Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

Time for the ever-popular Mystery Blood!  The “Helena Independent,” May 6, 1886:

One fine morning about five years ago a pool of blood was found in a stall of the livery stable now operated by Jos. O'Neil, then the property of two brothers named Smiley, who called it the Farmers' stable. From this blood sprang a sensation and an awful mystery. Whence came the blood could not be discovered.

No horses in the stable showed any signs of having been wounded. But the gore locked to have gushed warm and fresh from animal veins and by those deeply awed by the mystery was generally regarded as being human. No trail of blood was found leading away from the spot and Mr. Hugh McQuaid, then city editor of the INDEPENDENT, did detective work for days in seeking to penetrate the mystery. About the same time one Alfred Taillfer, a Frenchman supposed to have a considerable sum of money, disappeared without leaving a sign.

He had ridden over from the Blackfoot and stabled his horse with the Smileys and when he disappeared the horse remained in the barn. Not very long afterward the Smiley brothers sold out their business, apparently a good one, and went back to Illinois, where they had lived before coming west. Here were three mysterious circumstances--the blood. the disappearance of Taillfer and the unexplained departure of the Smileys. Dark suspicion was engendered and though the incidents have been generally forgotten, in the minds of Taillfer's friends it was not allayed.

Now, however, so far as Taillfer is concerned, the mystery is explained. A few days ago Louis Narcotte, one of his friends, received a letter from Taillfer, who is now living at La Broquerie, Manitoba. It seems that he had been out in the country and suddenly determined to go back to Montreal. He sent word to Narcotte to take the horse, but the message did not reach him and Taillfer was on the stage going eastward. He intended to come back, but never fulfilled his intention, nor did he take trouble to write, and it was almost like a message from the grave when this letter came from him to Narcotte.

But the origin of that blood is still unexplained.