Complete weird tales of.., p.1160
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 1160
This was a true prophecy for it happened later at Oriskany.
Years later, Thayendanegea made a reference to this attempt, but the inference was that he himself led the war party, which is not true, because Brant was then in England.
The Huron for Canienga.
A Mohican term of insult, but generally used to express contempt for the Canienga.
Oneida.
The Karenna of Thiohero
Yi-ya-thon-dek, John Drogue, Da-ed-e-wenh-he-i, Engh-si-tsko-dak-i! Yi-ya-thon-dek, John Drogue, Nenne-a-wenni Yo-ya-neri Kenonwes!
Perhaps! He is Chief.
Beforehand.
Literally, in scarlet blood.
The Pleiades.
The Commissioners for selling real estate in Tryon County sold the personal property of Sir John Johnson some time before the Hall and acreage were sold. The Commissioners appointed for selling confiscated personal property in Tryon County were appointed later, March 6, 1777.
This same man, William Newberry, a sergeant in Butler’s regiment; and Henry Hare, lieutenant in the same regiment, were caught inside the American lines, court-martialed, convicted of unspeakable cruelties, and Were hung as spies by order of General Clinton, July 6th, 1779.
Kon-kwe-ha. Literally, “I am a little of a real man.”
“Tortoise,” or Noble Clan.
He is an Oneida.
“A real man,” in Canienga dialect. The Saguenay’s Iroquois is mixed and imperfect.
“Disappearing Mist” — Sakayen-gwaration.
Che-go-sis — pickerel. In the Oneida dialect, Ska-ka-lux or Bad-eye.
In October, 1919, the author talked to a farmer and his son, who, a few days previously, while digging sand to mend the Johnstown road at this point, had disinterred two skeletons which had been buried there. From the shape of the skulls, it is presumed that the remains were Indian.
Indian lore. The yellow moccasin flower is the whippoorwill’s shoe.
A secret society common to all nations of the Iroquois Confederacy.
32 parallel to The Expedition to Danbury, printed in a Pennsylvania newspaper, May 14th, 1777.
Carkers — carcass — a shell fired from a small piece of artillery.
Sir Peter Parker’s breeches were carried away by a round shot at Fort Moultrie.
His charming but abandoned mistress.
The house stood in the forks of the Albany and Schenectady road.
Catherine. Her shrine is at Auriesville — the Lourdes of America — where many miraculous cures are effected.
Haghriron, of the Great Rite, in the Canienga dialect.
Captain Watts was left for dead but ultimately recovered.
The historian, J. R. Simms, says that Benjamin De Luysnes and his party strung up Dries Bowman, and then cut him down and let him go with a warning. Simms also gives a different date to this affair. At all events, it seems that Bowman was cut down in time to save his life. Simms, by the way, spells De Luysnes’ name De Line. Campbell mentions Captain Stephen Watts as Major Stephen Watson. We all commit error.
Angelica Vrooman sewed the winding sheet for Lieutenant Wirt’s body.
A letter written by Colonel Butler so designates the place where the ancient Butler house is still standing. The letter mentioned is in the possession of the author.
Now the town of Fonda.
The British account makes it three guns and 200 men.
In the writer’s possession is a letter written by the widow of Lieutenant Hare, retailing the circumstances of his execution and praying for financial relief from extreme poverty. General Sir Frederick Haldimand indorses the application in his own handwriting and recommends a pension. The widow mentions her six little children.
The gossipy, industrious, and diverting historian, Simms, whose account of this incident would seem to imply that Penelope Grant herself related it to him, gives a different version of her testimony. The statement he offers is signed: “Mrs. Penelope Fortes. Her maiden name was Grant.” So Simms may have had it first hand.
In Valley Dutch: “Let the accursed rebel die!”
The Flaming Jewel
CONTENTS
Episode One
Episode Two
Episode Three
Episode Four
Episode Five
Episode Six
Episode Seven
Episode Eight
Episode Nine
Episode Ten
Episode Eleven
Episode Twelve
To my friend R. T. Haines-Halsey who unreservedly believes everything I write.
To R.T.
* * * * *
I Three Guests at dinner! That’s the life! — Wedgewood, Revere, and
Duncan Phyfe!
II You sit on Duncan — when you dare, — And out of Wedgewood, using care, With Paul Revere you eat your fare.
III From Paul you borrow fork and knife To wage a gastronomic strife ‘n porringers; and platters rare Of blue Historic Willow-ware.
IV Banquets with cymbal, drum and fife, Or rose-wreathed feasts with riot rife To your chaste suppers can’t compare.
V Let those deny the truth who dare! — Paul, Duncan, Wedgewood! That’s the life! All else is bunk and empty air.
ENVOI The Cordon-bleu has set the pace With Goulash, Haggis, Bouillabaisse, Curry, Chop-suey, Kous-Kous Stew — I can not offer these to you, — Being a plain, old-fashioned cook, — So pray accept this scrambled book.
May, 1922 R.W.C.
* * * * *
Episode One
Eve
* * * * *
I
During the last two years, Fate, Chance, and Destiny had been too busy to attend to Mike Clinch. But now his turn was coming in the Eternal Sequence of things. The stars in their courses indicated the beginning of the undoing of Mike Clinch.
From Esthonia a refugee Countess wrote to James Darragh in New York: “ — After two years we have discovered that it was Jose Quintana’s band of international thieves that robbed Ricca. Quintana has disappeared. “A Levantine diamond broker in New York, named Emanuel Sard, may be in communication with him. “Ricca and I are going to America as soon as possible. “Valentine.”
The day Darragh received the letter he started to look up Sard.
But that very morning Sard had received a curious letter from Rotterdam.
This was the letter:
“Sardius — Tourmaline — Aragonite — Rhodonite * Porphyry — Obsidian
— Nugget Gold — Diaspore * Novaculite * Yu * Nugget Silver — Amber —
Matrix Turquoise — Elaeolite * Ivory — Sardonyx * Moonstone — Iceland
Spar — Kalpa Zircon — Eye Agate * Celonite — Lapis — Iolite —
Nephrite — Chalcedony — Hydrolite * Hegolite — Amethyst — Selenite *
Fire Opal — Labradorite — Garnet * Jade — Emerald — Wood Opal —
Essonite — Lazuli * Epidote — Ruby — Onyx — Sapphire — Indicolite
— Topaz — Euclase * Indian Diamond * Star Sapphire — African Diamond
— Iceland Spar — Lapis Crucifer * Abalone — Turkish Turquoise * Old
Mine Stone — Natrolite — Cats Eye — Electrum * * * 1/5 a a.”
That afternoon young Darragh located Sard’s office and presented himself as a customer. The weasel-faced clerk behind the wicket laid a pistol handy and informed Darragh that Sard was away on a business trip.
Darragh looked cautiously around the small office: “Can anybody hear us?”
“Nobody. Why?”
“I have important news concerning Jose Quintana,” whispered Darragh;
“Where is Sard?”
“Why, he had a letter from Quintana this very morning,” replied the clerk in a low, uneasy voice. “Mr. Sard left for Albany on the one o’clock train. Is there any trouble?”
“Plenty,” replied Darragh coolly; “do you know Quintana?”
“No. But Mr. Sard expects him here any day now.”
Darragh leaned closer against the grille: “Listen very carefully; if a man comes here who calls himself Jose Quintana, turn him over to the police until Mr. Sard returns. No matter what he tells you, turn him over to the police. Do you understand?”
“Who are you?” demanded the worried clerk. “Are you one of Quintana’s people?”
“Young man,” said Darragh, “I’m close enough to Quintana to give you orders. And give Sard orders. … And Quintana, too!”
A great light dawned on the scared clerk: “You are Jose Quintana!” he said hoarsely.
Darragh bored him through with his dark stare: “Mind your business,” he said.
* * * * *
That night in Albany Darragh picked up Sard’s trail. It led to a dealer in automobiles. Sard had bought a Comet Six, paying cash, and had started north.
Through Schenectady, Fonda, and Mayfield, the following day, Darragh traced a brand new Comet Six containing one short, dark Levantine with a parrot nose. In Northville Darragh hired a Ford.
At Lake Pleasant Sard’s car went wrong. Darragh missed him by ten minutes; but he learned that Sard had inquired the way to Ghost Lake Inn.
That was sufficient. Darragh bought an axe, drove as far as Harrod’s Corners, dismissed the Ford, and walked into a forest entirely familiar to him.
He emerged in half an hour on a wood road two miles farther on. Here he felled a tree across the road and sat down in the bushes to await events.
Toward sunset, hearing a car coming, he tied his handkerchief over his face below the eyes, and took an automatic from his pocket.
Sard’s car stopped and Sard got out to inspect the obstruction. Darragh sauntered out of the bushes, poked his pistol against Mr. Sard’s fat abdomen, and leisurely and thoroughly robbed him.
In an agreeable spot near a brook Darragh lighted his pipe and sat him down to examine the booty in detail. Two pistols, a stiletto, and a blackjack composed the arsenal of Mr. Sard. A large wallet disclosed more than four thousand dollars in Treasury notes — something to reimburse Ricca when she arrived, he thought.
Among Sard’s papers he discovered a cipher letter from Rotterdam — probably from Quintana. Cipher was rather in Darragh’s line. All ciphers are solved by similar methods, unless the key is contained in a code book known only to sender and receiver.
But Quintana’s cipher proved to be only an easy acrostic — the very simplest of secret messages. Within an hour Darragh had it pencilled out:
Cipher
“Take notice: “Star Pond, N.Y. … Name is Mike Clinch. … Has Flaming
Jewel. … Erosite. … I sail at once. “Quintana.”
Having served in Russia as an officer in the Military Intelligence Department attached to the American Expeditionary Forces, Darragh had little trouble with Quintana’s letter. Even the signature was not difficult, the fraction 1/5 was easily translated Quint; and the familiar prescription symbol a a spelled ana; which gave Quintana’s name in full.
He had heard of Erosite as the rarest and most magnificent of all gems. Only three were known. The young Duchess Theodorica of Esthonia had possessed one.
* * * * *
Darragh was immensely amused to find that the chase after Emanuel Sard should have led him to the very borders of the great Harrod estate in the Adirondacks.
He gathered up his loot and walked on through the splendid forest which once had belonged to Henry Harrod of Boston, and which now was the property of Harrod’s nephew, James Darragh.
When he came to the first trespass notice he stood a moment to read it. Then, slowly, he turned and looked toward Clinch’s. An autumn sunset flared like a conflagration through the pines. There was a glimmer of water, too, where Star Pond lay.
* * * * *
Fate, Chance, and Destiny were becoming very busy with Mike Clinch. They had started Quintana, Sard, and Darragh on his trail. Now they stirred up the sovereign State of New York.
That lank wolf, Justice, was afoot and sniffing uncomfortably close to the heels of Mike Clinch.
* * * * *
II
Two State Troopers drew bridles in the yellowing October forest. Their smart drab uniforms touched with purple blended harmoniously with the autumn woods. They were as inconspicuous as two deer in the dappled shadow. There was a sunny clearing just ahead. The wood road they had been travelling entered it. Beyond lay Star Pond.
Trooper Lannis said to Trooper Stormont: “That’s Mike Clinch’s clearing.
Our man may be there. Now we’ll see if anybody tips him off this time.”
Forest and clearing were very still in the sunshine. Nothing stirred save gold leaves drifting down, and a hawk high in the deep blue sky turning in narrow circles.
Lannis was instructing Stormont, who had been transferred from the Long
Island Troop, and who was unacquainted with local matters.
Lannis said: “Clinch’s dump stands on the other edge of the clearing.
Clinch owns five hundred acres in here. He’s a rat.”
“Bad?”
“Well, he’s mean. I don’t know how bad he is. But he runs a rotten dump. The forest has its slums as well as the city. This is the Hell’s Kitchen of the North Woods.”
Stormont nodded.
“All the scum of the wilderness gathers here,” went on Lannis. “Here’s where half the trouble in the North Woods hatches. We’ll eat dinner at Clinch’s. His stepdaughter is a peach.”
The sturdy, sun-browned trooper glanced at his wrist watch, stretched his legs in his stirrups.
“Jack,” he said, “I want you to get Clinch right, and I’m going to tell you about his outfit while we watch this road. It’s like a movie. Clinch plays the lead. I’ll dope out the scenario for you — —”
He turned sideways in his saddle, freeing both spurred heels and lolled so, constructing a cigarette while he talked:
“Way back around 1900 Mike Clinch was a guide — a decent young fellow they say. He guided fishing parties in summer, hunters in fall and winter. He made money and built the house. The people he guided were wealthy. He made a lot of money and bought land. I understand he was square and that everybody liked him.
“About that time there came to Clinch’s `hotel’ a Mr. and Mrs. Strayer. They were `lungers.’ Strayer seemed to be a gentleman; his wife was good looking and rather common. Both were very young. He had the consump bad — the galloping variety. He didn’t last long. A month after he died his young wife had a baby. Clinch married her. She also died the same year. The baby’s name was Eve. Clinch became quite crazy about her and started to make a lady of her. That was his mania.”
Lannis leaned from his saddle and carefully dropped his cigarette end into a puddle of rain water. Then he swung one leg over and sat side saddle.
“Clinch had plenty of money in those days,” he went on. “He could afford to educate the child. The kid had a governess. Then he sent her to a fancy boarding school. She had everything a young girl could want.
“She developed into a pretty young thing at fifteen. … She’s eighteen now — and I don’t know what to call her. She pulled a gun on me in July.”
“What!”
“Sure. There was a row at Clinch’s dump. A rum-runner called Jake Kloon got shot up. I came up to get Clinch. He was sick-drunk in his bunk. When I broke in the door Eve Strayer pulled a gun on me.”
“What happened?” inquired Stormont.
“Nothing. I took Clinch. … But he got off as usual.”
“Acquitted?”
Lannis nodded, rolling another cigarette:
“Now, I’ll tell you how Clinch happened to go wrong,” he said. “You see he’d always made his living by guiding. Well, some years ago Henry Harrod, of Boston, came here and bought thousands and thousands of acres of forest all around Clinch’s — —” Lannis half rose on one stirrup and, with a comprehensive sweep of his muscular arm, ending in a flourish: “ — He bought everything for miles and miles. And that started Clinch down hill. Harrod tried to force Clinch to sell. The millionaire tactics you know. He was determined to oust him. Clinch got mad and wouldn’t sell at any price. Harrod kept on buying all around Clinch and posted trespass notices. That meant ruin to Clinch. He was walled in. No hunters care to be restricted. Clinch’s little property was no good. Business stopped. His step-daughter’s education became expensive. He as in a bad way. Harrod offered him a high price. But Clinch turned ugly and wouldn’t budge. And that’s how Clinch began to go wrong.”
“Poor devil,” said Stormont.
“Devil, all right. Poor, too. But he needed money. He was crazy to make a lady of Eve Strayer. And there are ways of finding money, you know.”
Stormont nodded.
“Well, Clinch found money in those ways. The Conservation Commissioner in Albany began to hear about game law violations. The Revenue people heard of rum-running. Clinch lost his guide’s license. But nobody could get the goods on him.
“There was a rough backwoods bunch always drifting around Clinch’s place in those days. There were fights. And not so many miles from Clinch’s there was highway robbery and a murder or two.
“Then the war came. The draft caught Clinch. Malone exempted him, he being the sole support of his stepchild.
“But the girl volunteered. She got to France, somehow — scrubbed in a hospital, I believe — anyway, Clinch wanted to be on the same side of the world she was on, and he went with a Forestry Regiment and cut trees for railroad ties in southern France until the war ended and they sent him home.
“Eve Strayer came back too. She’s there now. You’ll see her at dinner time. She sticks to Clinch. He’s a rat. He’s up against the dry laws and the game laws. Government enforcement agents, game protectors, State Constabulary, all keep an eye on Clinch. Harrod’s trespass signs fence him in. He’s like a rat in a trap. Yet Clinch makes money at law breaking and nobody can catch him red-handed.
“He kills Harrod’s deer. That’s certain. I mean Harrod’s nephew’s deer. Harrod’s dead. Darragh’s the young nephew’s name. He’s never been here — he was in the army — in Russia — I don’t know what became of him — but he keeps up the Harrod preserve — game-wardens, patrols, watchers, trespass signs and all.”
