“What does it say?”
“Don’t you wish you knew? I will tell you, on condition that you will give me a third of what you make by the operation. Your plans will amount to nothing, unless you know what is in the will. You might go to St. Louis, and examine the other copy; but your chances would be all gone before you could get back. If you will come to terms I will tell you what I know, and will help you with your plans. If you won’t, you may as well load up your traps and quit the ground.”
“I will agree to what you say, if your information really causes me to change my plans.”
“That is fair enough. I will guarantee that it will surprise you.”
“Very well. Out with it.”
“The will is a strange one, and perhaps there is a touch of hypo in it; but I have no doubt that it would stand in the courts. In fact, it was drawn by a lawyer, who ought to have known his business. It seems that the old man was quite a monomaniac on the subject of being killed by Indians. He had a presentiment that he would be scalped by them some day, and the fear that his scalp would remain in their possession, and be smoke-dried in their lodges, always preyed upon his mind.”
“It may have been second-sight, for he was killed and scalped after escaping for so many years.”
“I know that; but listen to the arrangement he made by his will. He divided his property into two equal portions, one of which is to be given to the man who recovers his scalp from the Indians. The other half is to be his daughter’s, on condition she marries the man who recovers his scalp.”
Fred Wilder uttered an involuntary exclamation, and felt in the breast-pocket of his hunting-shirt, to see whether the gray scalp was secure.