We went again many times to see Jerry, and always found him alone. It seemed strange that his companions should desert him, and we also noticed that the old-timers avoided his shanty. They were not as ready to afford him the aid usually given to the lonely and helpless, whose lot it was to be among them. Jerry was a castaway—ostracized by whiskey-traders and gamblers. Why or wherefore we failed to learn.
The weather grew colder, the sick man every day worse, and at last it became absolutely necessary to remove him to some warmer shelter than the old shanty. There was in the town an old man who was known by the name of Kamusi, a genuine specimen of the "old-timer." He was rough and ready in language and manners, drank freely and gambled and grumbled continually, yet in all the country there was not a more tender-hearted man. He had an Indian wife and several half-breed children, whom he loved intensely and swore at incessantly. He led a careless, easy-going and, in some respects, a wild life, yet he was the most liberal giver to the Indian school and mission church. The log building, consisting of the kitchen, where Ling, the Chinaman, cooked, a small dining-room, a billiard and bar-room, which represented the hotel in the town, was owned and kept by Kamusi. This rough old man offered to take Jerry in and care for him free of expense.
We carried the sick man on a blanket, and laid him on an old mattress in the corner of the billiard-room. There, amid the strange surroundings of men and women, Indians, Mounted Police, half-breeds, traders, cowboys, and rough settlers, the sick man lay slowly dying. We went to see him frequently, and endeavored to lead his thoughts upward to higher things. The men at the billiard table, as we talked, would often lower their voices or play more quietly in deference to our presence, or it might be to the near approach of the deepening shadow of the death-angel's wings; and eager as they were over the games or the sums at stake, they gave many a thought to the dying man so near to them.
We had succeeded in getting a doctor to look at him, but he could do no more than repeat our own opinion that the man had not long to live. As we tried to tell him of the way of peace, and prayed, our hands resting on the side of the billiard table, the gamesters ceased, doffed their hats, and let their cues rest on the floor. Such a prayer-meeting, in such a place and with such a congregation, could not but leave abiding memories in many hearts, and, we trust, led some to better living.
A few days before his death one of Jerry's old comrades returned, and by his devoted attention and continuous watch over the dying man aroused the suspicions of some of the men who frequented the billiard-room. Rumors were soon floating about that Jerry was known to have possessed several hundred dollars. No one knew where it was hidden, and the general opinion was that Tom Hastings was after no good.
One night just before Jerry died, and after a draught had been given him to ease the pain he was suffering, he seemed anxious to communicate some intelligence. Unable to speak, he traced, with feeble, trembling fingers, some straggling characters on the wall against which he lay. We could not decipher their meaning, but the men standing near seemed to understand. Presently two of them mounted their horses and rode out of the town.
Jerry died the next day, and we buried him on the prairie. No one, not even his two "pals," knew or could tell where Jerry came from. We made some inquiries, but failed to find any of his relatives or obtain information of where his parents lived. We knew no more about him than what he had told us himself in answer to our first questions.
Some days after his companion's death, Tom Hastings went south with an ox-train. Before he left he paid all who had incurred any expense in befriending the sick man. Pete Rowley, the third of the trio, remained in the country and seemed to prosper for a time. He never worked, but was always well dressed and appeared to have all the money he required. After hovering about the billiard tables for several months he disappeared. No one cared to ask where he had gone.
What the writing on the wall betrayed, who had found the treasure whose hiding-place Jerry's trembling hand had described, we never knew; but we often thought that if wrong had been done by any or either of his friends, a day of retribution would surely come to the one who had acquired it, and the mystery surrounding it would then be fully revealed.