Chapter XXV The Dispatch-Box
When they had brought Eagle Eye home and buried him under the willow trees on the river bank Joe went directly to his mother.
He was seventeen now, and the dangers and hardships he had been through and the responsibilities that had been thrust upon him made him appear much older than his years.
“Mother,” he said in a low trembling voice, “have you told Nina—does she know?”
“Not yet, dear. There has not been time. It will of course be something of a shock to her, and I want to tell her when we are quiet and alone and I can prepare her for it.”
For a moment the boy stood silent, his head bent forward on his breast. Then he burst out impetuously:
“Do you think we’d better tell her at all, Mother? She is contented and happy here, why should we tell her something that—that—might take her away from us forever? I have always known that she was—was—different, somehow, and this box probably contains the information about her own people and all that. If she gets it why—why she will probably go back to them—and—and——”
The troubled voice ceased, and his mother bent forward and putting her hand under his chin raised his face to hers.
“Why, Joe!” she exclaimed, “why, Joe! Is that my own boy speaking like this? You would keep the knowledge that must be of such inestimable value to Nina away from her because, perchance, we should lose her, lest she should leave us—to further her own happiness and prosperity in life?”
Joe bent his head and his face crimsoned.
“I know I’m selfish, Mother,” he blurted out; “I know I shouldn’t even allow myself to think of such a thing. But when I think of her leaving us—of—of going off to live with some one else—I—I just can’t stand it.” Then raising his head and fixing his deep grey eyes upon his mother’s face, “I’d rather die than live without Nina.”
When she had at last sent him away to bed Hannah Peniman sat for a long time before the dying fire.
Joe—her Joe—her son—her baby—was not a boy any more—he was a man!
The eyes that had looked into hers this night, the voice that had spoken out of a heart yet unknown to itself, were not the eyes, the voice of a child. And the knowledge left pain in her heart, and wonder.
She rose presently and going to the door called Nina.
As the girl came bounding into the room Hannah Peniman looked at her with new eyes. The little Princess was now a slender, graceful, beautiful girl of fourteen, with a head of rippling gold, eyes like wood-violets, and a face so entrancingly lovely that Mrs. Peniman’s heart sank as she looked at it.
She drew the girl gently down on a chair beside her.
“Listen, dear,” her voice was low, almost sad, as she spoke, “you never knew the Indian that Ruth found on the prairies to-day and that Father and the boys buried this evening, but he has done you a great, an inestimable service. You have heard us speak of him, and how we took care of Eagle Eye when he was wounded. That was at the time that both you and Joe were away, after you were kidnapped by the Indians. Father Peniman trusted Eagle Eye, and told him your story. He went away without a word, but in some way he got possession of the box containing your papers——”
Nina started up from her chair.
“The box—the dispatch-box—that Mother left me?”
“Yes, Nina. He got it, and he was bringing it back to us when he became lost in the blizzard. He gave his life in the effort to restore it.”
“But the box—the box—Mother’s box?” cried Nina, her hands clasped, her face white, her eyes wide and pleading.
“That was the box that Ruth found this afternoon lying on the prairie beside Eagle Eye’s body.”
“And you have it—you got it—it—it——” her agitation was too great for words.
Mrs. Peniman laid her hand over the little shaking hands that were clasped against Nina’s breast.
“Yes, dear, we have it.” She rose and going to her trunk brought forth the box and put it into Nina’s hands.
The girl clasped it, bent over it, pressed it to her bosom, and burst into a flood of tears.
“It is all I have of them,” she whispered, “all that I have to remember either of them. Oh, I hope there is a picture of Mother in the box, some letters, something to make me know more about my dear, dear father and mother!”
At this moment Mr. Peniman entered the room. He crossed silently to the table and stood beside it while Nina with shaking fingers unfastened the thongs that were wound about the box and raised the lid. On the top were two long folded papers. She opened these and glanced at them hastily, then threw them on the table. They were deeds, executed many years before, to Lee C. Carroll, by his father, Edgar M. Carroll, conveying to him and his heirs forever sole title to certain properties in St. Louis and New York.
There was a tray in the box, and with trembling hands Nina raised this eagerly, hoping to find the treasures she had coveted in the space below.
There was nothing in it but a heap of ashes.
The base, vindictive nature of the renegade, while leaving in the box the deeds to a property he dared not claim, incited him with devilish malice to destroy all the personal papers, all data, every scrap of information that could lead to the restoration of the child to her friends and relatives, or her place in society.
When the full realization of what had been done came upon her Nina uttered a heartbroken cry and cast herself into Mrs. Peniman’s arms.
With eyes that could scarce credit the evidence of their senses the man and woman gazed into the box.
Nothing there but ashes.
Nothing to pay for the life that had been given. Nothing to bring to the helpless young girl the knowledge without which she was cut off from all family relation, or connection with the life from which she came. Nothing to help her to establish her identity, or enable her to claim the property, the deeds of which had been so sardonically left in the box.
The utter maliciousness of it, the cold, cruel, calculating vindictiveness of the deed left them stunned.
“Don’t grieve so, darling,” Hannah Peniman murmured, stroking the golden head and pressing it to her breast, “you have the deeds, and they mean a great deal. Property in those two big cities must be worth a great deal of money now.”
“But I don’t want money,” sobbed Nina broken-heartedly. “I don’t care anything about the deeds, he might as well have burned them, too. What do I want of property in New York or St. Louis? I’ll probably never go there. I don’t want to go there. I want to stay here with you. But what I wanted—what I hoped we would find in the box—were pictures of Papa and Mama, letters from them—things about them and me—so that I would know something about them—about myself, so that I wouldn’t feel myself a poor forsaken, friendless waif, dependent upon your charity for all I have and am.”
Joshua Peniman crossed the room and laid his hand upon her head.
“You are not a friendless waif, Princess,” he said in his low, gentle voice, “you are our daughter, beloved, cherished, as much as Sara or Ruth.” Then taking up the deeds from the table he examined them carefully.
“This is very strange,” he mused; “I can’t understand it. Why should he have left the deeds and destroyed everything else in the box? There is a considerable quantity of ashes here. The box must have been full of papers. Why should that villain have destroyed them all and left these deeds? I cannot understand it.”
He puzzled over it long after Nina had sobbed herself to sleep in Ruth’s loving arms.
Where was Red Snake?
Why had he burned the contents of this box?
How had the box come to be in the possession of Eagle Eye?
What had they to expect from this new complication in a mystery he was unable to unravel?
Little could he guess, as he went abstractedly about his work the next day, how those questions were to be answered, or how closely that mystery was to affect the lives of himself and those who were dear to him.