The Mynns' Mystery

But he sat down again directly.

“No, no; you don’t think that, sir. May I go on?”

“By all means.”

“Shall I take the cartridges out of the revolver, sir?” said the young man drily, “in case, I make a snatch at it.”

“No, no, no. Go on, sir; go on.”

There was a meaning smile on the young man’s lips as he went on again, and began telling of his last hunting-trip; but the smile soon died out, and he looked stern and relentless as he spoke of the weary tramp they had had, the midday sleep, and their journey afterwards till they were beside the great cañon, where he stepped forward to look about him.

“And then – I suppose it was a sudden temptation – the brute took a step or two forward, came close behind me, and before I could turn, for I felt paralysed with the horror of my position, he raised his rifle as high as he could reach, and struck me a crashing blow upon the back of the head.”

“How do you know if you were looking in another direction?”

“Because the evening sun cast his shadow upon the side of the cañon, where it seemed to me in that momentary flash that one giant was smiting down another. Then I fell headlong down, and for a few moments all was darkness.”

“Go on, sir,” said the old lawyer, who was deeply interested, for his vis-à-vis was talking in a slow, laboured way, as if the recollection of the terrible scene was more than he could bear and choked him with emotion.

“Then I came to myself, to lie helpless as if in a dream. I could not stir or make a sound; but I could hear distinctly, as I lay low down where I had fallen, the sounds made by some one lowering himself down the side of the cañon. Now twigs were breaking, and now stones kept falling; and after what seemed to be a long time, full of a dull sense of pain and drowsiness, I was conscious of a heavy breathing as of a wild beast.”

“A bear,” said the old lawyer involuntarily.

“No,” said the young man with a bitter smile; “a worse kind of wild beast than that: a man, sir – mine own familiar friend – Dan Portway.”

“Ah!”

“He was searching my pockets, and taking everything about me; my roughly-made, plain gold ring – pure gold from a pocket in the mountains – what letters I had; everything. Of course I had not much with me; nearly all I possessed was at my tent in the saddlebags miles away.”

“You felt all this?”

“And saw, though my eyes were nearly closed. And at last, as it seemed to me, he was about to finish his work by casting me down headlong into the profound depths of the great chasm, when a devilish thought entered his mind and seemed to flash into mine as he held me.”

There was another pause, and the young man’s voice sounded very husky, and he seemed to be suffering the bygone horror over again as he recommenced:

“I tell you I could not stir, but I could think, and feel, and see that devil’s satisfied grin as he must have said to himself: —

“‘Some day, perhaps, his body may be found, and then they will say he was last seen in my company, and it might prove awkward. They shall think he was killed by the Indians.’”

During the earlier part of this narrative the old lawyer had leaned back in his chair; but as he grew interested he sat up, then leaned forward, and now rested his hands upon the arms of his chair, and gazed full in the speaker’s face, so as not to lose a gesture, the slightest play of his countenance, or a word.

“Yes,” he continued; “go on.”

“It was as I thought, and for a moment I tried to shut out the horror, and to ask God to forgive all I had done wrong, and spare me the horrible agony I was to feel before I died.

“But I could only think a few of the words I wished to say, and then, as if every other sense grew more capable of taking in all that passed, I saw him draw his keen hunting-knife from his belt. He seized my hair, and the next moment the point was dividing the skin of my forehead, and I felt the resistance offered by the bone, the sharp pain, and the blood start and begin to trickle over my temples. Then there was a hideous yell; he let me fall, and fled.”

“Repentant?” said the old lawyer in an excited whisper.

“You shall hear, sir. As my head struck the rock there was a heavy breathing, a rustling sound of undergrowth being thrust aside, and a heavy foot was planted upon my chest, as a huge bear rushed over me in full pursuit of my would-be murderer, and then I lay listening to the crackling of twigs and the falling of stones. By degrees this died away, and for a long time all was still, and I must have glided into a state of insensibility from which I was roused by a low, snuffling noise, and I felt hot breath upon my face, and the wet tongue of the great bear licking my forehead. Then I felt him paw at me, and turn me over on to my face.

“Then all was blank.

“When I could see again I was lying chest downward, perfectly helpless, but with my head so turned that I could see, a dozen yards away, the great grizzly bear busy feeding upon the fruit of one of the low shrubs which grew on the side of the cañon. Sometimes he crawled leisurely down, sometimes up, as the fruit was most abundant; and this seemed to satisfy him; for though during the next two days he came near me again and again, he never so much as snuffed about me.

“But it all seems, after I awoke that morning, dreamlike and strange. I told you it was two days, but I am not sure about that. I have a dim recollection of the sun burning me, and seeming to scorch my brain, of its being light and dark, and of a horrible sensation of thirst, and then of all being blank. Rather a ghastly tale for ladies’ ears, sir?”

“Yes, yes,” said the old lawyer. “And afterwards?”

“Afterwards, sir? Yes; the next thing I remember is lying upon a bison-skin in an Indian’s skin lodge, and of the dark, dirty, wild face of a squaw looking down into mine. Then of being held up while my head was bandaged, and then for a long period all seemed misty and wild. I was hunting and shooting in the Rockies. Then I was galloping after bison with which the plain seemed to be black. Then I was prospecting for gold, and finding rifts in the rocks full and waiting to be torn out, but I could never get the gold, never succeed in hunting or shooting. There was always something to interfere, till at last I found that I was as weak as a child, and with almost the thought and action of a helpless babe, living in the lodge of a roving party of Indians who camped just where it seemed to be good in their own eyes. They are savages, whom the white man has ousted from nearly all their own hunting grounds; they are filthy and abominable in their ways, false and treacherous, all that is bad some have learned, but they nursed me through a long fever and delirium into a sort of imbecile childhood, from which I slowly gained my manhood’s reason and strength, and then they gave me my rifle, and set me at liberty to join a party of gold-seekers across whom we came.”

“They found you there, lying half dead by the bear.”

“I suppose so, sir. All I know I found out by thinking the matter over. I recollect standing my rifle against a rock close to the track; and as my companion fled, I suppose they must have seen it in passing, hunted about for the owner and found me. I do not know for I could not understand the Indians, and they could not understand me.

“I have nearly done, sir,” said the young man speaking more briskly now. “I made my way to my old camping-place, but there was nothing there, and I was wondering whether Dan Portway had carried everything off, till I remembered seeing the bear charge him, and I went to the place, expecting, perhaps, to find his bones. But I made no discovery; and knowing what a hopeless task it would be to try and find the villain, I determined to come on here in obedience to the letter I had received before I went for my last trip, made my way to San Francisco, and there I learned of my grandfather’s death.”

“You made no effort then to find your assailant?” said the lawyer.

“No, sir, and it has proved to be the correct thing to do, for in coming here I have run him to earth.”

They sat gazing at each other for some moments in silence. Then Mr Hampton spoke.

“You have the scar, then, made by your enemy’s knife?”

“Yes, sir, here,” said the young man, slightly pressing back his hair, and bending forward so that the light of the shaded lamp fell upon a red line about half an inch from the roots.

“And the injury to your head?”

“Rather an ugly place still, sir. The skull was slightly fractured. Do you wish for that proof of my identity?”

“I should like that proof of the truth of your story, sir. I am a lawyer.”

“Give me your hand, then.”

He took the old man’s index finger, bent lower, and pressed it upon the back of his head.

The old man shuddered and drew back.

“And if you want any further proof that I am the man I say, I have one here that I had forgotten. When I was a child, for some freak, my father tattooed a heart and dart upon my breast. There they are.”

He tore open the flannel shirt he wore, and displayed the blue marks upon his clear white skin.

“There, sir; that is all I can tell you now. The next thing is to confront Mr Dan Portway.”

“You think, then, that your old companion – I mean you wish me to believe that your old companion took everything he could to prove his identity, and has come here, and traded upon the knowledge he won?”

“And come here and laid claim to the estate, sir. Yes, I could lay my life that is the case.”