"Now, here is this little French book. It tells about a certain journey made from America to France in the year 1825 by several Indian chieftains. They went with one Paul Loise, interpreter. With them was a young girl, Louise Loisson--don't you see the name?--and she is carefully described as a descendant, not of Paul Loise, but of the Comte de Loisson, a nobleman who came to St. Louis shortly before 1825." Blount sat up still straighter in his chair. "This here is mighty strange," said he. "Names sound right near alike." "Yes," said Eddring. "But that Louise Loisson must have been dead, buried and forgotten half a hundred years ago. If so, what is she doing dancing down at New Orleans to-day? As soon as I saw that name in the newspaper, I looked it up again in my little book. Then I put together my suspicions about the letter, and the list, and the valise. If I hadn't seen the name in the newspaper, I might never have been so much interested in it; and certainly I should never have put the matter before you." "I am mighty glad you did. There may be a heap under all this that I want to know about." "There is. And now I want you to follow me closely; because this very same thing has come to me from another direction. "You know that in my work I have to examine papers in all sorts of claim cases. Now, within the year, I ran across a United States Supreme Court brief, a case which came up from the Indian Nations, and which was decided not long ago. It seems that the plaintiff used to be on the Omaha pay-rolls. Some one in the tribe, apparently as a test case, covering certain other claims, objected that the claimant was not all Indian, indeed not Indian at all, and hence not entitled to be on the rolls; although you know Uncle Sam recognizes Indian blood to the one-two-hundred-and-fiftieth part. "I might never have taken much interest in that suit, which I happened to be going over for other reasons, if I hadn't caught sight, in the testimony, of the names of Loise and Loisson, and if I hadn't found the name of Henry Decherd among counsel for the plaintiff!" "Well, by jinks, _that's_ mighty curious!" said Blount. "I didn't know he was a lawyer." "Yes. He was a lawyer; so much the more dangerous, as I'll show you. Now Paul Loise was official interpreter for the United States government at St. Louis in 1825. He was of absolutely no kinship to the Comte de Loisson, the similarity of names being a mere coincidence, though one which has made much trouble in the records since that time, as I have discovered. The confusion of these two names was one of the most singular legal blunders ever known in the South. It was this entanglement of the records that gave Henry Decherd his chance.