Henty George Alfred
Redskin and Cow-Boy: A Tale of the Western Plains

"But, Sim, I thought you were going about this gold business, this placer, directly the doctor was able to move."

"That has got to wait," Sim said. "Maybe some day or other, when this business of yours is over, I may come back and see about it; maybe I won't. Ef the doctor is going to England with you, I am going; that is sartin. Besides, even if I would let him go alone, which aren't likely, maybe his word wouldn't be enough. One witness wouldn't do to swear that this man who has stepped into your uncle's shoes ain't what he pretends to be; but if thar is two of us can swear to him as being Symonds the gambler, it'll go a long way. But you may have trouble even then. Anyhow, don't you worry yourself about the gold-mine. Like enough we should all have been wiped out by the Red-skins ef we had tried it. Now I will just look in and see how the doctor is afore you go."

Sim returned in two minutes, saying that the doctor had drank a bowl of soup, and had told the orderly who brought it that he was going to sleep, as he wanted to get strong, being bound to start for a journey in a week's time.

As the carriage was not to return until late, Hugh started to walk over to Don Ramon's, as he wanted to think over the strange news he had heard.

"Your friend is better, I hope," the señora said as he entered, "or you would not have returned so soon."

"He is better, señora. We have made a strange discovery that has roused him up, and given him new life, while it has closely affected me. With your permission I will tell it to you all."

"Is it a story, Señor Hugh?" the younger girl said. "I love a story above all things."

"It is a very curious story, señorita, as I am sure you will agree when you hear it; but it is long, therefore, I pray you to make yourselves comfortable before I begin."

As soon as they had seated themselves, Hugh told the story of the flight of his uncle as a boy, of his long absence and return; of the life at home, and the quarrel that had been the cause of his own flight from home; and how he had that day discovered that his companions in their late adventure had been his uncle's comrades and friends; and how, comparing notes, he had found that his uncle had been murdered, and that his assassin had gone over and occupied his place in England. Many exclamations of surprise were uttered by his auditors.

"And what are you going to do now, señor?"

"I am going to start for home as soon as the doctor is well enough to travel. I should have been willing to have first gone with them upon the expedition upon which we were about to start when your daughters were carried off, but Sim Howlett would not hear of it."

"I intended to have had my say in the matter," Don Ramon said, "and have only been waiting to complete my arrangements. I have not hurried, because I knew that until your companion died or recovered, you would not be making a move. I am, as you know, señor, a very wealthy man, wealthy even for a Mexican, and we have among us fortunes far surpassing those of rich men among the Americans. In addition to my broad lands, my flocks and herds, I have some rich silver mines in Mexico which alone bring me in far more than we can spend. The ransom that these brigands set upon my daughters was as nothing to me, and I would have paid it five times over had I been sure of recovering them; but, you see, this was what I was not sure of, and the fact that they had not asked more when they knew how wealthy I was, in itself assured me that they intended to play me false, and that it was their intention to keep them and to continue to extort further sums.

"You and your friends restored my daughters to me. Now, Señor Hugh, you are an English gentleman, and I know that you would feel the offer of any reward for your inestimable services as an insult; but your three companions are in a different position, two are miners and one is a vaquero. I know well that in rendering me that service, there was no thought of gain in their minds, and that they risked their lives as freely as you did, and in the same spirit, that of a simple desire to rescue women from the hands of scoundrels. That, however, makes no difference whatever in my obligation towards them.

"My banker yesterday received the sum in gold that I directed him to obtain to pay the ransom, and I have to-day given him orders to place three sums of 25,000 dollars each at their disposal, so that they need no longer lead their hard and perilous life, but can settle down where they will. I know the independence of the Americans, señor, but I rely upon you to convince these three men that they can take this money without feeling that it is a payment for their services. They have given me back my daughters at the risk of their lives, and they must not refuse to allow me in turn to make them a gift, which is but a small token of my gratitude, and will leave me still immeasurably their debtor."

"I will indeed do my best to persuade them to accept your gift, Don Ramon, and believe that I shall be able to do so. The doctor is a man of nearly sixty, and Howlett is getting on in years, and it would be well indeed for them now to give up the hard life they have led for so long. As to Bill Royce, I have no doubt whatever. I have heard him say many a time that his greatest ambition is to settle down in a big farm, and this will enable him to do so in a manner surpassing anything he can ever have dreamt of."

"And now, señor, about yourself. What you have just told us renders it far more difficult than I had hitherto thought. We have talked it over, I, my wife, Carlos, and my daughters. I knew that you were a gentleman, but I did not know that you were the heir to property. I thought you were, like others of your countrymen, who, seeing no opening at home, had come out to make your way here. What we proposed was this. To ask you whether your inclinations had turned most to cattle breeding or to mining. In either case we could have helped you on the way. Had you said ranching, I would have put you as manager on one of my largest ranches on such terms that you would in a few years have been its master. Had you said mining, I would have sent you down to my mine in Mexico there to have first learned the nature of the work, then to have become manager, and finally to have been my partner in the affair. But now, what are we to do? You are going home. You have an estate awaiting you, and our intentions have come to naught."

"I am just as much obliged to you, señor, as if you had carried them out," Hugh said warmly, "and I thank you most deeply for having so kindly proposed to advance my fortunes. Had I remained here I would indeed have accepted gratefully one or other of your offers. As it is I shall want for nothing, and I can assure you I feel that the small share I took in the rescue of your daughters is more than repaid by the great kindness that you have shown me."

The next day Hugh explained to two of his friends the gift that Don Ramon had made them. Bill Royce, to whom he first spoke, was delighted. "Jehosaphat!" he exclaimed, "that is something like. I thought when the judge here paid us over our share of the reward for the capture of those brigands, that it was about the biggest bit of luck that I had ever heard of; but this beats all. That Don Ramon is a prince. Well, no more ranching for me. I shall go back east and buy a farm there. There was a girl promised to wait for me, but as that is eight years ago, I don't suppose she has done it; still when I get back with 25,000 dollars in my pocket, I reckon I sha'n't be long before I find someone ready to share it with me. And you say I can walk right into that bank and draw it in gold?"

"Yes, you can, Bill, but I shouldn't advise you to do it."

"How am I to take the money, then, Lightning?"

"The bank will give you an order on some bank in New York, and when you get there you can draw the money out as you like."

Sim Howlett received the news in silence. Then he said: "Waal, Hugh, I don't see why we shouldn't take it; as Don Ramon says it isn't much to him, and it is a big lump of money to us. I would have fought for the gals just as willing if they had been peóns; but seeing as their father's got more money than he knows what to do with, it is reasonable and natural as he should want to get rid of the obligation to us, and anyhow we saved him from having to pay 200,000 dollars as a beginning, and perhaps as much as that over and over again, afore he got them back. We had best say nothing to the doctor now his mind is set on one thing, and he is going to get well so as to carry it out; when that job is over it will be time enough to tell him about this. I am beginning to feel too stiff for work, and the doc. was never any good that way, and he is getting on now. I shall be able to persuade him when the time comes, and shall tell him that if he won't keep his money, I shall have to send back mine. But he is too sensible not to see, as I do, that it is reasonable on the part of the don, and if he don't want it hisself, he can give it to a hospital and share mine with me. I reckon we shall hang together as long as we both live; so you can tell the don it is settled, and that though we had no thought of money, we won't say no to his offer."

Now that the doctor had made up his mind to live, he recovered with wonderful rapidity, and in a fortnight was ready to travel.

Hugh took leave of Don Ramon and his family with great regret; they were all much affected at parting with him, and he was obliged to promise that if ever he crossed the Atlantic again he would come and pay them a visit. Prince went back to his old stable, for the party were going to travel down the Rio Grande by boat. At Matamoras, the port at its mouth, they went by a coasting steamer to Galveston, and thence by another steamer to New York. Here Royce left them, and the other three crossed by a Cunarder to Liverpool. The quiet and sea-voyage quite restored the doctor, who was by far the most impatient of them to get to the journey's end. They had obtained a compete rig-out of what Sim called store-clothes at New York, though Hugh had some difficulty in persuading him to adopt the white shirt of civilization.

On arriving Hugh wrote to Mr. Randolph saying that he had news of very great importance to communicate to him, but that he did not wish to appear at Carlisle until he had seen him, and therefore begged him to write and make an appointment to meet him at Kendal on the third day after he received the letter. The answer came in due time. It was short and characteristic: "My dear Hugh, I am delighted to hear that you are back in England again. You behaved like a fool in going away, and an even greater one in staying away so long. However I will give you my opinion more fully when I see you. I am very glad, for many reasons, that you have returned. I can't think what you want to say to me, but will arrive at Kendal by the train that gets in at 12 o'clock on Thursday next."

When Mr. Randolph got out of the train at Kendal, Hugh was awaiting him on the platform.

"Bless me! is this you?" he exclaimed, as the young fellow strode up to him. "You were a big lad when you left, but you are a big man now, and a Tunstall all over."

"Well, I have been gone nearly three years, you see, Mr. Randolph, and that makes a difference at my age. I am past nineteen."

"Yes, I suppose you are, now I think of it. Well, well, where are we to go?"

"I have got a private sitting-room at the hotel, and have two friends there whom I want to introduce you to; when I tell you that they have come all the way with me from Mexico to do me a service, they are, you will acknowledge, friends worth having."

"Well, that looks as if there were really something in what you have got to say to me, Hugh; men don't take such a journey as that unless for some strong reason. What are your friends? for as I have no idea what you have been doing these three years, I do not know whether you have been consorting with princes or peasants."

"With a little of both, Mr. Randolph; one of my friends is a Californian miner, and as good a specimen of one as you can meet with; the other is a doctor, or rather, as I should say, has been a doctor, for he has ceased for some years to practise, and has been exploring and mining."

"And they have both come over purely for the sake of doing you a service?" Mr. Randolph asked, elevating his eyebrows a little.

"Simply that, Mr. Randolph, strange as it may appear to your legal mind. However, as this is the hotel where we are putting up, you won't be kept much longer in a state of curiosity."

"Sim and Doctor, this is my oldest friend and trustee, Mr. Randolph. Mr. Randolph, these are my two very good friends, Doctor Hunter and Mr. Sim Howlett." In the States introductions are always performed ceremoniously, and the two men shook hands gravely with the lawyer. "I said, Mr. Randolph," Hugh went on, "that they were my good friends. I may add that they were also the good friends of my late uncle, William Tunstall."

"Of your late uncle, Hugh! What are you thinking about? Why, he is alive and well; and more's the pity," he muttered to himself.

"I know what I am saying, Mr. Randolph. They were the dear friends of my late uncle, William Tunstall, who was foully murdered in the town of Sacramento, in California, on his way to San Francisco, in reply to your summons to return to England."

Mr. Randolph looked in astonishment from one face to another as if to assure himself that he heard correctly, but their gravity showed him that he was not mistaken.

"Will Tunstall murdered in California!" he repeated; "then who is it that – "

"The man who murdered him, and who, having possessed himself of his letters and papers, came over here and took his place; a gambler of the name of Symonds. My friend obtained a warrant from the sheriff at Sacramento for his arrest on this charge of murder, and for upwards of a year Dr. Hunter travelled over California and Mexico in search of him. It never struck them that it was anything but a case of murder for the money he had on him. The idea of the step Symonds really took, of personating the man he had murdered, never occurred to them. We met in New Mexico, and were a considerable time together before they learned that my name was Tunstall, for out there men are known either by their Christian names or by some nickname. Then at once they said they had years before had a mate of the same name, and then gradually on comparing notes the truth came out."

"Well – well – well – well!" Mr. Randolph murmured, seating himself helplessly in a chair; "this is wonderful. You have taken away my breath; this is amazing indeed; I can hardly take it in yet, lad. You are sure of what you are saying? Quite sure that you are making no mistake?"

"Quite certain. However, the doctor will tell you the story for himself." This the doctor proceeded to do, narrating the events at Cedar Gulch; how the murder had been discovered, and the body identified; how a verdict of wilful murder against some person unknown had been returned by a coroner's jury; how he and Sim Howlett had gone down to Sacramento, and how they had traced the deed to the gambler Symonds.

"There can be no doubt," Mr. Randolph said when he concluded, "that it is as you say, and that this man is William Tunstall's murderer."

"And we shall be able to bring him to justice, shall we not?" Hugh asked. "That was why I wanted you to meet me here, so that we could arrange to arrest him before he had any suspicion of my return."

"Ah! that is a different thing altogether, Hugh. The evidence of your two friends and the confirmation that can doubtless be obtained from Sacramento as to the existence of the gravestone erected to William Tunstall, and of the finding of the coroner's court, will no doubt enable us to prove to the satisfaction of the courts here that this scoundrel is an impostor. But the murder case is different.

"In the first place you would have to bring forward the charge, and give your evidence in the United States, and obtain an application for his extradition. British law has no jurisdiction as to a murder committed in a foreign country. Having set the United States authorities in action, you would return here and aid in obtaining an order from a magistrate here for that extradition; the evidence of your friends would doubtless be sufficient to induce a magistrate to grant such an order, then he would be taken over to the States, and, I suppose, sent down to California to be tried there. Your friends here will be best able to judge whether any jury out there would convict a man for a murder committed eight or ten years ago, unless the very strongest evidence was forthcoming.

"It would be next to impossible to obtain the evidence of those people, the waiters and others, from whom your friends gleaned the facts that put them upon the trail of Symonds, and without that evidence there is no legal proof that would hang a man. Morally, of course, there would seem to be no doubt about it. He and you were in the mining camp together, he knew the object for which Will Tunstall was leaving for England, and that he was entitled to considerable property on arriving here. He followed him down to Sacramento, or at any rate he went down at that time. They were together drinking; there your uncle was found murdered; this man appeared here with the letters that your uncle carried, and obtained possession of the estate.

"It is a very strong chain of evidence, and were every link proved might suffice to hang him here; but at present you have no actual proof that Symonds ever was in Sacramento with him, or was the man he was drinking with; and even could you find the waiters and others, it is very unlikely that there would be any one to identify him after all this time. Symonds' counsel would argue that there was no proof whatever against his client, and he would, of course, claim that Symonds knew nothing about the murder, but that he afterwards obtained the papers from the man who really committed the murder, and that the idea of coming over to England and personating Tunstall then for the first time occurred to him. So I think you would find it extremely difficult to get a verdict out in California merely on the evidence of these two gentlemen, and of my own that he was possessed of a letter I wrote to Tunstall. But in any case, if you decide to have him arrested on the charge of murder, you will have to go back to California to set the law in motion there, to get the State authorities to apply to the supreme authorities of the United States to make an application to our government for his arrest and extradition. You must do all this before he has any idea that you have returned, or at any rate before he knows that you have any idea of his crime; otherwise he will, of course, fly, and we shall have no means of stopping him, and he might be in Fiji before the application for his arrest was received here."

Hugh and his companions looked helplessly at each other. This was an altogether unexpected blow. They had imagined they had but to give their evidence to ensure the arrest, trial, and execution of William Tunstall's murderer.

The doctor's fingers twitched, and the look that Sim Howlett knew so well came into his eyes. He was about to spring to his feet when Sim touched him.

"Wait, doctor," he said. "We will talk about that afterwards."

"Then what do you advise, Mr. Randolph?" Hugh asked after a long pause.

"I should say that for the present we should content ourselves with arresting him on the charge of impersonation, and of obtaining possession of your uncle's estate by fraud. I think the proof we now have, in the evidence of these two gentlemen, and in this copy of the finding of the coroner's jury, will be quite sufficient to ensure his conviction, in which case he will get, I should say, seven years' penal servitude – perhaps fourteen – for although he will not be charged with that offence, the conviction that he murdered your uncle in order to obtain possession of the estate cannot but be very strong in the mind of the judge. Yes, I should think he would give him fourteen years at least. We may, of course, want some other evidence that can be obtained from Sacramento, such as an official copy of the record of the proceedings at the coroner's inquest; but that would be a matter for counsel to decide. My own opinion is, that the evidence of these two gentlemen that the William Tunstall who corresponded with your father, received my letter informing him of the will, and left the mining camp on his way to England, and was murdered on his way to Sacramento, was the real William Tunstall, will be quite sufficient.

"It is a very lucky thing for you, by the way, Hugh, that there were provisions in your father's will, that if William Tunstall died without issue his half of the property came back to you, for that clause has effectually prevented him from selling his estate, which he would have done long ago had it been possible to do so. To my knowledge he has tried over and over again, and that clause has always prevented it. He has raised a little money on his life interest, but that will of course have no claim on the estate now. Now, what do you say? It is for you to decide. In the one case you will have an enormous amount of trouble, and you may finally fail in getting an American jury to find this man guilty of the murder; and in any case, if they do find him so, they will not execute him for a murder committed so long ago, and it is probable that he will get off with imprisonment for life, and may be acquitted altogether. On the other hand, if you have him arrested at once here, on the charge of impersonation and fraud, he is morally certain of getting a sentence which, at his age, will be pretty nearly equivalent to imprisonment for life."

"I certainly think that is the best plan," Hugh agreed. "Don't you think so?" he asked, turning to the others.

"I think so," Sim Howlett said at once; and even the doctor, though less readily, agreed.

Since his last illness he had changed a good deal. He had no longer fits of abstraction, and was brighter and more cheerful than Sim Howlett had ever seen him before. The loss of blood and the low fever that had brought him to death's door had apparently relieved his brain of a load that had for years oppressed it.

"Let it be so," he said reluctantly. "Had we met out in the West it would have been different; but as it is, perhaps it is best."

Late that evening the party proceeded to Carlisle, and early the next morning Mr. Randolph went with the others to one of the county magistrates, and, after laying all the facts before him, obtained a warrant for the arrest of John Symonds alias William Tunstall.

"I must congratulate you, Mr. Tunstall," the magistrate said to Hugh after he had signed the warrant, "upon your discovery. This scoundrel has been a disgrace to your name. He has been for years a consorter with betting men and blacklegs, and stands in the worst odour. It is said that he has mortgaged his life interest in the estates and completely ruined himself."

Mr. Randolph nodded. "Yes, I believe he is pretty well at the end of his tether, and at any moment he might be turned out of Byrneside."

"Well, there is an end to all that," the magistrate said, "and the men who have proved themselves even sharper rogues than he is, will be disappointed. I am sorry for the person who has passed as your aunt, for I know that she is spoken well of by the people in the neighbourhood, and I fancy she has had a very hard time of it with him; but of course she must have been his accomplice in this impersonation of your uncle."

"I am sorry for her, very sorry," Hugh said. "She was always most kind to me, and I have reason to believe that she did all in her power to protect me from him. You see at my death he would have inherited the whole property, and we now know that he was not a man to stick at anything. I am sure that she acted in fear of him."

"I have private reasons for believing so too," Mr. Randolph said; "for, unless I am greatly mistaken, she has deposited a document that, in case of her death, would have exposed the whole plot, in the hands of some legal friends of mine. However, we will not occupy your time any longer, but will start at once with a couple of constables to execute this warrant."

Returning to Carlisle Mr. Randolph secured the services of two constables, and hiring vehicles they started at once for Byrneside. On arriving there Mr. Randolph said to the servant, "Announce me to Mr. Tunstall. Do not say that I am not alone." Following him closely they went across the hall, and as he opened the door and announced Mr. Randolph the others entered. The man was standing on the hearth-rug. The woman looked flushed and excited. They were evidently in the midst of a quarrel. Symonds looked up in angry surprise when the party entered.

"Do your duty," Mr. Randolph said to one of the constables.

"John Symonds, I arrest you under a warrant on the charge of impersonation and fraud."

A deep Mexican oath burst from the lips of the man, then he stood quiet again.

"Who dares bring such a charge against me?" he asked.

"I do," Hugh said, stepping forward; "and these are my witnesses, men who knew you at Cedar Gulch, and who identified the body of my murdered uncle."

"Traitress!" Symonds exclaimed in Mexican, and in an instant his arm was stretched out and there was a report of a pistol. "And she sent you out!" he exclaimed, turning to Hugh, but as he was in the act of again raising his arm there was the report of another pistol, and he fell shot through the brain.

The others stood stupefied at the sudden catastrophe, but the doctor said quietly, "I saw his hand go behind him, and knew he was up to mischief. I ought not to have waited, it is always a mistake to wait in these cases."

Hugh sprang forward towards the woman who had been kind to him, but she had fallen back in her chair. The gambler's bullet had done its work; it had struck her on the temple, and death had been instantaneous.

The excitement in the county when the news spread of what had taken place at Byrneside was great indeed, and the revelations made before the coroner's jury greatly added to it. They returned a verdict that "Lola Symonds had been wilfully murdered by John Symonds, and that the latter had come by his death at the hands of Frank Hunter, who had justifiably shot at and killed him while opposing by armed means the officers of the law, and that no blame attaches to the said Frank Hunter."

When all was over, Hugh was warmly congratulated by the gentlemen who had come in to be present at the inquest, upon his recovery of the whole of his father's estate, and upon his escape from the danger he had certainly run at the hands of the murderer of his uncle. He was much affected by the death of the woman he still thought of as his aunt, and the document that she deposited at the lawyers' in London showed how completely she had acted under fear of her husband, and that she had knowingly risked her life to save his.

The doctor and Sim Howlett remained for a fortnight with him at Byrneside. He had urged upon them to make it their home for a while and to settle near him; but at the end of that time the doctor said to him one evening: "Sim and I have talked matters over, Hugh, and we have made up our minds. I have heard from him that we are each the owners of 25,000 dollars. I should not have taken it had I known it at the time, but I should not like to hurt the don's feelings by sending it back now, and perhaps it will do more good in my hands than in his. So Sim and I are going back to California. We shall buy a place near the spot where I lived many years ago – Sim tells me he has told you the story – and there we shall finish our days. When we die the money will go to charities. That is our plan, lad. We shall find plenty to help, and what with that and a little gardening our time will be well occupied, and Sim and I will have plenty in the past to look back upon and talk about."

And so a week later they sailed. Hugh went with them to Liverpool and saw them off, and then travelled for a time on the Continent, for Byrneside was repugnant to him after the tragedy that had been enacted there.

On his return he went down to Norfolk and stayed for some time with Luscombe, and the visit was so pleasant that it was repeated whenever he happened to be in England.

Three years later he crossed the Atlantic again. He traversed the States more easily now, for the railway across was almost completed. After spending a month in California with the doctor and Sim Howlett, whom he found well and happy, he visited Don Ramon at El Paso. There had been changes here, for both Don Carlos and his two sisters were married, and all insisted upon his being their guest for a time.

His first visit after his return to England was again to Norfolk. It was a short but important one, and on its termination he went back to Byrneside to give orders for many changes and alterations that were to be made with all speed in view of the coming of a new mistress. It had for some time past been apparent to Luscombe that the remark he had laughingly made years before on the banks of the Canadian was likely to bear fruit, and that his sister Phillis constituted no small portion of the attraction that brought Hugh down to Norfolk. Indeed, before leaving for the States Hugh had chatted the matter over with him.

"Of course, you have seen, Luscombe, how it has been. I shall be three-and-twenty by the time I get back, which is quite young enough for a man to talk about marriage. As soon as I do I shall ask Phillis."

"Just as well to wait, Hugh. It seems to me that you and Phillis pretty well understand each other; but I don't see any use in engagements till one can fix a date for the marriage, and as you have made up your mind to go on this trip, it will save you both a lot of trouble in the way of writing to leave it alone until you come back. It is a horrid nuisance to keep on writing letters when you are travelling. Besides, you know, the governor has strong ideas against early marriages, and will think you quite young enough then, and so I should say leave it as it stands."