learn anything yesterday?" while an anxious look crept into his face.

"Yes, I learned this!" she replied, while holding out her hand, in which, resting on a piece of muslin, was a human tooth, and that long, reticulated tissue, which he saw at a glance was the rattles of the enormous reptile he had encountered while digging for the treasure.

He looked at them in a startled, wondering way for a moment; then, as if comprehending it all, he said:--

"Ah, yes--the rattles! But the tooth--that is the hardest part of all."

Maud and Rob could not restrain a smile at the ghastly pun; but the former replied:--

"I found them where you had been digging, near the old cottonwood-tree. We know about the rattlesnake and that gray-robed figure, which was the same one that startled us by the camp-fire, I really believe. But that human tooth?--I shall certainly go raving mad if you keep anything further from me."

Clifford glanced from her pale face to that of Rob, which wore a look of startled perplexity.

"I find it impossible to keep anything from your sharp eyes. So it is myself, after all, who has to confess!" he said, seating himself on the divan.

Then, while the rain lashed the windows and the chill wind wailed through the tree-tops without, he told that story of midnight horror. When he finished, Maud was pale and tearful, and Rob's hazel eyes were round with mute astonishment.

"But Maud, did you learn the reason of Mr. Ess--that is Mora's folks--well--why they came up yesterday?" Clifford managed at length to say in a confused manner, that revealed a great deal of uneasiness on his part, which was not at all lost on the sharp-eyed couple beside him.

Then, drying her tears, Maud told of the strange revelations which the visit of the Estills had disclosed; and when she repeated the singular conversation which Robbie had overheard in the barn, Clifford cried out excitedly:--

"Ah! that was the mysterious kinsman who Mora said was buried on the hill-top at Estill Ranch. He was one of the robbers who perpetrated the outrage at the corral years ago. _A bandit and murderer!_ 'Tis no wonder that nothing but nettles ever grow on that grave. It was through him, Maud, that they obtained the locket, with its picture of Bruce and Ivarene. But it can not be that Mr. Estill derived his great wealth from the same source! If so, he never would have betrayed himself by showing the pictures of the people that were murdered by his own kinsman. What, then, became of the great treasure?" he sadly asked. But no one seemed able to answer his question; for the whole affair had now assumed a tone of mystery such as it had never worn before.