“Perhaps!” Jack grinned; he and his father were excellent friends. “Did you know, sir, that our kinsman, Delaroche Telfair, was dead, leaving a daughter who is a ward of Tecumseh, the Shawnee chief?” The elder Telfair blinked. “Good Lord!” he said, softly. He tottered a step or two backward and dropped heavily into a chair. “You’ve had a letter, too?” he gasped. “A letter? No, sir; not a letter----” “You must have, sir. Don’t trifle with me! I’m in no temper to stand it. Who brought you the letter?” “I haven’t any letter, father. I haven’t heard of any letter. I met an Indian----” “An Indian?” “Yes. A Shawnee from Ohio, a messenger from Tecumseh----” “Tecumseh! Good Lord! Do you know--But that can wait. Go on.” “Delaroche seems to have pledged him to call on us in case certain things happened. They have happened and he has sent. He wants me to come and get the girl.” “Good God!” muttered the elder man once more. “Look--look at this, Jack!” He held out an open letter. “I got it at Montgomery, and I rode like the devil to bring it, and here a murdering Shawnee gets ahead of me and----” His words died away; clearly the situation was beyond him. Jack took the letter doubtfully and unfolded it. Then he looked at his father amazedly. “It’s from Capron, the lawyer for the Telfair estates in France,” interjected the elder man. “It’s in French, of course. Read it aloud! Translate it as you go.” Jack walked to the window, threw up the blind, and held the letter to the light. “My very dear sir,” he read. “It is my sad duty to apprise you that my so justly honored patron, Louis, Count of Telfair, passed away on the 30th ultimo, videlicet, December 30, 1811. The succession to the title and the estate now falls to the descendants of his brother, M. Delaroche Telfair, who, as you of course know, emigrated to America in 1790 and settled at Gallipolis on the Ohio, which without doubt is very close to your own estates in Alabama. Perhaps it is that you have exchanged frequent visits with him and that his history and the so sad circumstances of his death are to you of the most familiar. If so, much of this letter is unnecessary. “In the remote contingency, however, that you may not know of his history in America, permit me to repeat the little that is known to us here in France. It will call the attention; this: “Among the papers of my so noble patron, just deceased, I have found a letter, dated June 10, 1800, with the seal yet unbroken, which appears to have reached the château Telfair many years ago but not to have been brought to his lordship’s attention. Of a truth this is not surprising, the year 1800 being of the most disturbed and the years following being attended by turbulence both of politics and of strife, during which his lordship seldom visited the château.