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4, 1863.] his telling us that Mr. de Crespigny had only that day made his will?”

“Yes, I remember it perfectly.”

“Laura Mason was present when her guardian told us this. It is only natural she should tell Launcelot Darrell what had happened.”

“She tells him everything; she would be sure to tell him that.”

“Precisely, and Mr. Darrell has not been slow to act upon the hint.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that Launcelot Darrell has been guilty of the baseness of bribing Mr. Lawford’s clerk, in order to find out the secret of the contents of that will.”

“How do you know this?”

“I discovered it by the merest chance. You owe me no praises, Eleanor. I begin to think that the science of detection is, after all, very weak and imperfect; and that the detective officer owes many of his greatest triumphs to patience, and a series of happy accidents. Yes, Eleanor, Mr. Darrell’s eagerness, or avarice, whichever you will, would not suffer him to wait until his great uncle’s death. He was determined to know the contents of that will; and, whatever the knowledge has cost him, I fancy he is scarcely satisfied with his bargain.”

“Why?”

“Because I believe that he is disinherited.”

There was a noise as of the movement of a heavy chair in the next room.

“Hush,” Eleanor whispered; “my husband is going to dress for dinner.”

A bell rang while she was speaking, and Richard heard the door of the next room opened and shut.

by profession a civil engineer and surveyor, and about the year 1832 I was employed by the authorities at Washington to make a survey of a large tract of land known as the “Indian Reserve,” lying within the boundaries of the State of Missouri.

The policy of the United States government has always been, so soon as a State became pretty well settled by the white man, to remove—either by persuasion or force—those Indians who still remained within its limits, to the great North-west Territory. For it is a well-established fact that the contiguity of the two races is advantageous to neither, and is especially injurious to the red man, whose love of “fire-water,” and disposition to confound the rights of meum and tuum, constantly bring him into collision with the settler.

The tribe which had hitherto occupied the tract of country referred to above, had just been persuaded, after considerable negotiation, to sell their lands and migrate further west, and already a cloud of squatters had descended upon the “Reserve,” their object being to secure the pre-emption right, as it is termed, to the soil. This is a privilege—accorded by the Federal Government to the actual occupant and cultivator of any piece of ground constituting part of the national territory—of priority of purchase, at a certain fixed price, whenever the lands of which it forms a part shall be surveyed and offered for sale. In this way it may sometimes happen that a man will occupy several hundred acres of government land for years, without its having cost him in the first instance a single dollar; and when, finally, it is brought into the market, he enjoys the alternative of purchasing it at a merely nominal price, or, should he decline to do so, of obliging whosoever else may buy it, to pay him a fair and reasonable compensation for the buildings he has erected, and the labour he has bestowed upon the land he has brought under cultivation.

In this case, however, certain wealthy individuals in Missouri were so thoroughly alive to the value of the “Reserve,” that urgent representations were made by them at Washington, of the advisibility of having it immediately surveyed and thrown open to purchasers. Ostensibly, indeed, this request was preferred for the purpose of enabling the poor man, who should desire to raise money on mortgage to improve his farm, to do so, by showing a clear title; but, in reality, to secure for themselves so profitable an investment as the purchase of that portion of the land not already occupied by squatters would necessarily be. Having succeeded in interesting an influential member of the government in behalf of the scheme, they had but little difficulty in obtaining the concession they solicited, and I was ordered to set out immediately for the scene of my future labours. Having always entertained an almost unconquerable aversion to the sea, I preferred the fatigues, and even dangers, incidental at that time to the overland journey, to making the voyage to New Orleans in a sailing-vessel, and then ascending the Mississippi in a steamboat, which was the route then generally adopted to reach Missouri.

I set out quite alone on my expedition, for instructions had been furnished me by the government to engage a competent staff of assistants from among the members of my profession I should find in St. Louis. At that period, railroads there were none in any of the Western States. On the larger rivers there were a few steamboats, by which, at irregular intervals, communication was maintained between the principal cities on their banks; but on the smaller streams—which are now thronged with craft of every description—an almost unbroken silence reigned, only occasionally disturbed by the paddle of the canoe or dug-out of the solitary settler. The stage-coach has never been a favourite style of travelling in the West, and, in fact, the roads throughout that section of the United States were at that time, with few exceptions, but ill adapted for any vehicle of more delicate construction than an ox-cart.

On reaching Louisville, therefore, I was obliged to accommodate myself to the custom of the country, and continue my journey from thence on horseback. I was accompanied by my coloured servant, Ned, whose services I had hired from his owner in that city, and who, mounted on a steady old mare, carried the box containing my theodolite—the tripod supporting which was composed of rods