"This seems to be the day for digging up records," he said in a low voice. "Here is one that may interest you and save time and money. What Mapleson says about Ferdinand Melrose is true. We'll pass by the motives I had in sending Phil East, and some other statements. When I became convinced that love played no part in Phil's mind toward Rachel Melrose, I met him in Topeka in October and gave him the opportunity of signing a relinquishment to all claims on the estate of Ferdinand Melrose. Phil didn't care for the girl; and as to the money gotten in that way" (my father drew himself up to his full height), "the oxygen of Kansas breeds a class of men out here who can make an honest fortune in spite of any inheritance, or the lack of it. I put my boy in that class." I was his only child, and a father may be pardoned for being proud of his own. "When I reached Rockport," he continued, "Mr. Melrose was ill. I hurried to him with my message, and it may be his last hours were more peaceful because of my going. Rachel will come into her full possessions in a short time, as you say. Mapleson, will you renounce your retainer's fees in your interest in the orphaned?" It was Tell's bad day, and he swore sulphureously in a low tone. "Now I'll take up this matter where I left off," John Baronet said. "While O'mie was taking a vacation in the heated days of August, he slept up in the stone cabin. Jean Pahusca, thief, highwayman, robber, and assassin, kept his stolen goods there. Mapleson and his mercantile partner divided the spoils. O'mie's sense of humor is strong, and one night he played ghost for Jean. You know the redskin's inherent fear of ghosts. It put Jean out of the commission goods business. No persuasion of Mapleson's or his partner's could induce Jean to go back after night to the cabin after this reappearance of the long quiet ghost of the drowned woman." Le Claire could not repress a smile. "I think I unconsciously played the same role in September out there, frightening a little man away one night. I was innocent of any harm intended." "It did the work," my father replied. "Jean cut for the West at once, and joined the Cheyennes for a time--and with a purpose." Then as he looked straight at Tell, his voice grew stern, and that mastery of men that his presence carried made itself felt. "Jean has bought the right to the life of my son. His pay for the hundreds of dollars he has turned into the hands of this man was that Mapleson should defame my son's good name and drive him from Springvale, and that Jean in his own time was to follow and assassinate him. Mapleson here was in league to protect Jean from the law if the deed should ever be traced to his door. With these conditions in addition, Mapleson was to receive the undivided one-half of section 29, range 14.