The Red Book Magazine/Volume 5/Number 2/A Mummy at Fort Lonesome

by W. A. Fraser

A Mummy at Fort Lonesome

BY W. A. FRASER

When the Loop Ranch sent the shipment of cattle to Montreal from Standoff, Alberta, Finn Moran was appointed official feeder.

Finn Moran was a kind of broncho man, one who generally knocks the corners off furniture, and uses his animal force to move the wrong object.

In Montreal Finn pervaded many saloons, and “shoved the city round a bit,” as he termed it.

Fate is always on the lookout for restless humans to give them occupation, and, one day, because of this influence, Moran, with Ted Goad, who was Fate's agent, went to a sale of unclaimed luggage held by the Canadian Pacific Railway. It was as good as faro, this buying a hidden treasure; and when an antique, oblong box—the appearance of which suggested wealth—was put up, Moran became its possessor for seven dollars. Then, joyous in their speculation, the two friends, with the box, were transported to Finn's quarters.

It lay heavy in their arms as they toiled up the stairs; but the depressing weight caused their spirits to rise in cheery optimism.

Finn hoped that it might contain stolen silver—some burglar's box, perhaps. The contents might even be old wine or liquor—the antique box had a foreign aspect; that would be all right. Goad, who had been on the southern ranges, declared that some hieroglyphics on the case were Mexican, and that it was a case of Mexican saddles, chaps, riding gear, and all the rest of it. However, investigation would prove the pudding.

One side of the lid was held by three strong hinges; the other was fastened down with screw-nails. A screw-driver was borrowed from the landlady, the secret-hiding lid thrown back, and in the treasure cavern of their purchase lay the tarred form of an Egyptian mummy The partners in the speculation had craned their necks eagerly. Now the screw-driver clattered from Finn's huge hand to the floor, and he gasped: “Holy smoke! We're stuck with a rooster's been up 'gainst a knife-play!”

But Goad had a nebulous memory of mummies; just now it was in his mind, as he searched for the truth, that they cured the defunct inhabitants in this way in Mexico.

“'Tain't no knife-play, Finn; that's a greaser from Mexico. I seen thousands of them down there. He's been dead more'n forty years.”

“But what's he doin' here?” asked Finn indignantly.

“We freighted him here, didn't we?”

“It'll be hell to get shut of it without gettin' the laugh throwed into us good an' plenty,” Finn muttered dejectedly.

Moran meditated over this problem, and Ted waited for the solution.

“You remember my old pard, Jack Halsted?” Finn asked presently.

“He took this bit out of my ear,” Goad offered as conclusive proof of acquaintanceship.

“Yes,” concurred Finn, “that was to the Tea-Dance at Whisky Hollow. But Jack's now pizinin' the boys to Fort Lonesome, an' I sorter feel as if I orter make him a present of this—what'd you call the greaser, Ted?”

“Lemme see, ah——” Goad scratched his head with vehemence as if he would dig the name of the silent one of the box from the roots of his hair. “Mum—mum—mummy, that's it, he's a mummy.”

“Jack keeps a store to Fort Lonesome, an' I'll load this on one of them freighters runnin' from Big Medicine. I allow as Jack pretty near sabed a good thing when he euchred me on the whisky deal, an' he'll hug himselt big when this case is dumped at the door an' nothin' to pay but the freightin'. I'll get a artist to write 'smoked bacon' on the lid. I reckon Jack will get stark, starin' hostile when this parceled-up greaser's brought out onto the landscape.

“You see, Ted, me an' Jack we allus got along pretty well runnin' bug juice, and there wasn't no hitch as to the manner of a hold-up by the mounted police till Ducky Glover edges in to Jack's good feelin's with a palaver about bein' set afoot by men as he'd lent money to. Soon's he's about our camp to Whisky Hollow the police nips me twice. The second time 'twas most uncertain how long this Ducky Glover'd be breathin' the anti-consumption air in Alberta, but Jack he ups an' takes the disarrangement of ideas on himself, an' says as how I got to quarrel with him fust. That settled it, Ted; I pulls out of the firm, an' hits the trail for Standoff, where I'm broncho-bustin', bull-punchin', an' gener'ly makin' an honest livin'. Now Jack he's dry-goods merchant to Fort Lonesome, at which city of desolation, accordin' to the last census, was Jack's shack at the ford on Belly River, an' such transients as was paralyzingly boozed on the floor.”

“What become of this Ducky Glover?” Goad queried.

“He's with Jack till such times as I happen to meet him on the trail. Yes, I'll tote this greaser to the plains just for love of Jack.”

Finn Moran journeyed westward to the Loop Ranch at Standoff, and at Big Medicine the Egyptian was disassociated from the railway, loaded on a freighter's wagon, and taken to Fort Lonesome, a hundred miles away to the south.

Halsted cheerfully paid ten dollars freightage, and chuckled over the mistake somebody had made in sending him this big box labeled “bacon.” When he opened it his smile vanished, and the Belly River shrank three inches between its shores because of the fierce language that floated up and down its troubled bosom on the summer air.

Halsted had a suspicion that it was Finn Moran's work; but he said nothing of this to Ducky, and the box and its contents were put in a small lean-to at the end of the shack.

Moran had been home a matter of four days when a swarthy Portuguese, Pedro Gomez, came to the ranch to see Finn. He explained his mission. The mummy Moran had bought was stolen; it had been lost somewhere between Cairo and Lisbon. It was a Rameses, and the dead king belonged to a museum in Portugal; Gomez had been tracing it for a year. He was searching for it in New York when an item in a newspaper about its being sold in Montreal caught his eye. Now here he was, prepared to buy it back, and pay Finn well for his trouble, if it were the Egyptian he sought, and was not disfigured, torn or cut in any way—Gomez was particular about that. But he said nothing to Finn of a legendary ruby that was supposed to be in this same mummy.

But Moran knew nothing of the jewel; neither could he quite make out the nebulous and altogether ambiguous history Gomez gave him of the mummy's peregrinations; but he did realize that, owing to his extreme cleverness in sending the Egyptian to his friend, he had lost a chance to make a good haul of needed gold. Gomez would pay him fifty dollars for the mummy. But Finn diplomatically answered that he had stored the boxed greaser with a friend, and would have to share profits with him—in fact, he was now a partner in possession. Finally Finn agreed to restore the mummy for two hundred and fifty dollars; and at five o'clock the next morning Moran and Gomez started on the long drive to Fort Lonesome.

At noon Ducky Glover heard a shout from the opposite bank of the ford. Looking through the window, he saw something that caused his heart to plug in his throat. Across the river, which carried a small flood, stood the dreaded Finn Moran with a companion. Ducky had been told that Moran had threatened to shoot him on sight. Now there he was, calling for some one to come down and show him the turn of the ford.

Halsted was away, and panic paralyzed Ducky's saner thought. If he attempted to flee it would be across miles of open prairie; Moran would pursue him. One minute he thought of taking the gun to defend himself; but his mind sickened at the thought of combat with Moran and the desperado with him. If he could hide—the avenger might be but passing through; but alas! a single-roomed square log shack affords but poor cover.

Like an inspiration came to Ducky a thought of the dead Egyptian nestling so cozily in his sycamore sarcophagus in the little shed: Fear hastened the workings of Glover's mind. Yes, he would change places with the foreigner.

He lifted the linen-trussed Rameses in his plebeian arms and carried him into the shack, seeking a hiding place for the inert Egyptian. Ducky's eyes fell upon the yawning fireplace of the mud chimney. With eager hands he shoved the mummy feet first up the flue, and wedged it there with a stick of wood.

Yes, the lid of the box—he must fasten that from the inside lest an inquisitive person lift it. There were hooks and staples for sale in the store. He grabbed a handful, shooting a glance through the window at the ford.

Moran, tired of waiting for a pilot, was exploring the waters for the ford himself. The frightened Glover prayed that Finn might be drowned.

With feverish haste Ducky fastened the hooks and staples to the inside of the box, knocked a piece of the edge away with a hammer that he might have air, then crawled inside and closed the lid. How the beating of his heart thundered and reverberated in the box that had so long contained the silent Egyptian king!

Presently there was the clatter of wheels as the unwelcome visitor rounded the end of the shack, and a loud “whoa-a!” in a tone of voice that made Ducky jump. He could hear the crunch of Moran's vicious-stamping heels as that gentleman came up the walk to the shack.

“Seems as if my pard were away,” the cow-puncher remarked, as he lifted the iron latch of the door and strode into the empty room. “I allow as p'r'aps they're roundin' up their hosses.”

“Is it here?” Gomez asked in a tremulous voice.

“Sort-a ought to be about. I'll just prospect that maverick shack at the end. Yes, that's her,” Ducky heard Moran say, close to his prison.

A shiver ran through Glover as the rustle of a hand being rubbed over his sycamore suit carried to his ears.

“Is he inside?” Ducky heard the stranger's voice ask.

“Sure thing.”

A hand clutched at the lid, and sought to lift it. Ducky almost swooned in an agony of fear. Then the prisoner was stood on end as the box was lifted by some one, and his spine almost dislocated as the some one let the box drop back to earth with a crash.

“Judgin' by the heft of it, an' gener'l surroundin's, seein' as it's been fastened down against the investigation of friends, my pard's got the smoked greaser most securely an' effectually corralled in this here unornamental box.”

Having thus relieved himself of his opinion, Moran heaved a sigh of relief and bit apiece of tobacco out of a square black plug; then he continued: “This pardner of mine sometimes he gets hostile an' won't play none at all but just buck-jump, an' as to that weakness of character he might just refuse to part with this curio short of five hundred, which wouldn't be no-how square to you, stranger, accordin' to our bargain. Followin' up which idea, we'll load this here furniture, an' jamb into the wind towards civilization, which is Big Medicine. We'll just prospect the shack—there used to be some red-eye about this illicit emporium, an' no question asked.”

They loaded Ducky's receptacle on the wagon, found a bottle of whisky in the shack, and then Moran, with a stub of a pencil, scrawled the following epistle on the top of a pasteboard box, and pinned it to the door:

“Friend Jack

“Don't fret none over the los of the smoked greeser you'll find in the wash basen 20 dollers to pay fer the departed. Finn.”

Moran and Gomez passed from the shack, and the next thing Ducky knew his hiding place was floating about in the wagon box as they passed through the deepened waters of the Belly River.

Then the abductors fled over the Northward trail at furious speed.

An hour later Budd Lemon and Ike Ratlin finished their seven-mile run at the door of Fort Lonesome; their cayuses' flanks pumped with the exertion of the hastened coming. They had pursued the trail with avidity because of the ardent cause. As manager of commissariat, Budd Lemon was most absolutely discredited that day at Flathoof Ranch; the whisky had run out while there were still men capable of drinking more; now he and Ike were at Fort Lonesome for supplies.

Budd flung himself from his cayuse, drew the rein over the latter's head, and stood laboriously deciphering the writing on the wall which was Finn's legend of his visit.

The letter was wholly unintelligible, but the signature, “Finn,” conveyed wondrous possibilities. Anything might have happened if Moran had been there with a free run of the wine vault.

Lemon flung open the door, shouting, “Ducky, you cock-eyed maverick!” Then he blazed away with his “Colts” until the room contained a sulphurous London fog. There was no answering sound to the noisy clatter of Lemon's entrée. He searched the shack in vain; neither Ducky nor any one was the result. The ominous silence subdued his exuberance.

“Finn Moran's been here,” he muttered to his companion; “that's hell.”

“Most gener' ly always,” Ratlin affirmed.

“What's afire—Iph-ph-ph-ph?” queried Budd, as a strong pungent odor came to his nostrils. “Smells like barbecue pig with the bristles on.”

His nose took up the scented trail to the fireplace. He could see something smouldering.

Budd reached down and jerked the something half out to the floor; then he dropped it with an oath and reeled backward. “Ike! My God! Pard, look, look, it's Ducky! Finn's killed him an' tried to burn the carcass!”

A wondrous flood of wine-red light flashed from the floor close to the smouldering something. Mechanically Budd picked up the object from which the rays of light emanated. He looked at it curiously; then, his mind still stunned by the tragic discovery of his friend dead, he put the gleaming blood-red stone in his pocket.

Then the two men reeled from the shack, and Budd turned once more to Moran's letter on the door. “'The smoked greaser,'” he read. “That bloodthirsty coyote, Finn, means poor Ducky, an' the twenty cases in the wash-bowl is to pay for the murdering of Jack's man.”

“What diviltry has he been up to in the lean-to?” Ike queried. “Here's tracks where the wagon's been backed up to the door—there's two of 'em. One's a tenderfoot; no self-respectin' man on a cattle range'd wear a boot with a heel like a cow's hoof.”

“They've burglarized Jack's caché of bacon, that's what; they've loaded the truck on their outfit, an' hit the trail. Ducky wouldn't stand fer the stealin', an' they plugged him. Come on, Ike; Finn ain't settled the account with them twenty cases.”

The two men swung to their saddles, and followed the rut-cutting wheels down the bank of the Belly, over the ford, and along the trail to the north. At the end of half an hour Budd swerved to the right and galloped across the close-grassed sod that was like hard-woven cloth. Two hundred yards and they topped a coulee in the bottom of which nestled a little shack; and in five minutes Kootenay Jones was loping beside them on a buckskin cayuse over the trail that carried the letter-print of a newly passed wagon.

Three times their gallop debouched from the way they followed, and then they rode eight men. And in their hearts was the mission that Ducky's charred remains had burned, and at their hips clung Winchesters.

On the little troop swept, mile after mile, one hour, two hours, three hours, when, suddenly clattering down the bank of a coulee, through the bottom of which ran Stony Creek, a camp fire flickering in the red willows flashed like a signal. Involuntarily, almost, the horsemen spread out like an enveloping net, and sped on toward the beacon light, their Winchesters ready to check the movements of Finn Moran.

At that instant there was a sharp crack of a pistol. A couple of Winchesters flashed out an answering rebuke; but Kootenay's voice rang out sharp and clear: “Hold, men! Come out and surrender, Finn Moran, or we'll riddle you!”

A figure darted from beside the camp fire with arms thrown in the air, and the voice of Gomez pleaded: “Don't shoot, gentlemens.”

Again Kootenay's voice commanded, “Come from behind the wagon, Moran, or we'll riddle you!”

There was a minute of suspense, and the tall figure of Finn passed around the end of the wagon, and he was asking coolly enough: “What's the round-up fer? I thought you was a lot of Peigans on the war path.”

“Lay yer gun on the ground, Finn,” commanded Kootenay, “then step forrard an' I'll interduce the boys—the Breed that's with yer'll do the same.”

Finn and Gomez were gently enveloped by the horsemen; and, as an attendant circumstance, it may be mentioned that Ike Ratlin had a bit of lead from Finn's gun in his shoulder, which fact he communicated to the others in coarse language—when the prisoners were safely encircled.

“Where's Halsted?” Finn asked, his eyes searching the circle of his captors.

No one answered, for the simple reason that no one knew.

“Ain't he here?” Moran queried. “Then who in hell pioneered this round-up? What're you rustlers interferin' fer?”

“Me an' the boys sort-a thought we'd drop down here an' ask you to explain why you was so hasty like with Ducky Glover. We're agin harsh methods here in Canady and this is to be a joodicial round-up, so to speak. Hoping you'll forgive Budd fer the freedom, I ask you, Finn Moran, to stan' quiet like, not forgettin' that we're gener'ly keepin' the drop on you, while Budd throws a loop over your wristses, an' the same, with compliments, to the Breed.”

Finn indulged in vitreous recriminations, but his wrists were trussed up behind him, as were Gomez's. The talk about Ducky mystified him, and the prospect of a lynching simply because he had run off with the box seemed extraordinarily unusual.

Budd Lemon told his story of finding the half-burned body of Ducky, embellishing the narrative with painful attention to detail, not forgetting the finding of the red stone or glass thing that fell on the floor.

Budd wiped his eyes furtively with the back of his hand when he spoke of Ducky Glover's gentle goodness. When he mentioned the red stone Gomez sprang to his feet, his eyes blazing with excitement.

“A red stone—a ruby—where was the ruby?”

“In the pocket of Ducky Glover,” Budd answered.

“Then he stole it!” Gomez squealed. “It was in the eye of the mummy. How big was it—was it like a red star gleaming in the sky—where is it now?”

For answer Lemon put his hand in his trousers pocket; the pocket was empty. His fingers searched every corner.

As he looked for the stone all eyes were turned upon Gomez. His face was transfigured by an expression of insane cupidity; his big black eyes protruded from their sockets as he leaned far over towards the man who possessed the red stone; his lips were parted and his breath came in gasps.

Lemon drew his hand from his pocket and ran it up and down his leg, feeling through his leather chaps for the missing jewel, his brow wrinkled in perplexity.

“I've dispensed with that piece of red glass,” Lemon said dejectedly; “I put it in the wrong pocket, that's what; bein' sort-a tangled up over this sudden manner of disposin' of Ducky I must 'a' forgot which pocket had the hole in and it's percolated. Most like it's washed out in the Belly River.”

With a groan Gomez collapsed. “It was a fortune—a prince's ransom,” he moaned. “It was buried with the king.”

“The greaser's daffy,” Kootenay muttered. “Finn Moran, the boys assembled into a court here asks you to elucidate this locoed greaser's discourse. What's this red boulder, an' how does it work into this slayin' of Ducky?”

Finn knew no more about the Red Jewel than they did, and said so. When they applied to Gomez for a lucid explanation he told the most fairy-like story of how the ruby was buried with an Egyptian king; it was a sacred jewel of power.

“An idea's been buck-jumpin' through my nut as to how this greaser's playin' the luny racket on us,” declared Budd.

Then they threw a lariat about the neck of Gomez, and ran him up to the limb of a poplar, which admonishing exercise was calculated to make him talk sense.

“This red pebble as Budd found seems to 've had somethin' to do with the slayin' of Ducky,” Kootenay said. “Finn Moran, did you kill him for——” With a string of fierce objurgations Moran interrupted the speaker, and denied again all knowledge of Ducky's fate.

“An' as to this doc'ment, it don't go, eh?” and Kootenay held Finn's paste-board letter out for Moran to view.

“This 'smoked greaser' don't mean Ducky broilin' in the chimbly any more, an' you didn't leave the twenty pieces of silver in the wash basin, an' if you did it wasn't to pay fer Ducky.”

Just as Kootenay thought he had effectually paralyzed Moran with his sarcasm, the latter laughed and bobbed up and down muttering: “Oh, the weanlin'—the yearlin'. Yer killin' me, Kootenay.”

“As to the humor of murder,” rebuked Judge Jones, “it nohow never did appeal to me, an you'll excuse me, Finn, if I don't smile.”

“That doc'ment as I left fer Jack ain't got nothin' to do with Ducky. It refers more partic'lar to him in the box yonder.”

“Another—one in the box!” Kootenay gasped. “Who's he?”

“Rameses that had the red jewel,” Gomez volunteered.

“Ramsey—who's Ramsey? Great God! this is wholesale murder, Finn Moran. Is he dead, too?” Kootenay exclaimed.

“I reckon as he's most thoroughly dead,” Finn answered.

“Bring that package from the wagon, boys,” Kootenay commanded.

Ducky had been lying in the box, not knowing whether he were among friends or foes. He had heard pistol shots, and then voices, but concluded that the arrivals were either Indians or friends of his abductor. Now the box was lifted, and Ducky could hear the voices plainly.

“If there's a dead man in this, Finn Moran,” Kootenay said, “you'll be about all in. Open up the box.”

As he spoke the cover was elevated from within and a man sat up, his eyes blinking in the bright firelight. Even Moran cried out in astonishment.

“Ducky Glover!” Budd Lemon yelled, as the squat figure of Ducky uncurled itself from the box.

The sudden resurrection of the murdered and cremated man most utterly destroyed the mission of the eight cowpunchers. Ducky's story of placing the mummy in the chimney, and Finn's explanation of his connection with the Egyptian, quite cleared up the legal tangle.

As Budd Lemon was prancing about Ducky, he suddenly gave a cry of pain, sat down, yanked off his right boot, and fished from it the red stone that had just cut a gash in his heel.

At sight of the jewel Gomez sprang forward with a cry of joy: “The ruby—'The Red Jewel of Life'!”

After a consultation with the others, Kootenay announced: the finding of the court. “This 'Red Jewel' havin' been found in the shack of Jack Halsted, Budd Lemon'll take it back there, an' this stranger as lays claim to it can settle with Jack. Finn Moran is excused for planting a bullet in Ike's shoulder in consideration of his not having murdered Ducky. This court is dissolved.”