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Title: The Heritage of the Hills

Author: Arthur P. Hankins

Release Date: November 30, 2010 [EBook #34507]

Language: English

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                       THE HERITAGE OF THE HILLS

                         BY ARTHUR P. HANKINS

                  Author of "THE JUBILEE GIRL," Etc.


    NEW YORK
    DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
    1922

    COPYRIGHT, 1921, 1922
    BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, INC.

    PRINTED IN U. S. A.





CONTENTS

I AT HONEYMOON FLAT

II PETER DREW'S LAST MESSAGE

III B FOR BOLIVIO

IV THE FIRST CALLER

V "AND I'LL HELP YOU!"

VI ACCORDING TO THE RECORDS

VII LILAC SPODUMENE

VIII POISON OAK RANCH

IX NANCY FIELD'S WINDFALL

X JESSAMY'S HUMMINGBIRD

XI CONCERNING SPRINGS AND SHOWUT POCHE-DAKA

XII THE POISON OAKERS RIDE

XIII SHINPLASTER AND CREEDS

XIV HIGH POWER

XV THE FIRE DANCE

XVI A GUEST AT THE RANCHO

XVII THE GIRL IN RED

XVIII SPIES

XIX CONTENTIONS

XX "WAIT!"

XXI "WHEN WE MEET AGAIN!"

XXII THE WATCHMAN OF THE DEAD

XXIII THE QUESTION

XXIV IN THE DEER PATH

XXV THE ANSWER




The Heritage of the Hills




CHAPTER I

AT HALFMOON FLAT


The road wound ever upward through pines and spruce and several
varieties of oak. Some of the latter were straight, some sprawling, all
massive. Now and then a break in the timber revealed wooded hills beyond
green pasture lands, and other hills covered with dense growths of
buckhorn and manzanita. Poison oak grew everywhere, and, at this time of
year--early spring--was most prolific, most beautiful in its dark rich
green, most poisonous.

Occasionally the lone horseman crossed a riotous stream, plunging down
from the snow-topped Sierras in the far distance. Rail fences, for the
most part in a tumbledown condition, paralleled the dirt road here and
there.

At long intervals they passed tall, old-fashioned ranch houses, with
their accompanying stables, deciduous orchards and still dormant
vineyards, wandering turkeys and mud-incrusted pigs. An air of decay and
haphazard ambition pervaded all these evidences of the dwelling places
of men.

"Well, Poche," remarked Oliver Drew, "it's been a long, hard trip, but
we're getting close to home." The man spoke the word "home" with a touch
of bitterness.

The rangy bay saddler slanted his left ear back at Oliver Drew and
quickened his walking-trot.

"No, no!" laughed Oliver, tightening the reins. "All the more reason we
should take it easy today, old horse. Don't you ever tire?"

For an hour Poche climbed steadily. Now he topped the summit of the
miniature mountain, and Oliver stopped him to gaze down fifteen hundred
feet into the timbered caņon of the American River. Even the cow-pony
seemed enthralled with the grandeur of the scene--the wooded hills
climbing shelf by shelf to the faraway mist-hung mountains; the green
river winding its serpentine course far below. Far up the river a gold
dredger was at work, the low rumble of its machinery carried on the soft
morning breeze.

Half an hour later Poche ambled briskly into the little town of Halfmoon
Flat, snuggled away in the pines and spruces, sunflecked, indolent,
content. It suited Oliver's mood, this lazy old-fashioned Halfmoon Flat,
with its one shady "business" street, its false-front, one-story shops
and stores, redolent still of the glamorous days of '49.

He drew up before a saloon to inquire after the road he should take out
of town to reach his destination. The loungers about the door of the
place all proved to be French- or Spanish-Basque sheep herders; and
their agglutinative language was as a closed book to the traveler. So he
dropped the reins from Poche's neck and entered the dark, low-ceiled
bar-room, with its many decorations of dusty deer antlers on fly-specked
walls.

All was strangely quiet within. There were no patrons, no bartender
behind the black, stained bar. He saw this white-aproned personage,
however, a fat, wide, sandy-haired man, standing framed by the rear
door, his back toward the front. Through a dirty rear window Oliver saw
men in the back yard--silent, motionless men, with faces intent on
something of captivating interest, some silent, muscle-tensing event.

With awakened wonder he walked to the fat bartender's back and looked
out over his shoulder. Strange indeed was the scene that was revealed.

Perhaps twenty men were in an unfenced portion of the lot behind the
saloon. Some of them had been pitching horseshoes, for two stood with
the iron semicircles still in hand. Every man there gazed with silent
intensity at two central figures, who furnished the drama.

The first, a squat, dark, slit-eyed man of about twenty-five, lazed in a
big Western saddle on a lean roan horse. His left spurred heel stood
straight out at right angles to the direction in which his horse faced.
He hung in the saddle by the bend in his right leg, the foot out of the
stirrup, the motionless man facing to the right, a leering grin on his
face, half whimsical, half sardonic. That he was a fatalist was
evidenced by every line on his swarthy, hairless face; for he looked
sneering indifference into the wavering muzzle of a Colt .45, in the
hand of the other actor in the pantomime. His own Colt lay passive
against his hip. His right forearm rested across his thigh, the hand far
from the butt of the weapon. A cigarette drooped lazily from his
grinning lips. Yet for all his indifferent calm, there was in his
glittering, Mongolic eyes an eagle watchfulness that bespoke the fires
of hatred within him.

The dismounted man who had the drop on him was of another type. Tall,
angular, countrified, he personified the popular conception of a
Connecticut yankee. He boiled with silent rage as he stood, with long
body bent forward, threatening the other with his enormous gun. Despite
the present superiority of his position, there was something of pathos
in his lean, bronzed face, something of a nature downtrodden, of the
worm suddenly turned.

For seconds that seemed like ages the two statuesque figures confronted
each other. Men breathed in short inhalations, as if fearful of breaking
the spell. Then the threatened man in the saddle puffed out a cloud of
cigarette smoke, and drawled sarcastically:

"Well, why don't you shoot, ol'-timer? You got the drop."

Complete indifference to his fate marked the squat man's tone and
attitude. Only those small black eyes, gleaming like points of jet from
under the lowered Chinamanlike lids, proclaimed that the other had
better make a thorough piece of work of this thing that he had started.

The lank man found his tongue at the sound of the other's voice.

"Why don't I shoot, you coyote whelp! Why don't I shoot! You know why!
Because they's a law in this land, that's why! I oughta kill ye, an'
everybody here knows it, but I'd hang for it."

The man on the roan blew another puff of smoke. "You oughta thought o'
that when you threw down on me," he lazily reminded the other. "_You_
ain't got no license packin' a gun, pardner."

The expression that crossed his antagonist's face was one of torture,
bafflement. It proved that he knew the mounted man had spoken truth. He
was no killer. In a fit of rage he had drawn his weapon and got the drop
on his enemy, only to shrink from the thought of taking a human life and
from the consequences of such an act. But he essayed to bluster his way
out of the situation in which his uncontrollable wrath had inveigled
him.

"I can't shoot ye in cold blood!" he hotly cried. "I'm not the skunk
that you are. I'm too much of a man. I'll let ye go this time. But mind
me--if you or any o' your thievin' gang pesters me ag'in, I'll--I'll
kill ye!"

"Better attend to that little business right now, pardner," came the
fatalist's smooth admonition.

"Don't rile me too far!" fumed the other. "God knows I could kill ye an'
never fear for the hereafter. But I'm a law-abidin' man, an'"--the
six-shooter in his hand was wavering--"an' I'm a law-abidin' man," he
repeated, floundering. "So this time I'll let ye--"

A fierce clatter of hoofs interrupted him. Down the street, across the
board sidewalk, into the lot back of the saloon dashed a white horse, a
black-haired girl astride in the saddle. She reined her horse to its
haunches, scattering spectators right and left.

"Don't lower that gun!" she shrieked. "Shoot! Kill him!"

Her warning came too late. It may have been, even, that instead of a
warning it was a knell. For a loud report sent the echoes galloping
through the sleepy little town. The man on the ground, who had half
lowered his gun as the girl raced in, threw up both hands, and went
reeling about drunkenly. Another shot rang out. The squat man still
lolled in his saddle, facing to the right. The gun that he had drawn in
a flash when the other's indecision had reached a climax was levelled
rigidly from his hip, the muzzle slowly following his staggering,
twice-wounded enemy.

In horror the watchers gazed, silent. The stricken man reeled against
the legs of the girl's horse, strove to clasp them. The animal snorted
at the smell of blood and reared. His temporary support removed, the man
collapsed, face downward, on the ground, turned over once, lay still.

The squat man slowly holstered his gun. Then the first sound to break
the silence since the shots was his voice as he spoke to the girl.

"Much obliged, Jess'my," he said; then straightened in his saddle,
spurred the roan, and dashed across the sidewalk to disappear around the
corner of the building. A longdrawn, derisive "Hi-yi!" floated back, and
the clatter of the roan's hoofbeats died away.

The girl had sprung from her mare and was bending over the fallen man.
The others crowded about her now, all talking at once. She lifted a
white, tragic face to them, a face so wildly beautiful that, even under
the stress of the moment, Oliver Drew felt that sudden fierce pang of
desire which the first startled sight of "the one woman" brings to a
healthy, manly man.

"He's dead! I've killed him!" she cried.

"No, no, no, Miss Jessamy," protested a hoarse voice quickly. "You
wasn't to blame."

"O' course not!" chorused a dozen.

"He'd 'a' lowered that gun," went on her first consoler. "He was backin'
out when you come, Miss Jessamy. An' as sure as he'd took his gun off
Digger Foss, Digger'd 'a' killed 'im. It was a fool business from the
start, Miss Jessamy."

"Then why didn't some of you warn this man?" she flamed. "You cowards!
Are you afraid of Digger Foss? Oh, I--"

"Now, looky-here, Miss Jessamy," soothed the spokesman, "bein' afraid o'
Digger Foss ain't got anything to do with it. It wasn't our fight. We
had no call to butt in. Men don't do that in a gun country, Miss
Jessamy--you know that. This fella pulled on Digger, then lost his
nerve. What you told 'im to do, Miss Jessamy, was right. Man ain't got
no call to throw down on another one unless he intends to shoot. You
know that, Miss Jessamy--you as much as said so."

For answer the girl burst into tears. She rose, and the silent men stood
back for her. She mounted and rode away without another word, wiping
fiercely at her eyes with a handkerchief.

Four men carried the dead man away. The rest, obviously in need of a
stimulant, crowded in and up to the black bar. Oliver joined them. The
weird sight that he had witnessed had left him weak and sick at the
stomach.

Silently the fat, blond bartender set out whisky glasses, then looked
hesitatingly at the stranger.

"Go ahead, Swede," encouraged a big fellow at Oliver's left. "He needs
one, too. He saw it."

The bartender shrugged, thumped a glass toward Oliver, and broke the
laws of the land.

"What was it all about?" Oliver, encouraged by this confidence, asked of
the big, goodnatured man who had vouched for him on sight.

The other looked him over. "This fella Dodd," he said, "started
something he couldn't finish--that's all. Dodd's had it in for Digger
Foss and the Selden boys and some more of 'em for a year. Selden was
runnin' cattle on Dodd's land, and Dodd claimed they cut fences to _get_
'em on. I don't know what all was between 'em. There's always bad blood
between Old Man Selden and his boys and the rest o' the Poison Oakers,
and somebody.

"Anyway," he went on, "this mornin' Henry Dodd comes in and gets the
drop on Digger Foss, who's thick with the Seldens, and is one o' the
Poison Oakers; and then Dodd ain't got the nerve to shoot. You saw what
it cost him. Fill 'em up again, boys."

"I can't understand that girl," Oliver remarked. "Why, she rode in and
told the man to shoot--to kill."

"And wasn't she right?"

"None of the rest of you did it, as she pointed out to you."

"No--men wouldn't do that, I reckon. But a woman's different. They butt
in for what they think's right, regardless. But I look at it like this,
pardner: Dodd's a grown man and is packin' a hip gun. Why's he packin'
it if he don't mean to use it? Only a kid ought to be excused from
flourishin' iron like he did. He was just lettin' off steam. But he
picked the wrong man to relieve himself on. If he'd 'a' killed Digger,
as Miss Jessamy told him to, maybe he'd a hung for it. But he'd a had a
chance with a jury. Where if he took his gat offen Digger Foss, it was
sure death. I knew it; all of us knew it. And I knew he was goin' to
lower it after he'd painted pictures in the air with it and thought he'd
convinced all of us he was a bad man, and all that. He'd never pulled
the trigger, and Digger Foss knew it."

"Then if this Digger Foss knew he was only bluffing, he--why, he
practically shot the man in cold blood!" cried Oliver.

"Not practically but ab-so-lutely. Digger knew he was within the law, as
they say. While he knew Dodd wouldn't shoot, no prosecutin' attorney can
_prove_ that he knew it. Dodd had held a gun on him and threatened to
kill 'im. When Digger gets the chance he takes it--makes his lightin'
draw and kills Dodd. On the face of it it's self-defence, pure and
simple, and Digger'll be acquitted. He'll be in tonight and give himself
up to the constable. He knows just where he stands."

Oliver's informant tossed off his liquor.

"And Miss Jessamy knew all this--see?" he continued. "She savvies
gunmen. She ought to, bein' a Selden. At least she calls herself a
Selden, but her right name's Lomax. Old Man Selden married a widow, and
this girl's her daughter. Well, she rides in and tells Dodd to shoot.
She knew it was his life or Digger's, after he'd made that crack. But
the poor fool!--Well, you saw what happened. Don't belong about here, do
you, pardner?"

"I do now," Oliver returned. "I'm just moving in, as it were. I own
forty acres down on Clinker Creek. I came in here to inquire the way,
and stumbled onto this tragedy."

"On Clinker Creek! What forty?"

"It's called the Old Tabor Ivison Place."

"Heavens above! You own the Old Tabor Ivison Place?"

"So the recorder's office says--or ought to."

For fully ten seconds the big fellow faced Oliver, his blue eyes
studying him carefully, appraisingly.

"Well, by thunder!" he muttered at last. "Tell me about it, pardner. My
name's Damon Tamroy."

"Mine is Oliver Drew," said Oliver, offering his hand.

"Well, I'll be damned!" ejaculated Tamroy in a low voice, his eyes, wide
with curiosity, devouring Oliver. "The Old Ivison Place!"

"You seem surprised."

"Surprised! Hump! Say--le'me tell you right here, pardner; don't _you_
ever pull a gun on any o' the Poison Oakers and act like Henry Dodd did.
Maybe it's well you saw what was pulled off today--if you'll only
remember when you get down there on the Tabor Ivison Place."




CHAPTER II

PETER DREW'S LAST MESSAGE


"I'll take a seegar," Mr. Damon Tamroy replied in response to Oliver's
invitation.

They lighted up and sat at a card-table against one wall of the gloomy
saloon.

"You speak of this as a gun country," remarked Oliver.

"Well, it's at least got traditions," returned Mr. Tamroy, adding the
unlettered man's apology for his little fanciful flight, "'as the fella
says.' Like father like son, you know. The Seldens are gunmen. Old Adam
Selden's dad was a 'Forty-niner; and Adam Selden--the Old Man Selden of
today--was born right close to here when his dad was about twenty-five
years old. Le's see--that makes Old Adam 'round about seventy. But he's
spry and full o' pep, and one o' the best rifle shots in the country.

"He takes after the old man, who was a bad actor in the days o'
'Forty-nine, and his boys take after him. They're a bad outfit, takin'
'em all in all. The boys are Hurlock, Moffat, Bolar, and Winthrop--four
of 'em. All gunmen. Then there's Jessamy Selden--the only girl--who
ain't rightly a Selden at all. None o' the old man's blood in Jessamy,
o' course. Mis' Selden--she was an Ivison before she married
Lomax--Myrtle Ivison was her name--she's a fine lady. But she won't
leave the old man for all his wickedness, and Miss Jessamy won't leave
her mother. So there you are!"

"I see," said Oliver musingly, not at all displeased with the present
subject of conversation.

"Now, here's this Digger Foss," Tamroy went on. "He's half-American,
quarter-Chinaman, and quarter-Digger-Indian. The last's what gives him
his name. There's a tribe o' Digger Indians close to here. He's killed
two men and got away with it. Now he's added a third to his list, and
likely he'll get away with that. The rest o' the Poison Oakers are Obed
Pence, Ed Buchanan, Jay Muenster, and Chuck Allegan--ten in all."

"Just what are the Poison Oakers?" Oliver asked as Damon Tamroy paused
reflectively.

"Well, _anybody_ who lives in this country is called a Poison Oaker.
You're one now. The woods about this country are full o' poison oak, and
that's where we get the name. That's what outsiders call us. But when we
ourselves speak of Poison Oakers we mean Old Man Selden's gang--him, his
four sons, and the hombres I just mentioned--a regular old back-country
gang o' rowdies, toughs, would-be bad men. You know what I mean.

"They just drifted together by natural instinct, I reckon. Old Man
Selden shot a man up around Willow Twig, and come clean at the trial.
Obed Pence is a thief, and did a stretch for cattle rustlin' here about
three years ago. Chuck and Ed have both done something to make 'em
eligible--knife fightin' at country dances, and the like. And the Selden
boys are chips off the old block."

"But what is the gang's particular purpose?"

"Meanness, s'far's I c'n see! Just meanness! Old Man Selden owns a ranch
down your way that you can get to only by a trail. No wheeled vehicle
can get in. All the boys live there with him. Kind of a colony, for two
o' the boys are married. The other Poison Oakers live here and there
about the country, on ranches. Ambition don't worry none of 'em much.
Old Man Selden's said to distil jackass brandy, but it's never been
proved."

"Now about the Old Tabor Ivison Place?" said Oliver.

"Well, it's there yet, I reckon; but I ain't been down that way for
years. Now and then a deer hunt leads me into Clinker Creek Caņon, but
not often.

"It's a lonely, deserted place, and the road to it is fierce. Several
families lived down in there thirty years ago; but the places have been
abandoned long since, and all the folks gone God knows where. It's a
pretty country if a fella likes trees and rocks and things, and wild and
rough; but down in that caņon it's too cold for pears and such
fruit--and that's about all we raise on these rocky hills.

"Old Tabor Ivison homesteaded your place. He's been dead matter o'
fifteen years. Died down there. For years he'd lived there all by
'imself. Good old man. Asked for little in life--and got it.

"But for years now all that country's been abandoned. There's pretty
good pickin's down in there; and Old Man Selden and some more o' the
Poison Oakers have been runnin' cattle on all of it."

"I'm glad there's pasture," Oliver interposed.

"Oh, pasture's all right. But Selden's outfit has looked at that land as
theirs for so long that you won't find it particularly congenial. You're
bound to have trouble with the Poison Oakers, Mr. Drew, and I'd consider
the land not worth it. Why, I can buy a thousan' acres down in there for
two and a half an acre! You'll starve to death if you have to depend on
that forty for a livin'. How come you to own the place?"

"My father willed it to me," Oliver replied.

"Your father?"

"Yes, Peter Drew. Have you ever heard of him?"

"No," returned Damon Tamroy. "I reckon he was here before my time. How'd
he come by the place? I thought one o' the Ivison girls--Nancy--still
owned it."

"I'm sure I can't tell you how Dad came to own it," Oliver made answer.
"I haven't an abstract of title. I know, though, that Dad owned it for
some time before his death."

"Well, well!" Damon Tamroy's eyes roved curiously over the young man
once more. They steadied themselves on the silver-mounted Spanish spurs
on Oliver's riding boots. "Travellin' horseback?" he wanted to know, and
his look of puzzlement deepened.

"Yes," said Oliver a little bitterly. "I'm riding about all that I
possess in this world, since you have pronounced the Old Tabor Ivison
Place next to worthless." He grew thoughtful. "You're puzzled over me,"
he smiled at last. "Frankly, though, you're no more puzzled over me than
I am over myself and my rather odd situation. I'm a man of mystery." He
laughed. "I think I'll tell you all about it.

"As far back as I can remember, my home has been on a cow ranch in the
southern part of the state. I can't remember my mother, who died when I
was very young. I always thought my father wealthy until he died, two
weeks ago, and his will was read to me. He had orange and lemon groves
besides the cattle ranch, and was a stockholder in a substantial country
bank. I was graduated at the State University, and went from there to
France. Since, I've been resting up and sort of managing Dad's property.

"My father was a peculiar man, and was never overly confidential with
me. He was uneducated, as the term is understood today--a
rough-and-ready old Westerner who had made his strike and settled down
to peaceful days--or so I always imagined. But two weeks ago he died
suddenly from a stroke of apoplexy; and when his will was read to me I
got a jolt from which I haven't yet recovered.

"The home ranch and the other real estate, together with all livestock
and appurtenances--with one exception, which I shall mention later--were
willed to the Catholic Church, to be handled as they saw fit. It seemed
that there was little else to be disposed of. I was left five hundred
dollars in cash, a saddle horse named Poche, a silver-mounted bridle and
saddle and martingales, the old Spanish spurs you see on my feet, and
the Old Tabor Ivison Place, in Chaparral County, of which I knew almost
nothing. That was all--with the exception of the written instructions in
my father's handwriting that were given me by his lawyers. Maybe you can
throw some light on the matter, Mr. Tamroy. Would you care to hear my
father's last message to me?"

Tamroy evinced his eagerness by scraping forward his chair.

Oliver took from a leather billbook a folded piece of paper. "I don't
know that I ought to," he smiled, "but, after all, I'll never learn the
mystery of it if I keep the matter from people about here. So here goes:

     "'_My dear son Oliver_:

     "'As you know perfectly well, I am an ignorant old Westerner.
     There is no use mincing matters in regard to this. When I was
     young I didn't have much of a chance to get an education; but
     when I grew up and married, and you was born, I said you'd
     never be allowed to grow up in ignorance like I did. So I tried
     to give you an education, and you didn't fail me.'

     "'I did this for a double purpose, Oliver. I knew that I was
     going to die someday, and that then you'd have to settle a
     little matter that's bothered me since before you was born. For
     pretty near thirty years, Oliver, I've had a problem to fight;
     and I never knew how to settle the matter because I wasn't
     educated. So I let it rest and waited for you to grow up, and
     go through college. And now that's happened; and you're
     educated and fit to answer the question that's bothered me for
     nearly half my life. The answer is either Yes or No, and you've
     got to find out which is right.'

     "'I'm leaving you Poche, the best cow horse in Southern
     California, my old silver-mounted saddle that's carried me
     thousands of miles, the martingales, and my old silver-mounted
     bridle, which same three things made me the envy of all the
     vaqueros of the Clinker Creek Country over thirty years ago,
     and my Spanish spurs that go along with the outfit. These
     things, Oliver, and five hundred dollars in Cash, and forty
     acres of land on Clinker Creek, in Chaparral county, called the
     Old Tabor Ivison Place.'

     "'They are all you'll need to find the answer to the question
     that's bothered me for thirty years. Buckle on the spurs, throw
     the saddle on Poche, bridle him, put the five hundred dollars
     and the deed to the Old Tabor Ivison Place in your jeans, and
     hit the trail for Clinker Creek. Stay there till you know
     whether the answer is Yes or No. Then go to my lawyers and tell
     them which it is. And the God of your mother go with you!'

     "'Your affectionate father,'

     "'PETER DREW.'

     "'In his seventy-third year.'"

Oliver folded the paper. Damon Tamroy only sat and stared at him.




CHAPTER III

B FOR BOLIVIO


"Boy," said the kindly Mr. Tamroy, leaning forward toward Oliver Drew,
"those are the queerest last words of a father to his son that I ever
listened to. What on earth you goin' to do?"

Oliver shrugged and spread his hands. "Keep on obeying instructions," he
said. "I've followed them to the letter so far. I'm only a few miles
from my destination, and I've ridden in the silver-mounted saddle on
Poche's back the entire five hundred miles and over. My father was not a
fool. He was of sound mind, I fully believe, when he wrote that message
for me. There's some deep meaning underlying all this. I must simply
stay on the Old Tabor Ivison Place till I know what puzzled old Dad all
those years, and find out whether the answer is Yes or No."

"Heavens above!" muttered Mr. Tamroy. "But how you goin' to live?
What're you goin' to do down in there? Gonta get a job? It's too far
away from everything for you to go and come to a job, Mr. Drew."

"I'll tell you," said Oliver. "At the University I took an agricultural
course. Since my graduation I have written not a few articles and sold
them to leading farm journals. If the Old Tabor Ivison Place is of any
value at all, I want to experiment in raising all sorts of things on a
small scale, and write articles about my results. I'll have a few stands
of bees, and maybe a cow. I'll try all sorts of things, get a
second-hand typewriter, and go to it. I think I can live while I'm
waiting for my father's big question to crop up."

"You can raise a garden all right, I reckon," Oliver's new friend told
him, following him as he rose to continue his journey. "But you got to
irrigate, and there ain't the water in Clinker Creek there used to be.
Folks up near the headwaters use nearly all of it, and in the hot months
what they turn back will all go up in evaporation before it gets down to
you. There's a good spring, though, but it strikes me it don't flow
anything like it did when Old Tabor Ivison lived on the land."

"Is there a house on the place?"

"Only an old cabin. At least there was last time I chased a buck down in
there. And something of a fence, if I remember right. But fifteen years
is a long time--I reckon everything left is next to worthless."

They came to a pause at the edge of the sidewalk beside an aged
villager, who stood leaning on his crooked manzanita cane as he gazed at
Poche and his silver-mounted trappings.

"That's Old Dad Sloan," whispered Damon Tamroy. "He's one o' the last of
the 'Forty-niners. Just hobbles about on his cane, livin' off the
county, and waitin' to die. Never saw him take much interest in anything
before, but that outfit o' yours has caught his eye. Little wonder, by
golly!"

Oliver stepped into the street and lifted the hair-tassled reins of the
famous bridle. He turned to find the watery blue eyes of the patriarch
fixed on him intently. With a trembling left hand the old man brushed
back his long grey hair, then the fingers shakily caressed a grizzled
beard, flaring and wiry as excelsior. A long finger at length pointed to
the horse.

"Where'd you get that outfit, young feller?" came the quavering tones.

Mr. Tamroy winked knowingly at Oliver.

"It was my father's," said Oliver in eager tones.

The 'Forty-niner cupped a hand back of his ear. "Hey?" he shrilled.

Oliver lifted his voice and repeated.

"Yer papy's hey?" He tottered into the street and fingered the heavily
silvered Spanish halfbreed bit, which, Oliver had been told, was very
valuable intrinsically and as a relic. Then the knotty fingers travelled
up an intricately plaited cheekstrap to one of the glittering
silver-bordered _conchas_. The old fellow fumbled for his glasses,
placed them on his nose, and studied the last named conceit with
careful, lengthy scrutiny. "Is that there glass, young feller?" he
croaked at last, pointing to the setting of the _concha_, a lilac-hued
crystal about two inches in diameter.

"I think it is," Oliver shouted.

The old man shook his head. "I can't see well any more," he quavered.
"But this don't look like glass to me."

"I've never had it examined," Oliver told him. "I supposed the settings
of the _conchas_ to be glass or some sort of quartz."

"Quartz?"

"Yes, sir."

The grey head slowly shook back and forth. "Young man," came the piping
tones, "is they a 'B' cut in the metal that holds them stones in place?"

Oliver's eyes widened. "There is," he said. "On the inside of each one."

The old man stared at him, and his bearded lips trembled. "Bolivio!" he
croaked weirdly.

"I don't understand," said Oliver.

"Bolivio made them _conchas_, young feller. Bolivio made that bit.
Bolivio plaited that bridle. Bolivio made them martingales."

"And who is Bolivio?" puzzled the stranger.

"Dead and gone--dead and gone!" crooned the ancient. "That outfit's
maybe a hundred years old, young feller--part of it, 'tleast. And that
ain't glass in there--and it ain't quartz in in there--and there's only
one man ever in this country ever had a bridle like that."

"And who was he?" asked Oliver almost breathlessly.

"Dan Smeed--that's who! Dan Smeed--outlaw, highwayman, squawman! Dan
Smeed--gone these thirty years and more. That's his bridle--that's his
saddle--all made by Bolivio, maybe a hundred years ago. And them stones
in them _conchas_ are gems from the lost mine o' Bolivio. The lost gems
o' Bolivio, young feller!"

Oliver and Tamroy stared into each other's eyes as the old man tottered
back to the sidewalk.

"Tell me more!" cried Oliver, as the ancient began tapping his crooked
cane along the street.

There was no answer.

"He didn't hear," said Tamroy. "We'll get at him again sometime. Maybe
he'll tell what he knows and maybe he won't. He's awful childish--awful
headstrong. For days at a time he won't speak to a soul."

Oliver stood in deep thought, mystified beyond measure, yet thrilled
with the thought that he was nearing the beginning of the trail to the
mysterious question. He roused himself at length.

"Well, I must be getting along," he said. "I'll go right down to Clinker
Creek now, if you'll point the way. I've enough grub behind my saddle
for tonight and tomorrow morning. There's grass for the horse at
present?"

"Oh, yes--horse'll get along all right."

"Then I'll go down and give my property the once-over, and be up
tomorrow to get what I need."

Damon Tamroy showed him the road and shook hands with him. "Ride up and
get acquainted regular someday," he invited. "I got a little ranch up
the line--pears and apples and things. Give you some cherries a little
later on. Well, so-long. Remember the Poison Oakers!"

Oliver galloped away, his flashing equipment the target of all eyes, on
the road that led to the Old Tabor Ivison Place, his brain in a whirl of
excitement.




CHAPTER IV

THE FIRST CALLER


Toward noon Poche was carefully feeling his way down the rocky caņon of
Clinker Creek, over a forgotten road. Oliver walked, for Poche needs
must scramble over huge boulders, fallen pines, and tangles of
driftwood. The road followed the course of the creek for the most part,
and in many places the creek had broken through and washed great gaps.

But the country was delightful. Wild grapevines grew in profusion at the
creekside, gracefully festooned from overhanging buckeye limbs. Odorous
alders, several varieties of willow, and white oak also followed the
watercourse; and up on the hills on either side were black oaks and live
oaks, together with yellow and sugar and digger pines, and spruce.
Everywhere grew the now significant poison oak.

Finally Poche scraped through chaparral that almost hid the road and
came out in a clearing. Oliver at last stood looking at his future home.

A quaint old cabin, with a high peaked roof, apparently in better repair
than he had expected, stood on a little rise above the creek. The caņon
widened here, and narrowed again farther down. The creek bowed and
followed the base of the steep hills to the west. A level strip of land
comprising about an acre paralleled the creek, and invited tillage. All
about the clearing, perhaps fifteen acres in area, stood tall pines and
spruce, and magnificent oaks rose above the cabin, their great limbs
sprawled over it protectingly. Acres and acres of heavy, impenetrable
chaparral covered both steep slopes beyond the conifers.

For several minutes Oliver drank in the beauty of it, then heaved
himself into the saddle and galloped to the cabin over the unobstructed
land.

He loosed Poche when the saddle and bridle were off, and the horse
eagerly buried his muzzle in the tall green grass. Up in the branches
paired California linnets, red breasted for their love season, went over
plans and specifications for nest-building with much conversation and
flit-flit of feathered wings. Wild canaries engaged in a like pursuit.
Overhead in the heavens an eagle sailed. From the sunny chaparral came
the scolding quit-quit-quit of mother quail, while the pompous cocks
perched themselves at the tops of manzanita bushes and whistled, "Cut
that out! Cut that out!" All Nature was home-building; and Oliver forgot
the loss of the fortune he had expected at his father's death and caught
the spirit.

He collected oak limbs and built a fire. He carried water from the creek
and set it on to boil. While waiting for this he strolled about,
revelling in the soft spring air, fragrant with the smell of wild
flowers.

That the cabin had been occupied often by hunters and other wanderers in
the caņon was evidenced by the many carvings on the door and signs of
bygone campfires all about. He stepped upon the rotting porch and
studied the monograms, initials, and flippant messages of the lonely men
who had passed that way.

"All hope abandon, ye who enter here" was carved in ancient letters just
under the lintel of the door. Next he was informed that "Fools names,
like their faces, are always seen in public places." "Only a sucker
would live here" was the parting decision of some disgruntled guest.
"Home, Sweet Home" adorned the bottom of the door. One panel had proved
an excellent target, and no less than twenty bullet holes had made a
sieve of it. "Welcome, Wanderer!" and "Dew Drop Inn" and "Though lost to
sight to memory dear" occupied conspicuous places. Then on the
right-hand frame he noticed this:

[Illustration: Beware]

The carving was neatly executed. The leaves represented were
indisputably those of the poison oak.

Had some one carved this in a jocular effort to warn chance visitors to
the place of the danger of the poison weed? Or did the carving represent
the emblem of the Poison Oakers?

Oliver smiled grimly and opened the door.

He passed through the three small rooms of the house and investigated
the loft. The structure seemed solid. A new roof would be necessary, and
new windows and frames and a new porch; and as Oliver was no mean
carpenter, he thought he could make the cabin snug and tight for
seventy-five dollars.

The front door had closed of itself, he found, when he started back to
his campfire. He stopped in the main room, and a smile, slightly bitter,
flickered across his lips. As neatly carved as was the symbol of the
Poison Oakers outside--if that was what it was--and evidently executed
by the same hand, was this, on the inside of the door:

    JESSAMY, MY SWEETHEART

Oliver went on out and squatted over his fire, peeling potatoes. His
blue eyes grew studious. In the flickering blaze he saw the picture of a
black-eyed, black-haired girl on a white horse crouched on its haunches.

"Great Scott!" he muttered. "I'll have to forget that!"

       *       *       *       *       *

In the month that followed, Oliver Drew, spurred by feverish enthusiasm,
worked miracles on the Old Tabor Ivison Place. He repaired the line
fences and rehabilitated the cabin; bought a burro and pack-saddle and
packed in lumber and tools and household necessities; fenced off his
experimental garden on the level land with rabbit-tight netting; cleaned
and boxed the spring; and early in May was following the spading up of
his garden plot by planting vegetable seed.

With all this behind him, he went at the clearing of the road that
connected him with his kind. Today as he laboured with pick and shovel
and bar he was cheerful, though his thoughts clung to the subject of his
father's death and the odd situation in which it had left him. He had
fully expected to inherit properties and money to the extent of a
hundred thousand dollars. He was not particularly resentful because this
had not come to pass, for he never had been a pampered young man; but
the mystery of his father's last message puzzled and chagrined him.

He would always remember Peter Drew as a peculiar man. He had been a
kindly father, but a reticent one. There were many pages in his past
that never had been opened to his son. Oliver was the child of Peter
Drew's second wife. About the queer old Westerner's former marriage he
had been told practically nothing.

Believing his father to have been of sound mind when he penned that last
strange communication, Oliver could not hold that the situation which it
imposed was not for the best. Surely old Peter Drew had had some wise
reason for his act, and in the end Oliver would know what it was. He had
been told to seek the Clinker Creek Country to learn the question that
had puzzled his father for thirty years, to decide whether the proper
answer was Yes or No, and communicate his decision to his father's
lawyers. That was all. When in the wisdom which his father had supposed
would be the natural result of his son's university training he had made
his decision and placed it before these legal gentlemen, what would
happen? Speculation over this led nowhere.

At first it had seemed to Oliver that the mission with which he had been
intrusted was more or less a secret matter, and that he must keep still
about it. Then as the staunch cow-pony bore him nearer and nearer to the
Clinker Creek Country it gradually dawned upon him that, by so doing, he
might stand a poor chance of even finding out what had puzzled his sire.
To say nothing of the answer which he was to seek. It was then he
decided that he had nothing to hide and must place his situation before
the people of the country who would likely be able to help him. Hence
his confidences to Mr. Damon Tamroy.

Tamroy had aided him not at all; but the 'Forty-niner, Old Dad Sloan,
knew something. Dan Smeed, outlaw, highwayman, had owned a saddle and
bridle like Oliver's. The old man had mysteriously mentioned the lost
mine of Bolivio, and had said the settings in Oliver's _conchas_ were
gems. If only the old man could be made to talk!

The muffled thud of a horse's hoofs came between the strokes of Oliver's
pick. With an odd and unfamiliar sensation he glimpsed a white horse and
rider approaching through the pines.

It was she--Jessamy Selden--the black-haired, black-eyed girl of whom he
reluctantly had thought so often since his first day in the Clinker
Creek Country.

She was riding straight down the caņon, the white mare gingerly picking
her way between boulders and snarls of driftwood. The girl looked up.
Oliver felt that she saw him. Her ears could not have been insensible to
the ring of his pick on the flinty stones. She did not leave the trail,
however, but continued on in his direction.

He rested on the handle of his tool and waited.

"Good morning," he ventured, sweeping off his battered hat, as the mare
stopped without pressure on the reins and gravely contemplated him.

The girl smiled and returned his greeting brightly.

"If you had waited a few days longer for your ride down here," said
Oliver, "I'd have had a better trail for you."

"Oh, I don't know that I want it any better," she laughed. "I like
things pretty much as they are, when Old Mother Nature has built them. I
ride down this way frequently."

She was no fragile reed, this girl. She was rather more substantially
built than most members of her sex. Her figure was straight and tall and
rounded, and her strong, graceful neck upreared itself proudly between
sturdy shoulders. Grace and strength, rather than purely feminine
beauty, predominated in the impression she created in Oliver. She wore a
man's Stetson hat over her lavish crown of coal-black hair, a man's
flannel shirt, a whipcord divided skirt, and dark-russet riding boots.
The saddle that she rode in had not been built for a woman to handle,
and, with its long, pointed tapaderos, must have weighed close to fifty
pounds. The steady, friendly, confident gaze of her large black eyes was
thrilling. A man instinctively felt that, if he could win this woman, he
would have acquired a wife among a thousand, a loyal friend and comrade,
and a partner who could and would shoulder more than a woman's share of
their load.

Still, Oliver knew nothing at all about her. What he had heard of her
was not exactly of the best. Yet he felt that she was gloriously all
right, and did not try to argue otherwise.

"Well, I suppose I must introduce myself first," she was saying in her
full, ringing tones. "I'm Jessamy Selden. My name is not Selden, though,
but Lomax. When my mother married Adam Selden I took her new name. I
heard somebody had moved onto the Old Ivison Place, and I deliberately
rode down to get acquainted."

"You waited a month, I notice," Oliver laughingly reproached. "My name
is Oliver Drew. If you'll get off your horse I'll tell you what a
wonderful man I am."

She swung to the ground and held out a strong, brown, ungloved hand.

"I'll walk to your cabin with you," she said, "if you'll invite me. I'd
like to see how you've been improving your time since your arrival."

Scarce able to find words with which to meet such delightful frankness,
Oliver walked beside her, the white mare following and nosing at his
pockets to prove that she was a privileged character.

The girl loosed her within the inclosure, and let her drag her reins.
Poche trotted up to make the white's acquaintance, followed by the new
mouse-coloured burro, Smith, who long since had assumed a "where thou
goest I will go" affection for the bay saddler.

Jessamy Selden came to a stop before the cabin, her black eyes dancing.

"Who would have thought," she said in low tones, "that the Clinker Creek
people ever would see the old Ivison cabin rebuilt and inhabited once
more! How sturdily it must have been built to stand up against wind and
storm all these years. Are you going to invite me in and show me
around?" She levelled that direct glance at him and showed her white
teeth in a smile.

Oliver was thinking of the carving on the inside of the old door,
"Jessamy, My Sweetheart." He had not replaced the door with a new one,
for every penny counted. It still was serviceable; and, besides, there
seemed to be a sort of companionship about the carved observations of
the unknowns who had been sheltered by the old cabin during the past
fifteen years.

"You've been in the house often, I suppose?" He made it a question.

"Oh, yes," she said. "I've lunched in it many a time, and have run in
out of the rain during winter months. I slept in it all night once."

"You seem to be an independent sort of young woman," suggested Oliver.

"I'm a rather lonely sort of woman, if that's what you mean," she
replied. "Yes, I ride about lots alone. I like it. Don't you want me to
go in?"

"Er--why, certainly," he stammered. "Please don't think me inhospitable.
Come on."

He led the way, and stood back for her at the door. He would leave the
door open, swung back into the corner, he thought, so that she would not
see the carving. She had been in the cabin many times. Did she know the
carving to be there? Of course it might have been executed since her
last visit, though it did not seem very fresh. Who had carved the words?
Oliver could imagine any of the young Clinker Creek swains as being
secretly in love with this marvellous girl, and pouring out his tortured
soul through the blade of his jack-knife when securely hidden from
profane eyes in this vast wilderness.

She passed complimentary remarks about his practically built home-made
furniture, and the neatness and necessary simplicity of everything.

"What an old maid you are for one so young!" she laughed. "And, please,
what's the typewriter for--if I'm not too bold?"

"Well," said Oliver, "it occurred to me that I must make a living down
here. I'm a graduate of the State College of Agriculture, and I like to
farm and write about it. I've sold several articles to agricultural
papers. I'm going to experiment here, and try to make a living by
writing up the results!"

"Why, how perfectly fine!" she cried enthusiastically. "I couldn't
imagine anything more engrossing. I'm a State University girl."

"You don't say!"

And this furnished a topic for ten minutes' conversation.

"If you're as good a writer and farmer as you are tinker and carpenter,"
she observed, passing into the front room again, "you'll do splendidly."
She was standing, straight as a young spruce, hands on hips, looking
with twinkling eyes at the open door. "The old door still hangs, I see,"
she murmured. "Now just why didn't you replace it, Mr. Drew?"

Oliver looked apprehensive. "Well," he replied hesitatingly, "for
several reasons. First, a new door costs money, and so would the lumber
with which to make one--and I haven't much of that article. Second, I
get some amusement from looking at those old carvings and speculating on
the possible personalities of the carvers. For all I know, some great
celebrities' ideas may be among those expressed there--some future great
man, at any rate. The boy one meets in the street may one day be
president, you know. Then there's a sort of companionship about those
names and monograms and quotations. The fellow that informs me that only
suckers live here I'd like to meet. He was so blunt about it, so sure.
He--er--"

Smiling, she had stepped to the door and, arms still akimbo, allowed her
glance to travel from one design to another. She raised an arm and
levelled a finger.

"What do you think of that one?" she asked.

"Well," said Oliver, "that's a rather well executed poison oak leaf. The
hills are covered with the plant. I imagine that some wanderer not
immune from the poison came into contact with it, and, though his eyes
were swelled half shut and his fingers itched and tingled, his right
hand had not lost its cunning. So he took out his trusty blade and
carved a warning for all future pilgrims who chanced this way to beware
of this tree that is in the midst of the garden, and to not touch it
lest they--"

"Itch," Jessamy gravely put in. "Quite pretty and poetic," she
supplemented. "But you are entirely wrong, Mr. Drew. That carving is,
first of all, a copy of the brand of Old Man Selden, and you'll find it
on all his cows. All but the word 'Beware,' of course, you understand.
Second, it represents the silly symbol of a gang that infests this
country known as the Poison Oakers. Oh, you've heard of them!" she had
turned suddenly and surprised the look on his face.

"It sounds very bloodthirsty," he laughed confusedly.

"I'll tell you more, then, when I know you better," she said. "No, I'll
tell you today," she added quickly.

Then before he could make a move she had closed the door to examine what
might be carved on the inner side.

"Tell me now," said Oliver quickly. "Try this chair here by the window.
I'm rather proud of this one. It's my first attempt at a morris ch--"

"Come here, please," she commanded, standing with her back to him.

"Don't act so like a boy," she reproved as he dutifully stepped up
behind her. "Anybody would know you are clumsily trying to detract my
attention from--that."

The brown finger was pointing straight at JESSAMY, MY SWEETHEART.

She turned and levelled her frank, unabashed eyes straight at his.

"So that's why you hesitated about inviting me in," she stated, her lips
twitching and dimples appearing and disappearing in her cheeks.

"Frankly, yes," he told her gravely.

Her glance did not leave him. "Mr. Tamroy told me he had mentioned me to
you," she said. "So of course you knew, when you saw this carving, that
I was the subject of the raving. And when you saw me you wished to spare
me embarrassment. Thank you. But you see I'm not at all embarrassed. I
have never before seen this masterpiece in wood, and imagine it has been
done since I was in the cabin last. Let's see--I doubt if I've been
inside for a year or more. I think perhaps Mr. Digger Foss is the one
who tried to make his emotions deathless by this work of art. 'Jessamy,
My Sweetheart,' eh?" She threw back her glorious head and laughed till
two tears streamed down her tanned cheeks. "Poor Digger!" she said
soberly at last. "I suppose he does love me."

"Who wouldn't," thought Oliver, but bit his lips instead of speaking.

"You may leave that, Mr. Drew," she told him, "until you get ready to
replace the old door with a new one. I would not have the irrefutable
evidence of at least one conquest blotted out for worlds. Now let's go
out in that glorious sunlight, and I'll tell you about Old Man Selden
and the Poison Oakers."




CHAPTER V

"AND I'LL HELP YOU!"


What Jessamy Selden told Oliver Drew of the Poison Oakers was about the
same as he had heard from Damon Tamroy.

She used his sawbuck for a seat, and sat with one booted ankle resting
on a knee, idly spinning the rowel of her spur as she talked. Oliver
listened without interruption until she finished and once more levelled
that straightforward glance at him.

"The cows have been down below on winter pasture," she added. "Adam
Selden and the boys rode out yesterday to start the spring drive into
the foothills. You'll awake some morning soon to find red cattle all
about you, and they'll be here till August."

"Well," he said, "I don't know that I shall mind them. My fence is
pretty fair, and with a little more repairing will turn them, I think."

She twirled her rowel in silence for a time, her eyes fixed on it. Then
she said:

"It isn't that, Mr. Drew. I may as well tell you right now what I came
down here purposely to tell you. You're not wanted here. All of this
land has been abandoned so long that Adam Selden and the gang have come
to consider it their property--or at least free range."

"But they'll respect my right of ownership."

"I don't know--I don't know. I'm afraid they won't. They're a law unto
themselves down in here. They'll try to run you out."

"How?"

"Any way--every way. If nothing else occurs to them, they'll begin a
studied system of persecution with the idea of making you so sick of
your bargain that you'll pull stakes and hit the trail. That poor man
Dodd! Mr. Tamroy told me you happened into the saloon in time to see the
shooting. Wasn't it terrible! And how they persecuted him--fairly drove
him into the rash act that cost him his life!"

She lifted her glance again. "Mr. Tamroy tells me that you were shocked
at me that day."

"I guess I didn't fully understand the circumstances."

"I did," she firmly declared, her lips setting in what would have been a
grim smile but for the dimples that came with it. "I understood the
situation," she went on. "Digger Foss had been waiting for just that
chance. There's just enough Indian and Chinese blood in him to make him
a fatalist. He's therefore deadly. Has no fear of death. He's cruel,
merciless. I knew when I saw Henry Dodd covering him with that gun that,
if he didn't finish what he'd started, he was a dead man. He couldn't
even have backed off gracefully, keeping Digger covered, and got away
alive. Digger is so quick on the draw, and his aim is so deadly. He's a
master gunman. Even had Dodd succeeded in getting away then, he would
have been a marked man. He had thrown down on Digger Foss. Digger would
have got the drop on him next time they met and killed him as you would
a coyote. So in my excitement I rushed in with my well meant warning,
and--Oh, it was horrible!"

"And you meant actually for Dodd to kill Foss?"

Her black eyes dilated, and an angry flush blended with the tan on her
cheeks.

"It was one or the other of them," she told him coldly. "Mr. Dodd was an
honest, plodding man--a good citizen. Foss is a renegade. Was I so very
bloodthirsty in trying to make the best of a bad situation by choosing,
on the spur of the moment, which man ought to live on? I'm not the
fainting kind of woman, Mr. Drew. One must be practical, if he can, even
over matters like that."

"I'm not condemning," he said. "I'm only wondering that a woman could be
so practical in such a situation."

"Digger Foss hasn't seen me since then," she observed. "He's in jail,
awaiting trial, at the county seat. He'll be acquitted, of course. I'm
wondering what he'll have to say to me when he is free again."

Oliver said nothing to this.

"I must be going," she declared, rising suddenly. "As I said, I came
down to warn you to be on your guard against the Poison Oakers."

He caught her pony and led it to her. She swung into the saddle, then
slued toward him, leaned an elbow on the horn and rested her chin in the
palm of her hand. Once more that direct gaze of her frank black eyes
looked him through and through.

"Well," she asked, "will the Poison Oakers run you off?"

"Oh, I think not," he laughed lightly.

"They'll be ten against one, Mr. Drew."

"There's law in the land."

"Yes, there's law," she mused. "But it's so easy for unscrupulous people
to get around the law. They can subject you to no end of persecution,
and you won't even be able to prove that one of them is behind it."

She looked him over deliberately.

"I'm glad you've come," she said. "You're an educated man, and blessed
with a higher order of character than has been anybody else who stood to
cross the Poison Oakers. Somehow, I feel that you are destined to be
their undoing. They must be corralled and their atrocities brought to an
end. You must be the one to put the quietus on that gang. And I'll help
you. Good-bye!"

She lifted the white mare into a lope, opened the gate, rode through and
closed it without leaving the saddle, then, waving back at him,
disappeared in the chaparral.




CHAPTER VI

ACCORDING TO THE RECORDS


Oliver Drew had found a bee tree on the backbone of the ridge between
the Old Ivison Place and the American River. He stood contemplating it,
watching the busy little workers winging their way to and from the hole
in the hollow trunk, planning to change their quarters and put them to
work for him.

Far below him, down a precipitous pine-studded slope, the green American
River raced toward the ocean. There had been a week of late rains, and
good grass for the summer was assured.

Away through the tall trees below him he saw red cows filtering along,
cropping eagerly at the lush growth after a long dusty trip from the
drying lowlands. Now and then he saw a horseman galloping along a mile
distant. He heard an occasional faint shout, borne upward on the soft
spring wind. The Seldens were ending the drive of their cattle to summer
pastures.

He turned suddenly as he heard the tramp of hoofs. Six horsemen were
approaching, along the backbone of the ridge, winding in and out between
clumps of the sparse chaparral.

In the lead, straight and sturdy as some ancient oak, rode a tall man
with grey hair that hung below his ears and a flowing grey beard. He
wore the conventional cowpuncher garb, from black-silk neckerchief, held
in place by a poker chip with holes bored in it, to high-heeled boots
and chaps. He rode a gaunt grey horse. His tapaderos flapped loosely
against the undergrowth, and, so long were the man's legs, they seemed
almost to scrape the ground. A holstered Colt hung at the rider's side.

Silent, stern of face, this old man rode like the wraith of some ancient
chieftain at the head of his hard-riding warriors.

Those who followed him were younger men, plainly _vaqueros_. They lolled
in their saddles, and smoked and bantered. But Oliver's eyes were alone
for the stalwart figure in the lead, who neither spoke nor smiled nor
paid any attention to his band, but rode on grimly as if heading an
expedition into dangerous and unknown lands.

Undoubtedly this was Old Man Selden and his four sons, together with
other members of the Poison Oakers Gang. They had left the cows to
themselves and were making their way homeward after the drive. Oliver's
first impulse was to hide behind a tree and watch, for he felt that he
should forego no chance of a strategic advantage. Then he decided that
it was not for him to begin manoeuvring, and stood boldly in full
view, wondering whether the riders would pass without observing him.

They did not. He heard a sharp word or two from some follower of the old
man, and for the first time the leader showed signs of knowing that he
was not riding alone. He slued about in his saddle. A hand pointed in
Oliver's direction. The old man reined in his grey horse and looked
toward Oliver and the bee tree. The other horsemen drew up around him.
There was a short consultation, then all of them leaned to the right in
their saddles and galloped over the uneven land.

They reined in close to the lone man, and a dusty, sweaty, hard-looking
clan they were. Keen, curious eyes studied him, and there was no
mistaking the insolent and bullying attitude of their owners.

A quick glance Oliver gave the five, then his interest settled on their
leader.

Adam Selden was a powerful man. His nose was of the Bourbon type, large
and deeply pitted. His eyes were blue and strong and dominating.

"Howdy?" boomed a deep bass voice.

Oliver smiled. "How do you do?" he replied.

Then silence fell, while old Adam Selden sat rolling a quid of tobacco
in his mouth and studying the stranger with inscrutable cold blue eyes.

"I've found a bee tree," said Oliver when the tensity grew almost
unbearable. "I was just figuring on the best way to hive the little
rascals."

Selden slowly nodded his great head up and down with exasperating
exaggeration.

"Stranger about here, ain't ye?" he asked.

"Well, I've been here over a month," Oliver answered. "I own the Old
Tabor Ivison Place, down there in the valley. My name is Oliver Drew,
and I guess you're Mr. Selden."

Another long pause, then--

"Yes, I'm Selden. Them's my cows ye see down there moseyin' up the river
bottom and over the hills. I been runnin' cows in here summers for a
good many years. Just so!"

"I see," said Oliver, not knowing what else to say.

"Three o' these men are my boys," Selden drawled on. "The rest are
friends o' ours. Has anybody told ye about the poison oak that grows
'round here?"

"I'm familiar with it," Oliver told him.

"Ain't scared o' poison oak, then?"

"Not at all. I'm immune."

"It's a pesterin' plant. You'll chafe under it and chafe under it, and
think it's gone; then here she comes back again, redder and lumpier and
itchier than ever."

"I'm quite familiar with its persistence," Oliver gravely stated.

"And still ye ain't afraid o' poison oak?"

"Not in the least."

The gang was grinning, but the chief of the

Poison Oakers maintained a straight face.

"Ain't scared of it, then," he drawled on. "Well, now, that's handy. I
like to meet a man that ain't scared o' poison oak. Got yer place
fenced, I reckon?"

"Yes, I've repaired the fence."

"That's right. That's always the best way. O' course the law says we got
to see that our stock don't get on your prop'ty. Whether that there's a
good and just law or not I ain't prepared to say right now. But we got
to obey it, and we always try to keep our cows offen other folks'
pasture. But it's best to fence, whether ye got stock o' yer own or not.
Pays in the long run, and keeps a fella outa trouble with his
neighbours. But the best o' fencin' won't keep out the poison oak. O'
course, though, you know that. Now what're ye gonta do down there on the
Old Ivison Place?--if I ain't too bold in askin'."

"Have a little garden, and maybe get a cow later on. Put a few stands of
bees to work for me, if I can find enough swarms in the woods. I have a
saddle horse and a burro to keep the grass down now. I don't intend to
do a great deal in the way of farming."

"I'd think not," Selden drawled. "Land about here's good fer nothin' but
grazin' a few months outa the year. Man would be a fool to try and farm
down where you're at. How ye gonta make a livin'?--if I'm not too bold
in askin'."

"I intend to write for agricultural papers for my living," said Oliver.

Silence greeted this. So far as their experience was concerned, Oliver
might as well have stated that he was contemplating the manufacture of
tortoise-shell side combs to keep soul and body to their accustomed
partnership.

"How long ye owned this forty?" Old Man Selden asked.

"Only since my father's death, this year."

"Yer father, eh? Who was yer father?"

"Peter Drew, of the southern part of the state."

"How long'd he own that prop'ty before he died?"

"He owned it for some time, I understand," said Oliver patiently.

The grey head shook slowly from side to side. "I can show ye, down to
the county seat, that Nancy Fleet--who was an Ivison and sister o' the
woman I married here about four year ago--owned that land up until the
first o' the year, anyway. It was left to her by old Tabor Ivison when
he died. That was fifteen year ago, and I've paid the taxes on it ever
since for Nancy Fleet, for the privilege o' runnin' stock on it. I paid
the taxes last year. What 'a' ye got to say to that?"

Oliver Drew had absolutely nothing to say to it. He could only stare at
the gaunt old man.

"But I have the deed!" he burst out at last.

"And I've got last year's tax receipts," drawled Adam Selden. "Ye better
go down to the county seat and have a look at the records," he added,
swinging his horse about. "Then when ye've done that, I'd like a talk
with ye. Just so! Just so!"

He rode off without another word, the gang following.

Early next morning Oliver was in the saddle. As Poche picked his way out
of the caņon Oliver espied Jessamy Selden on her white mare, standing
still in the county road.

"Good morning," said the girl. "You're late. I've been waiting for you
ten minutes."

Oliver's lips parted in surprise, and she laughed good-naturedly.

"I thought you'd be riding out early this morning," she explained, "so I
rode down to meet you. I feel as if a long ride in the saddle would
benefit me today. Do you mind if I travel with you to the county seat?"

He had ridden close to her by this time, and offered his hand.

"You like to surprise people, don't you?" he accused. "The answer to
your question is, I do not mind if you travel with me to the county
seat. But let me tell you--you'll have to travel. This is a horse that
I'm riding."

She turned up her nose at him. "I like to have a man talk that way to
me," she said. "Don't ever dare to hold my stirrup for me, or slow down
when you think the pace is getting pretty brisk, or anything like that."

"I wouldn't think of such discourtesy," he told her seriously. "You
noticed that I let you mount unaided the other day. I might have walked
ahead, though, and opened the gate for you if you hadn't loped off."

"That's why I did it," she demurely confessed. "I'm rather proud of
being able to take care of myself. And as for that wonderful horse of
yours, he does look leggy and capable. But, then, White Ann has a point
or two herself. Let's go!"

Their ponies took up the walking-trot of the cattle country side by side
toward Halfmoon Flat.

"Well," Oliver began, "of course my meeting you means that you know I've
had an encounter with Adam Selden, and that he has told you he doubts if
I am the rightful owner of the Tabor Ivison Place."

"Yes, I overheard his conversation with Hurlock last night," she told
him. "So I thought I'd ride down with you, sensing that you would be
worried and would hit the trail this morning."

"I am worried," he said. "I can't imagine why your step-father made that
statement."

"Just call him Adam or Old Man Selden when you're speaking of him to
me," she prompted. "Even the 'step' in front of 'father' does not take
away the bad taste. And you might at least _think_ of me as Jessamy
Lomax. I will lie in the bed I made when I espoused the name of Selden,
for it would be stupid to go about now notifying people that I have gone
back to Lomax again. My case is not altogether hopeless, however. You
are witness that I have a fair chance of some day acquiring the name of
Foss, at any rate. So you are worried about the land tangle?"

"What can it mean?" he puzzled.

"This probably is not the first instance in which a deed has not been
recorded promptly," she ventured. "That won't affect your ownership.
Personally I know that Aunt Nancy Fleet's name appears in the records
down at the county seat as the owner of the property. She sold it to
your father, doubtless, and the transfer never was recorded. Where is
your deed?"

He slapped his breast.

"See that you keep it there," she said significantly.

"You say you know that your Aunt Nancy Fleet is named as owner of the
property in the county records?"

She nodded.

"Then she has allowed Adam Selden to believe that she still owns it!" he
cried. "And this is proved by reason of her having allowed him to pay
the taxes for the right to run stock on the land."

She nodded again.

He wrinkled his brows. "It would seem to be a sort of conspiracy against
Adam Selden by your Aunt Nancy and--" He paused.

"And who?"

"Well, it's not like my father's business methods to allow a deed to go
unrecorded for fifteen years," he told her. "Not at all like Dad. So I
must name him as a party to this conspiracy against old Adam. But what
is the meaning of it, Miss Selden?"

"I'm sure I am not in a position to say," she replied lightly. "Some
day, when you've got things to running smoothly down there, I'll take
you to see Aunt Nancy. She lives up in Calamity Gap--about ten miles to
the north of Halfmoon Flat. Maybe she can and will explain."

He regarded her steadily; but for once her eyes did not meet his, though
he could not say that this was intentional on her part.

"By George, I believe _you_ can explain it!" he accused.

"I?"

"You heard me the first time."

"Did you learn that expression at the University of California or in
France?"

"I stick to my statement," he grumbled.

"Do so, by all means. Just the same, I am not in a position to enlighten
you. But I promise to take you to Aunt Nancy whenever you're ready to
go. There's an Indian reservation up near where she lives. You'll want
to visit that. We can make quite a vacation of the trip. You'll see a
riding outfit or two that will run close seconds to yours for decoration
and elaborate workmanship. My! What a saddle and bridle you have! I've
been unable to keep my eyes off them from the first; but you were so
busy with your land puzzle that I couldn't mention them. I've seen some
pretty elaborate rigs in my day, but nothing to compare with yours. It's
old, too. Where did you get it?"

"They were Dad's," he told her. "He left them and Poche to me at his
death. I must tell you of something that happened when I first showed up
in Halfmoon Flat in all my grandeur. Do you know Old Dad Sloan, the
'Forty-niner?"

She nodded, her glance still on the heavy, chased silver of his saddle.

Then Oliver told her of the queer old man's mysterious words when he saw
the saddle and bridle and martingales, and the stones that were set in
the silver _conchas_.

She was strangely silent when he had finished. Then she said musingly:

"The lost mine of Bolivio. Certainly that sounds interesting. And Dan
Smeed, squawman, highwayman, and outlaw. The days of old, the days of
gold--the days of 'Forty-nine! Thought of them always thrills me. Tell
me more, Mr. Drew. I know there is much more to be told."

"I'll do it," he said; and out came the strange story of Peter Drew and
his last message to his son.

Her wide eyes gazed at him throughout the recital and while he read the
message aloud. They were sparkling as he concluded and looked across at
her.

"Oh, that dear, delightful, romantic old father of yours!" she cried.
"You're a man of mystery--a knight on a secret quest! Oh, if I could
only help you! Will you let me try?"

"I'd be only too glad to shift half the burden of finding the question
and its correct answer to your strong shoulders," he said.

"Then we'll begin just as soon as you're ready," she declared. "I have a
plan for the first step. Wait! I'll help you!"

Shortly before noon they dropped rein before the court house and sought
the county recorder's office. Oliver gave the legal description of his
land, and soon the two were pouring over a cumbersome book, heads close
together.

To his vast surprise, Oliver found that his deed had been recorded the
second day after his father's death, and that, up until that recent
date, the land had appeared in the records as the property of Nancy
Fleet.

"Dad's lawyers did this directly after his death," he said to Jessamy.
"They sent the deed up here and had it recorded just before turning it
over to me. Adam Selden hasn't seen it yet. Say, this is growing mighty
mysterious, Miss Selden."

"Delightfully so," she agreed. "Now as you weren't expecting me to come
along, have you enough money for lunch for two? If not, I have. We'd
better eat and be starting back."




CHAPTER VII

LILAC SPODUMENE


Once more Oliver Drew rode out of Clinker Creek Caņon to find Jessamy
Selden, straight and strong and dependable looking, waiting for him in
her saddle. On this occasion he joined her by appointment.

She looked especially fresh and contrasty today. Her black hair and eyes
and her red lips and olive skin, with the red of perfect health so
subtly blended into the tan, always made her beauty rather startling.
This morning she had plaited her hair in two long, heavy braids that
hung to the bottom of her saddle skirts on either side.

Oliver's gaze at her was one of frank admiration.

"How do you do it?" he laughed.

"Do what?"

"Make yourself so spectacular and--er--outstanding, without leaving any
traces of art?"

"Am I spectacular?"

"Rather. Different, anyway--to use a badly overworked expression. But
what puzzles me is what makes you look like that. You seem perfectly
normal, and nothing could be plainer than the clothes you wear. You're
not beautiful, and you're too big both physically and mentally to be
pretty. But I'll bet my hat you're the most popular young woman in this
section!"

She regarded him soberly. "Are you through?" she asked.

"I've exhausted my stock of descriptive words, anyway," he told her.

"Then we'd better be riding," she said.

He swung Poche to the side of White Ann, and they moved off along the
road, knee and knee.

"You're not offended?" he asked.

She threw back her head and laughed till Oliver thought of meadow larks,
and robins calling before a shower.

"Offended! You must think me some sort of freak. Who ever heard of a
woman being offended when a man admires her? I like it immensely, Mr.
Oliver Drew. And if you can beat that for square shooting, there's no
truth in me. But if you'll analyse my 'difference' you'll find it's only
because I'm big and strong and healthy, and try always to shoot straight
from the shoulder and look folks straight in the eye. That's all. Let's
let 'em out!"

They broke into a smart gallop, and continued it up and down
pine-toothed hills till they clattered into Halfmoon Flat.

Curious eyes met them, old men stopped in their tracks and leaned on
their canes to watch, and folks came to windows and doors as they loped
through the village.

"'Whispering tongues can poison truth,'" Jessamy quoted as they turned a
corner and cantered up a hill toward a grove of pines on the outskirts
of the town. "It seems odd that Adam Selden has not mentioned you to me.
Surely some one has seen us together who would tell some one else who
would tell Old Man Selden all about it. But not a cheep from him as
yet."

"Have you any bosom friends in the Clinker Creek district?" he asked,
not altogether irrelevantly.

"No, none at all. But I'm friends with everybody, though I have nothing
in common with any one. I don't consider myself superior to the natives
here about, but, just the same, they don't interest me. I'm speaking of
the women. I like most of the men. I guess I'm what they call a man's
woman. I can't sit and talk about clothes and dances, and gossip, and
what one did on one's vacation last summer. It all bores me stiff, so I
don't pretend it doesn't. Men, now--they can talk about horses and
saddles and cows and cutting wood and prizefights and poker games and
election--"

"And women and Fords," he interrupted.

She laughed and led the way into a little trail that snaked on up the
hill between lilacs and buckeye trees to a little cabin half-hidden in
the foliage.

They dismounted at the door and loosed their horses. Jessamy tapped
vigorously on the panels. Again and again--and then there was heard a
shuffling, unsteady step inside, and a cane thumped hollowly. Presently
the door opened, and Old Dad Sloan bleared out at them from behind his
flaring, mattress-stuffing hair and whiskers.

"How do you do, Mr. Sloan!" cried Jessamy almost at the top of her
voice.

A veined hand shook its way to form a cup behind the ancient's ear.

"Hey?" he squealed.

Jessamy filled her sturdy lungs with air and tried again.

"I say--How do you do!" The effort left her neck red but for a blue
outstanding artery.

"Oh!" exclaimed Dad Sloan, with a look of relief. "Why, howdy?"

Jessamy ascended a step to the door, took him by both shoulders, and
placed her satin lips close to the ear that he inclined her way.

"We've come to make you a call," she announced. "I want you to meet a
friend of mine; and we want to ask you some questions."

The grey head nodded slowly up and down, more to indicate that its owner
heard and understood than to signify acquiescence. But he tottered back
and held the door wide open; and Jessamy and Oliver went into the cabin.

Dad Sloan managed to live all alone in this sequestered little nook by
reason of the county's generosity. He was old and feeble, and at times
irritatingly childish and petulant. Jessamy Selden often brought him
cakes, fried chicken, and the like; and, provided he was in the right
mood, he would be more likely to be confidential with her than with
anybody else in the country.

But the girl's task was difficult. The old man shook hands listlessly
with Oliver at her bidding, but seemed entirely to have forgotten their
previous meeting. They sat in the uncomfortable straight-backed,
thong-bottom chairs while Jessamy shrieked the conversation into the
desired channel. The old eyes gathered a more intelligent look as she
spoke of the lost mine of Bolivio.

Pieced together, the fragments that fell from the bearded lips of Old
Dad Sloan made some such narrative as follows:

Bolivio had been a Portuguese or a Spaniard, or some "black furriner,"
who had been in the country in the memorable days of '49 and afterward.
His knowledge of some tongue based on the Latin had made it easy for him
to communicate with the Pauba Indians that inhabited the country, as
some of them had learned Spanish from the Franciscan Fathers down at the
coast. Bolivio mingled with the tribe, and finally became a squawman.

One day he appeared at the Clinker Creek bar and exhibited a beautiful
stone. A gold miner who was present had once followed mining in South
Africa, and knew something of diamonds. He examined Bolivio's stone, and
gave it such simple tests as were at his command, then advised the owner
to send it to New York to find out if it was possessed of value.

It required months in those days to communicate with the Atlantic
seaboard. Bolivio's stone was started on its long journey around the
Horn. He hinted that there were more of the stones where he had found
this one, and created the impression that his Indian brethren had showed
them to him.

More they could not get out of him. Nor did anybody try very hard to
learn his secret, for no one imagined the find of much intrinsic value.

Bolivio was a saddler, and was skilled in the art of the silversmith.
Gold dust was plentiful in the country in that day, and the foreigner
found ready buyers for his masterpieces in leather and precious metals.
The finest equestrian outfit that he made was finally acquired from the
Indians by Dan Smeed, a miner who afterward turned highwayman, married
an Indian girl, became an outlaw, and finally disappeared altogether. In
the _conchas_ with which the plaited bridle was adorned Bolivio had set
two large stones from his secret store, which he himself had crudely
polished.

One day, a month or more before word came from New York regarding the
stone, Bolivio was found dead in the forest. A knife had been plunged
into his heart. The secret of the brilliant stones had died with him.

Then came the answer. The stone was said to be spodumene, of a very high
class, and had a a lilac tint theretofore unknown. It was the finest of
its kind ever to have been reported as found in the United States. The
finder was offered a thousand dollars for the sample sent; one hundred
dollars a pound was offered for all stones that would grade up to the
sample.

But Bolivio was dead, and no one knew from whence the stone had come.

Efforts were made, of course, to find the source of this wealth. The
Indians were tried time and again, but not one word would they speak
regarding the matter. The new quest was finally dropped; for those were
the days of gold, gold, gold, and so frenzied were men and women to find
it that other precious minerals were cast aside as worthless. None had
time to seek for stones worth a hundred dollars a pound, with gold worth
more than twice as much. So the lost mine of Bolivio became only a
memory.

Years later this same stone was discovered six hundred miles farther
south. It is now on the market as kunzite, and a cut stone of one karat
in weight sells for fifty dollars and more. The San Diego County
discovery was supposed to mark the introduction of the stone in the
United States, for the lost mine of Bolivio was all but forgotten.

Old Dad Sloan thumped out at Jessamy's request and once again critically
examined Oliver's saddle and bridle and the brilliants in the _conchas_.

"It's the same fine outfit Bolivio made, and that afterwards belonged to
Dan Smeed, outlaw, highwayman, and squawman," he pronounced. "They never
was another outfit like it in this country."

"Tell us more about Dan Smeed!" screamed the girl.

The patriarch shook his head. "Bad egg; bad egg!" he said sonorously.
"He married a squaw, and that's how come it he got the grandest saddle
and bridle Bolivio ever made. Bolivio's squaw kep' it after Bolivio was
knifed. And by and by along come this Dan Smeed and his partner to this
country. And when Dan Smeed married into the tribe he got the saddle and
bridle and martingales somehow. That was later--years later. Bolivio's
been dead over seventy year."

"Have you ever heard the name Peter Drew?" Oliver asked him.

But the old eyes remained blank, and the grey head shook slowly from
side to side. "I recollect clear as day what happened sixty to seventy
year ago, but I can't recollect what I did last week or where I went,"
Dad Sloan said pathetically. "If I'd ever heard o' Peter Drew in the
days o' forty-nine to seventy, I'd recollect it."

"You mentioned Dan Smeed's partner," prompted Jessamy. "Can you recall
his name?"

"Yes, Dan Smeed had a partner," mused Dad Sloan. "Bad egg, Dan Smeed.
Squawman, highwayman, outlaw. Disappeared with his fine saddle and
bridle and martingales and the stones from the lost mine o' Bolivio."

"But his partner's name?" the girl persisted.

The old mind seemed to be wandering once more. "Bad eggs--both of 'em.
Bad eggs," was the only answer she could get.

"Well, we're progressing slowly," Jessamy observed as they rode away.
"Our next step must be to visit the Indians. I know a number of them.
Filipe Maquaquish, for instance, and Chupurosa are as old or older than
Old Dad Sloan. Chupurosa's face is a pattern in crinkled leather. When
we go to see Aunt Nancy Fleet we'll visit the Indian village. And that
will be--when?"

"Tomorrow, if you say so," Oliver replied. "I meant to irrigate my
garden tomorrow, but it can wait a day."

"By the way," she asked, "have you written that letter to Mr. Selden,
telling him what we found out down at the county seat?"

"I have it in my pocket," he told her.

"Give it to me," she ordered. "I'll hand it in at the post office, get
them to stamp the postmark on it, and take it home with me when I go."

"Will you dare do that? Won't the post-master scent a conspiracy against
Old Man Selden?"

"Let him scent!" said Jessamy. "I'm dying to see Selden's face when he
reads that letter."

They parted at the headwaters of Clinker Creek, with the understanding
that she would meet him in the county road next morning for the ride to
her aunt's and the Indian reservation.




CHAPTER VIII

POISON OAK RANCH


The trail that meandered down Clinker Creek Caņon extended at right
angles to the one that led to the Selden ranch. The latter climbed a
baldpate hill; then, winding its narrow way through dense locked
chaparral higher than horse and rider, dipped down precipitously into
the deep caņon of the American River.

Jessamy waved good-bye to her new friend at the parting of the ways and
lifted White Ann into her long lope to the summit of the denuded hill.
For a little, as they crossed the topmost part of it, the deep, rugged
scar that marked the course of the river was visible. Ragged and rocky
and covered with trees and chaparral, the caņonside slanted down dizzily
for over fifteen hundred feet. At the bottom the deep green river rushed
pell-mell to the lower levels. A moment and the view was lost to the
girl, as White Ann entered the thick chaparral and started the swift
descent.

At last they reached the bottom, forded the swirling stream, and began
clambering up a trail as steep as the first on the other side. Soon the
river was lost to view again, for once more the trail had been cut
through a seemingly impenetrable chaparral of buckthorn, manzanita and
scrub oak. Around and about tributary caņons they wound their way, and
at last reached the end of the steep climb. For a quarter of a mile now
the trail followed the backbone of a ridge, then entered a caņon that
eventually spread out into a pine-bordered plateau on the mountainside.
Just ahead lay Poison Oak Ranch. Beyond, the deep, dark forest extended
in miles numbered by hundreds to the snow-mantled peaks of the Sierra
Nevada range.

While it was possible to reach Poison Oak Ranch from this side of the
river, the journey on Shank's mare would have taken on something of the
nature of an exploring expedition into unmapped lands. Occasionally
hunters wandered to or past the ranch on this side; but for the most
part any one who fancied that he had business at Poison Oak Ranch came
over the narrow trail that connected the spot with outside civilization.
Few entertained such a fancy, however, for Poison Oak Ranch, secluded,
hidden from sight, tucked away in the Hills of Nowhere, and difficult of
access, was owned and controlled by a clannish family that had little in
common with the world.

There was a large log house that Adam Selden's father had built in the
days of '49, in which the Old Man Selden of today had first opened his
eyes on life. There were several lesser cabins in the mountainside cup,
two of which were occupied by Hurlock Selden and Winthrop Selden and
their families. The remaining two boys, Moffat and Bolar, lived in the
big house with Jessamy, her mother, and the wicked Old Man of the Hills.

There was an extensive garden, watered by a generous spring that gushed
picturesquely from under a gigantic boulder set in the hillside. There
were perhaps ten acres of pasture, and a small deciduous orchard. Little
more in the way of agricultural land. The Seldens merely made this place
their home and headquarters--their cattle ranged the hills outside, and
most of their activities toward a livelihood were carried on away from
home. Selden owned a thousand acres over in the Clinker Creek Country
and a winter range a trifle larger fifty miles below the foothills. He
moved his herds three times in a year--from the winter pastures to the
Clinker Creek Country for the spring grass, keeping them there till
August, when they were driven to government mountain ranges at an
altitude of six thousand feet; and from thence, in October, to winter
range once more. The Clinker Creek range, however, was comprised of
several thousand acres beside the thousand owned by Selden. This
represented lands long since deserted by their owners as useless for
agricultural purposes, and upon which Selden kept up the taxes, or
appropriated without negotiations, as conditions demanded. Oliver Drew's
forty had been a part of this until Oliver's inopportune arrival.

Jessamy rode into the rail corral and unsaddled her mare. Then she
hurried to the house to help her mother, a tired looking, once comely
woman of fifty-eight.

Mrs. Selden had been an Ivison--a sister of Old Tabor Ivison, who had
homesteaded Oliver's forty acres thirty years before. As a girl she had
married Herman Lomax, a country youth with ambitions for the city. He
had done fairly well in the mercantile business in San Francisco, and
Jessamy, the only child, was born to them. The girl had been raised to
young womanhood and attended the State University. Then her father had
died, leaving his business in an involved condition; and in the end the
widow and her daughter found there was little left for them.

They returned to the scene of Mrs. Lomax's girlhood, where they tried
without success to farm the old home place, to which, in the interim,
the widow had fallen heir. Then to the surprise of every one--Jessamy
most of all--Mrs. Lomax consented to marry Old Adam Selden, the father
of four strapping sons and "the meanest man in the country." At the time
Jessamy had not known this last, but she knew it now.

However, such an independent young woman as Jessamy would not consent to
suffer a great deal at the hands of a step-father. She stayed on with
the family for her mother's sake, but she had her own neat living room
and bedroom and went her own way entirely. It must end someday. Old Adam
Selden, though hard and tough as a time-battered oak, could not live for
ever. Her mother would not divorce him. So Jessamy stayed and waited,
and rode over the hills alone, unafraid and independent.

She was helping her mother to get supper in the commodious kitchen, with
its black log walls and immense stone fireplace, which room served as
dining room and living room as well, when Adam Selden, Bolar, and Moffat
rode in from the trail and corraled their horses. Supper was ready as
the three clanked to the house in spurs and chaps, and washed noisily in
basins under a gigantic liveoak at the cabin door. Then Jessamy took
Oliver Drew's letter from her bosom and propped it against old Adam's
coffee cup.

Selden's bushy brows came down as he scraped his chair to the table.
Mail for any Selden was an unusual occurrence.

"What's this here?" Adam's thick fingers held the envelope before his
eyes, and the beetling grey brows strained lower.

"Mail," indifferently answered Jessamy, setting a pan of steaming
biscuits, covered with a spotless cloth, on the table.

"Fer me?"

"'Adam Selden, Esquire,'" she quoted.

"'Esquire,' eh? Who's she from?"

"It's generally customary to open a letter and read who it is from,"
said Jessamy lightly. "In this instance, however, you will find a
notation on the flap of the envelope that reads: 'From Oliver Drew,
Halfmoon Flat, California.'"

"Huh!" Selden raised his shaggy head and bent a condemnatory glance on
the girl.

"D'he give it to ye?"

"It is postmarked Halfmoon Flat," said Jessamy, taking her seat beside
Bolar, who, indifferent to his father's difficulties, had already
consumed three fluffy biscuits spread with butter and wild honey.

"Ye got her out o' the office, then?" The cold blue eyes were
challenging.

"Oh, certainly, certainly!" Jessamy chirruped impatiently. "One might
imagine you'd never received a letter before."

Adam fingered it thoughtfully. "Yes," he said deliberatingly at last,
reverting to his customary drawl, "I got letters before now. But I was
just wonderin' if this Drew fella give thisun to you to give to me."

Jessamy's round left shoulder gave a little shrug of indifference.
"Coffee, Moffat?" she asked.

"Sure Mike," said Moffat.

"Did he?" Selden's tones descended to the deep bass boom which marked
certain moods.

"Oh, dear!" Jessamy complained good-naturedly. "What's the use? Can't
you see the postmark and the cancelled stamp, Mr. Selden?"

Selden contemplated them. "Yes, I see 'em," he admitted; "I see 'em. But
I thought, s' long's ye was with that young Drew fella today, he might
'a' saved his stamp and sent her to me by you."

"That being satisfactorily decided," chirped Jessamy, "let us now open
the missive and learn what Mr. Drew has to communicate."

"Heaven's sake, Pap, open it and shut up!" growled Moffat, his mouth
full of potato.

"I'll take a quirt to you if ye tell me to shut up ag'in!" thundered
Selden.

Thereupon he tore the envelope and leaned out from his chair so that the
light from a window flooded the single sheet which the envelope
contained.

He read silently, slowly, craggy brows drawn down. His cold blue eyes
widened, and the large nostrils of his pitted Bourbon nose spread
angrily.

"Moffat, listen here!" he boomed at last. "You, too, Bolar."

"Yes, be sure to listen, Bolar," laughed Jessamy. "But if you don't wish
to, go down into the caņon of the American."

"'Adam Selden, Esquire,'" Selden boomed on, unheeding the girl's
bantering. "'Poison Oak Ranch, Halfmoon Flat, Californy:'

"'My dear Mr. Selden.' Get that, Moffat! 'My dear Mr. Selden!' Say,
who's that Ike think he's writin' to? His gal? Huh! 'My _dear_ Mr.
Selden:'

"'I rode to the county seat on Wednesday, this week, and looked over the
records in the office of the recorder of deeds. I found that you are
entirely mistaken in the matter that you brought to my attention on
Tuesday. The forty acres known as the Old Ivison Place are recorded in
my name, the date of the recording being January fifth, this year. It
appears that Nancy Fleet sold the place years ago to my father, but that
the transfer was not placed on record until the date I have mentioned.'

"'With kindest regards,'

"'Yours sincerely, Oliver Drew.'"

Selden came to an ominous pause and glared about the table. "Writ with a
typewriter, all but his name," he announced impressively. "And he's a
liar by the clock!"

Jessamy threw back her head in that whole-souled laughter that made
every one who heard her laugh.

"He's crazy," complacently mumbled Bolar, still at war on the biscuits.

"Jess'my"--Selden's eyes were fixed sternly on his
step-daughter--"What're ye laughin' at?"

"At humanity's infinite variety," answered Jessamy.

"Does that mean me?"

"Me, too, Pete!" she rippled.

"Looky-here"--he leaned toward her--"there's some funny business goin'
on 'round here. Two times ye been seen ridin' with that new fella down
on the Old Ivison Place."

"Two times is right," she slangily agreed.

"And ye rode with 'im to the county seat when he went to see the
records. Just so!"

"Your informer is accurate," taunted the girl.

"What for?"

"What for?" She levelled her disconcerting gaze at him. "Well, I like
that, Mr. Selden! Because I wanted to, if you must pry into my affairs."

"Ye wanted to, eh? Ye _wanted_ to! Did ye see the records?"

"I did."

"Is this here letter a lie?" He spanked the table with it.

"It is not."

He rose from his chair and bent over her. "D'ye mean to tell me yer
maw's sister don't own that prop'ty?"

"Exactly. It belongs to Mr. Oliver Drew, according to the recorder's
office. May I suggest that I am rather proud of my biscuits tonight, and
that they're growing cold as lumps of clay?"

"It's a lie!" roared Selden.

"Now, just a moment," said Jessamy coolly. "Do I gather that you are
calling me a liar, Mr. Selden? Because if you are, I'll get a cattle
whip and do my utmost to make you swallow it. I'll probably get the
worst of it, but--"

"Shut up!" bawled Selden. "Ye know what I mean, right enough! The whole
dam' thing's a lie!"

"Tell it to the county recorder, then," Jessamy advised serenely. "Have
another piece of steak, Mother."

"I'll ride right up to Nancy Fleet's tomorrow. I'll get to the bottom o'
this business. And you keep yer young nose outa my affairs, Jess'my!"

"Oh, I'll do that--gladly. That's easy."

"Just so! Then keep her outa this fella Drew's, too!"

"That's another matter entirely," she told him. "And I may as well add
right here, while we're on the subject, that I wish you to keep your
nose out of _my_ affairs. There, now--we've ruined our digestions by
quarrelling at meal-time. Bolar hasn't, though--I'm glad somebody
appreciates my biscuits."

Bolar grinned, and his face grew red. Bolar was deeply in love with his
step-sister, four years his senior; but a day in the saddle, with a
sharp spring wind in one's face, will scarce permit the tender passion
to interfere with a lover's appetite.

Old Adam enveloped himself in his customary brooding silence. He was a
holy terror when aroused, and would then spout torrents of words; but
ordinarily he was morosely quiet, taciturn. He would not have hesitated
to apply his quirt to his twenty-six-year-old son Moffat, as he had
threatened to do, had not that young man possessed the wisdom born of
experience to refrain from defying him. But with his step-daughter it
was different. For some inexplicable reason he "took more sass" from her
than from any other person living. Deep down in his scarred old heart,
perhaps, there was hidden a deferential respect and fatherly admiration
for this breezy, strong-minded girl with whom a strange fortune had
placed him in daily contact.

"Please eat your supper, Mr. Selden," Jessamy at last sincerely pleaded,
when the old man's frowning abstraction had continued for minutes.

Dutifully, without a word, he scraped his chair closer to the table and
fell to noisily. But he did not join in the conversation, which now
became general.

It was a custom in the House of Selden for each diner to leave the table
when he had finished eating--a custom antedating Jessamy's advent in the
family, which she never had been able to correct. Bolar had long since
bolted the last morsel of food that his tough young stomach would
permit, and had hurried to a half-completed rawhide lariat. Moffat soon
followed him out. Then Jessamy's mother arose and left the room. This
left together at the table the deliberate eater, Jessamy, and the old
man, who had not yet caught up with the time he had given to the letter.

He too finished before the girl, having completed his supper in the same
untalkative mood. Now, however, he spoke to her as he pushed back his
chair and rose.

"Jess'my," he said in a moderate tone, "I want to tell ye one thing. Ye
know that I shoot straight from the shoulder, or straight from the hip,
whichever's handiest--and I don't shoot to scare."

He waited.

Jessamy nodded. "I'll have to admit that," she said. "I think it's the
thing I like most about you."

He pondered over this, and again his brows came down above his pitted
nose. "I didn't know they was anything ye liked about me," he at length
said bluntly.

"Oh, yes," she remarked, levelling that straightforward look of hers at
him. "I like your height and the breadth of your chest, and the way you
sit in your saddle when your horse is on the dead run--and the other
thing I mentioned before."

Again he grew thoughtful. "Well, that's _somethin'_," he finally
chuckled. "Ye like my way o' sayin' what I think, then. Well, get this:
I'm the boss o' this country, from Red Mountain to the Gap. I been the
boss of her since my pap died and turned her over to me. So it's the
boss o' the Poison Oak Country that's talkin'. And he says this: That
new fella Drew that's made camp down on the Old Tabor Ivison Place can't
make a livin' there, can't raise nothin', don't belong there. And if by
some funny business, that I'm gonta look into right away, he's got
a-holt o' that forty, he's got to hit the trail."

"Why, how ridiculous!" laughed the girl. "Where do you think you are,
Mr. Selden? In Russia--Germany? King Selden Second, Czar of all the
Poison Oak Provinces! Mr. Drew, owning that land in his own right, must
hit the trail and leave it for you simply because you say so!"

"Ye heard what I said, Jess'my"--and he clanked out of the room.




CHAPTER IX

NANCY FLEET'S WINDFALL


Jessamy Selden stood before the cheap soft-wood dresser in her bedroom,
in a wing of the old log house, and completed the braiding of the two
long, thick strands of cold-black hair. Then in the cozy little sitting
room, which adjoined the bedroom and was hers alone, she slipped on her
morocco-top riding boots and buckled spur straps over her insteps.

The sun had not yet climbed the wooded ridges beyond Poison Oak Ranch.
The night before the girl had prepared a cold breakfast for herself; and
with this wrapped in paper she left the sitting room by its outside door
and ran to the corral. The family was at breakfast in the vast room.
Hurlock's and Winthrop's families were likewise engaged in their
respective houses. So no one was about to disturb or even see Jessamy as
she hastily threw the saddle on White Ann, leaped into it, and rode
away.

When she had left the clearing, and the noise of rapid hoofbeats would
not be heard, she lifted the mare into a gallop. At this reckless speed
they swung into the trail and plunged hazardously down the mountainside
along the serpentine trail. They forded the river, took the trail on the
other side, and raced madly up it until compassion for her labouring
mount forced the rider to rein in. Now she ate her breakfast of cold
baked apple and cold fried mush in the saddle as the mare clambered
upward.

At sunrise they topped the ridge and took up the lope again toward the
headwaters of Clinker Creek. Long before she reached it Jessamy saw a
bay horse and its rider at rest, with the early sunlight playing on the
flashing silver of the famous saddle and bridle of Oliver Drew.

"Let's go!" she cried merrily as White Ann, convinced that some
devilment was afoot, cavorted and humped her back and shied from side to
side while she bore down swiftly on the waiting pair.

For answer Oliver Drew pressed his calves against Poche's ribs, and the
bay leaped to White Ann's side with a snort that showed he had caught
the spirit of the coming adventure, whatever it might prove to be. At a
gallop they swung into the county road, Poche producing a challenging
metallic rattle by rolling the wheel of his halfbreed bit with his
tongue, straining at the reins, and bidding the equally defiant white to
do that of which "angels could do no more."

"Good morning!" cried Oliver. "What's the rush?"

"Old Man Selden is riding to Aunt Nancy's today," she shouted back.
"Good morning!"

"Oh! In that case, if that white crowbait you're riding hadn't already
come three miles, we'd find out whether she can run. She's telling the
world she can."

Jessamy made a face at him and, leaning forward, caressed the mare's
smooth neck. White Ann evidently considered this a sign of abetment, for
she plunged and reared and cast fiery looks of scorn at her pseudo
rival.

"There, there, honey!" soothed the girl. "We could leave that old
flea-bitten relic so far behind it would be cruelty to animals to do it.
Just wait till we're coming back, after we've rested and have an even
chance; for I really believe the man wants to be fair."

Oliver's eyes were filled with her as her strong, sinewy figure followed
every unexpected movement of the plunging mare as if a magnet held her
in the saddle. The dew of the morning was on her lips; the flush of it
on her cheeks. Her long black braids whipped about in the wind like
streamers from the gown of a classic dancer. The picture she made was
the most engrossing one he had ever looked on.

They slowed to a walk after a mile of it.

"Well," said Jessamy, "I delivered your letter."

"Yes? Go on. That's a good start."

"It created quite a scene. Old Adam simply won't--can't--believe that
you own the Old Ivison Place. So that's why he's fogging it up to Aunt
Nancy's today. I think we'll be an hour ahead of him, though, and can be
at the reservation by the time he reaches the house."

"Is he angry?"

"Ever try to convince a wasp that you have more right on earth than he
has?" Her white teeth gleamed against the background of red lips and
sunburned skin.

"Well?"

"He says that, whether you own the place or not, you'll have to leave."

"M'm-m! That's serious talk. In some places I've visited it would be
called fighting talk."

"Number this place among them, Mr. Drew," she said soberly, turning her
dark, serious eyes upon him.

"But I didn't come up here to fight!"

"Neither did the President of the United States take his seat in
Washington to fight," she pointed out, keeping that level glance fixed
on his face.

"Oh, as to that," mused Oliver after a thoughtful pause, "I guess I
_can_ fight. They didn't send me back from France as entirely useless.
But it strikes me as a very stupid proceeding. Look here, Miss
Selden--how many acres of grass does your step--er--Old Man Selden run
cows on for the summer grazing?--how many acres in the Clinker Creek
Country, in short?"

Jessamy pursed her lips. "Perhaps four thousand," she decided after
thought.

"Uh-huh. And on my forty there's about fifteen acres, all told, that
represents grass land. The rest is timber and chaparral. Now, fifteen
acres added to four thousand makes four thousand fifteen acres. The
addition would take care of perhaps five additional animals for the
three months or more that his stock remains in that locality. Do you
mean to tell me that Adam Selden would attempt to run a man out of the
country for that?"

She closed her eyes and nodded her head slowly up and down in a
childlike fashion that always amused him. It meant "Just that!"

He gave a short laugh of unbelief.

"Listen," she cautioned: "Don't make the fatal mistake of taking this
matter too lightly, Mr. Drew."

"But heavens!" he cried. "A man who would attempt to dispossess another
for such a slight gain as that would rob a blind beggar of the pennies
in his cup! I've had a short interview with Old Man Selden. Corrupt he
may be, but he struck me as an old sinner who would be corrupt on a big
scale. I couldn't think of the masterful old reprobate I talked with as
a piker."

Jessamy locked a leg about her saddle horn. "You've got him about
right," she informed her companion. "One simply is obliged to think of
him as big in many ways."

Oliver's leg now crooked itself toward her, and he slouched down
comfortably. "Say," he said, "I don't get you at all."

"Don't get me?" She was not looking at him now.

"No, I don't. One moment you said he would put the skids under me for
the slight benefit from my fifteen acres of grass. Next moment you
maintain that he is not a piker."

"Yes."

Oliver rolled a cigarette. Not until it was alight did he say:

"Well, you haven't explained yet."

She was silent, her eyes on the glittering snow of the far-off Sierras.
For the first time since he had met her he found her strangely at a loss
for words. And had her direct gaze faltered? Were her eyes evading his?
And was the rich colour of her skin a trifle heightened, or was it the
glow from the sun, ever reddening as it climbed its ancient ladder in
the sky?

She turned to him then--suddenly. There was in her eyes a look partly of
amusement, partly of chagrin, partly of shame.

"I can't answer you," she stated simply. "I blundered, that's all.
Opened my mouth and put my foot in it."

"But can't you tell me how you did that even?"

"I talk too much," was her explanation. "Like poor old Henry Dodd, I
went too far on dangerous ground."

Oliver tilted his Stetson over one eye and scratched the nape of his
neck. "I pass," he said.

"That reminds me," was her quick return, "I sat in at a dandy game of
draw last night. There was--"

"Wh-_what_!"

"And now I have both feet in my mouth," she cried. "And you'll have to
admit that comes under the heading, 'Some Stunt.' I thought I saw a
chance to brilliantly change the subject, but I see that I'm worse off
than before. For now you're not only mystified but terribly shocked."

He gave this thirty seconds of study.

"I'll have to admit that you jolted me," he laughed, his face a little
redder. "I'm not accustomed to hearing young ladies say, 'I sat in at a
dandy little game of draw'--just like that. But I'm sure I went too far
when I showed surprise."

"And what's your final opinion on the matter?" She was amused--Not
worried, not defiant.

"Well, I--I don't just know. I've never given such a matter a great deal
of thought."

"Do so now, please."

Obediently he tried as they rode along.

"One thing certain," he said at last, "it's your own business."

"Oh, you haven't thought at all! Keep on."

A minute later he asked: "Do you like to play poker?"

"Yes."

"For--er--money?"

"'For--er--money.' What d'ye suppose--crochet needles?"

Then he took up his studies once more.

Finally he roused himself, removed his leg from the horn, and
straightened in the saddle.

"Settled at last!" she cried. "And the answer is...?"

"The answer is, I don't give a whoop if you do."

"You approve, then?"

"Of everything you do."

"Well, I don't approve of that," she told him. "I don't, and I do. But
listen here: One of the few quotations that I think I spout accurately
is 'When in Rome do as the Romans do.' I'm 'way off there in the hills.
I'm a pretty lonely person, as I once before informed you. Yet I'm a
gregarious creature. We have no piano, few books--not even a phonograph.
Bolar Selden squeezes a North-Sea piano--in other words an accordion. Of
late years accordion playing has been elevated to a place among the
arts; but if you could hear Bolar you'd be convinced that he hasn't kept
pace with progress. He plays 'The Cowboy's Lament' and something about
'Says the wee-do to the law-yer, O spare my only che-ild!' Ugh! He gives
me the jim-jams.

"So the one and only indoor pastime of Seldenvilla is draw poker. Now,
if you were in my place, would you be a piker and a spoilsport and a
pink little prude, or would you be human and take out a stack?"

"I understand," he told her. "I think I'd take out a stack."

"And besides," she added mischievously, "I won nine dollars and thirty
cents last night."

"That makes it right and proper," he chuckled. "But we've wandered far
afield. Why did you say that Selden would try to run me off my toy ranch
in one breath, and that he is wicked only in a big way in the next?"

"I'd prefer to quarrel over poker playing," she said. "Please, I
blundered--and I can't answer that question. But maybe you'll learn the
answer to it today. We'll see. Be patient."

"But I'll not learn from you direct."

"I'm afraid not."

"I think I understand--partly," he said after another intermission. "It
must be that there's another--a bigger--reason why he wants me out of
Clinker Creek Caņon."

"You've guessed it. I may as well own up to that much. But I can't tell
you more--now. Don't ask me to."

After this there was nothing for the man to do but to keep silent on the
subject. So they talked of other things till their horses jogged into
Calamity Gap.

Here was a town as picturesque as Halfmoon Flat, and wrapped in the same
traditions. Jessamy's Aunt Nancy Fleet lived in a little shake-covered
cottage on the hillside, overlooking the drowsy hamlet and the railroad
tracks.

It appeared that all of the Ivison girls had been unfortunate in
marrying short-lived men. Nancy Fleet was a widow, and two other sisters
besides Jessamy's mother had likewise lost husbands.

Nancy Fleet was a still comely woman of sixty, with snow-white hair and
Jessamy's black eyes. She greeted her niece joyously, and soon the three
were seated in her stuffy little parlour.

Oliver opened up the topic that had brought him there. Mrs. Fleet, after
stating that she did so because he was Oliver Drew, readily made answer
to his questions.

Yes, she had sold the Old Ivison Place to a Mr. Peter Drew something
like fifteen years before. She had never met him till he called on her,
and no one else at Calamity Gap had known anything about him.

He told that he had made inquiry concerning her, and that this had
resulted in his becoming satisfied that she was a woman who would keep
her word and might be trusted implicitly. This being so, he told her
that he would relieve her of the Old Ivison Place, if she would agree to
keep silent regarding the transfer until he or his son had assured her
that secrecy was no longer necessary. For her consideration of his
wishes in this connection he told her that he was willing to pay a good
price for the land.

As there seemed to be no rascality coupled with the request, she gave
consent. For years she had been trying to dispose of the property for
five hundred dollars. Now Peter Drew fairly took her breath away by
offering twenty-five hundred. He could well afford to pay this amount,
he claimed, and was willing to do so to gain her co-operation in the
matter of secrecy. She had accepted. The transfer of the property was
made under the seal of a notary public at the county seat, and the money
was promptly paid.

Then Peter Drew had gone away with his deed, and for fifteen years she
had made the inhabitants of the country think that she still owned the
Old Ivison Place simply by saying nothing to the contrary. She had been
told to accept any rentals that she might be able to derive from it--to
use it as her own. For several years Peter Drew had regularly forwarded
her a bank draft to cover the taxes. Then Adam Selden had offered to pay
the taxes for the use of the land, and she had written Peter Drew to
that effect and told him to send no more tax money until further notice.
Since that date she had heard no more from the mysterious purchaser of
the land.

She was surprised to learn that the transfer had at last been recorded,
but could throw no light whatever on the proceedings.

She took a motherly interest in Oliver because of his father, whose
generosity had greatly benefited her. In fact, she said, she couldn't
for the life of her tell how she'd got along without that money.

"And whatever shall I say, dearie, when Adam Selden comes to me today?"
she asked her niece. "I'm afraid of the man--just afraid of him."

"Pooh!" Jessamy deprecated. "He's only a man. Oliver Drew's coming, and
the fact that the transfer has at last been placed on record leaves you
free to tell all you know. So just tell Old Adam what you've told Mr.
Drew, and say you know nothing more about it. But whatever else you say,
don't cheep that we've been here, Auntie."

"Well, I hope and trust he'll believe me," she sighed as she showed her
callers out.

"Now," said Jessamy, as they remounted, "we'll ride away and be at the
reservation by the time Old Adam arrives here. What do you think of your
mystery by now, Mr. Drew?"

"It grows deeper and deeper," Oliver mused.




CHAPTER X

JESSAMY'S HUMMINGBIRD


A steep, tall mountain, heavily wooded, reared itself above the Indian
reservation. A creek tumbled over the boulders in the mountainside and
raced through the village of huts; and the combined millions of all the
irrigation and power companies in the West could not have bought a drop
of its water until Uncle Sam's charges had finished with it and set it
free again.

It was a picturesque spot. Huge liveoaks, centuries old, sprawled over
the cabins. Tiny gardens dotted the sunny land. Horses and dogs were
anything but scarce, and up the mountainside goats and burros browsed
off the chaparral. Wrinkled old squaws washed clothes at the creekside,
or pounded last season's acorns into _bellota_--the native dish--in
mortars hollowed in solid stone. Some made earthen _ollas_ of red clay;
some weaved baskets. Over all hung that weird, indescribable odour which
only Indians or their much-handled belongings can produce.

"This is peace," smiled Oliver to Jessamy, as their horses leaped the
stream side by side and cantered toward the cluster of dark, squat huts.
"What do they call this reservation?"

"It is named after an age-old dweller in our midst whom, since you are a
Westerner, you must have often met."

"Who is that?"

"Mr. Rattlesnake."

"Oh, certainly. I've met him on many occasions--mostly to his sorrow, I
fancy. Rattlesnake Reservation, eh?"

"Well, that would be it in English. But in the Pauba tongue Mr.
Rattlesnake becomes Showut Poche-daka."

"What's that!" Oliver turned quickly in his saddle to find her dark wide
eyes fixed on him intently. "Say that again, please."

"Showut Poche-daka," she repeated slowly.

"M'm-m! Strikes me as something of a coincidence--a part of that name."

"Showut is one word," she said, still watching him. "Poche and daka are
two words hyphenated."

"And how do the English-speaking people spell the second word, Poche?"
he asked.

"P-o-c-h-e," she spelled distinctly. "Long o, accent on the first
syllable."

Oliver reined in. "Stop a second," he ordered crisply. "Why, that's the
way my horse's name is spelled. Say, that's funny!"

"Is your trail growing plainer?"

He looked at her earnestly. "Look here," he said bluntly. "I distinctly
remember telling you the other day that my horse's name is Poche. Didn't
you connect it with the name of the reservation at the time?"

"I did."

He looked at her in silence. "You did, eh?" he remarked finally. "I
don't even know what my horse's name means. Dad bought him while I was
away at college. I understood the horse was named that when Dad got hold
of him, and that he merely hadn't changed it. Now, I won't say that Dad
told me as much outright, but I gathered that impression somehow. I knew
it was an Indian name, but had no idea of the meaning."

"Literally Poche means bob-tailed--short-tailed. That's why it occurs in
the title of our friend Mr. Rattlesnake. While your Poche-horse is not
bob-tailed, his tail is rather heavy and short, you'll admit. Has
nothing of the length and graceful sweep of White Ann's tail, if you'll
pardon me."

"You can't lead me into joshing just now, young lady. Answer this: Why
didn't you tell me, when I told you my _caballo's_ name, that you knew
what it meant? Most everybody asks me what it means when I tell 'em his
name; but you did not even show surprise over the oddity of it--and I
wondered. And before, when you spoke of this tribe of Indians, you
called them the Paubas."

"Certainly I showed no surprise, for I am familiar with the word poche
and have just proved that I know its meaning. And I'm not very clever at
simulating an emotion that I don't feel. I didn't tell you, moreover,
because I wanted you to find out for yourself. I thought you'd do so
here. Yes--and I deliberately called these people the Paubas. They _are_
Paubas--a branch of the Pauba tribe."

"I thought you were to help me," he grumbled. "You're adding to the
mystery, it seems to me."

"Not at all. I'm showing you the trail. You must follow it yourself.
Knowing the country, I see bits here and there that tell me where to go
to help you out. Poche's name is one of them. Keep your eyes and ears
open while I'm steering you around."

"All right," he agreed after a pause. "Lead on!"

"Then we'll make a call on Chupurosa Hatchinguish," she proposed.
"Chupurosa means hummingbird, as you doubtless know, since it is
Spanish. And if my Chupurosa isn't a bird and also a hummer, I never
hope to see one."

Oliver's riding outfit created a sensation as the two entered the
village. Faces appeared in doorways. Squat, dark men, their black-felt
hats invariably two sizes too large, came from nowhere, it seemed, to
gaze silently. Dogs barked. Women ceased their simple activities and
chattered noisily to one another.

Jessamy reined in before a black low door presently, and left the
saddle. Oliver followed her. Through a profusion of morning-glories the
girl led the way to the door and knocked.

From within came a guttural response, and, with a smile at her
companion, she passed through the entrance.

It was so dark within that for a little Oliver, coming from the bright
sunlight, could see almost nothing. Then the light filtering in through
the vines that covered the hut grew brighter.

The floor was of earth, beaten brick-hard by the padding of tough bare
feet. In the centre was a fireplace--little more than a circle of
blackened stones--from which the smoke was sucked out through a hole in
the roof, presumably after it had considerately asphyxiated the
occupants of the dwelling. Red earthenware and beautifully woven baskets
represented the household utensils. There were a few old splint-bottom
chairs, a pack-saddle hanging on the wall, a bed of green willow boughs
in one corner.

These simple items he noticed later, and one by one. For the time being
his interested attention was demanded by the figure that sat humped over
the fire, smoking a black clay pipe.

Chupurosa Hatchinguish, headman of the Showut Poche-dakas and a
prominent figure in the fiestas and yearly councils of the Pauba tribes,
was a treasure for anthropologists. Years beyond the ken of most human
beings had wrought their fabric in his face. It was cross-hatched,
tattooed, pitted, knurled, and wrinkled till one was reminded of the
surface of some strange, intricately veined leaf killed and mummified by
the frost. From this crunched-leather frame two little jet-black eyes
blazed out with the unquenched fires of youth and all the wisdom in the
world. A black felt hat, set straight on his iron-grey hair and almost
touching ears and eyebrows, faded-blue overalls, and a dingy flannel
shirt completed his garb, as he wore nothing on his feet.

"Hello, my Hummingbird!" Jessamy cried merrily in the Spanish tongue.

Chupurosa seemed not to be the stoic, "How-Ugh!" sort of Indian with
which fiction has made the world familiar. All the tragedy and
unsolvable mystery of his race was written in his face, but he could
smile and laugh and talk, and seemed to enjoy life hugely.

His leathery face now parted in a grin, and, though he did not rise, he
extended a rawhide hand and made his callers welcome. Then he waved them
to seats.

Much as any other human being would do, he politely inquired after the
girl's health and that of her family. Asked as to his own, he shook his
head and made a rheumatic grimace.

"I've brought a friend to see you, Chupurosa," said Jessamy at last, as,
for some reason or other, she had not yet exactly introduced Oliver.

Chupurosa looked at the man inquiringly and waited.

"This is Oliver Drew," said the girl in what Oliver thought were
unnatural, rather tense tones. He saw Jessamy's lips part slightly after
his name, and that she was watching the old man intently.

Chupurosa nodded in an exaggerated way, and extended a hand, though the
two had already gone through the handshake formality. Oliver arose and
did his part again, then stood a bit awkwardly before their host.

He heard a half-sigh escape the girl. "Seņor Drew has not been in our
country long," she informed the old man. "He comes from the southern
part of the state--from San Bernardino County."

Again the exaggerated nodding on the part of Chupurosa.

Then there was a pause, which the girl at length broke--

"Did you catch the name, Chupurosa? _Oliver Drew_."

Chupurosa politely but haltingly repeated it, and grinned
accommodatingly.

Jessamy tried again. "Do you know a piece of land down in Clinker Creek
Caņon that is called the Old Ivison Place, Chupurosa?"

His nod this time was thoughtful.

"Seņor Drew now owns that, and lives there," she added.

Both Jessamy and Oliver were watching him keenly. It seemed to Oliver
that there was the faintest suggestion of dilation of the eye-pupils as
this last bit of information was imparted. Still, it may have meant
nothing.

The Indian crumbled natural-leaf with heel of hand and palm, and
refilled his terrible pipe.

"Any friend of yours is welcome to this country and to my hospitality,"
he said.

"Seņor Drew rode all the way up here horseback," the girl pushed on.
"You like good horses, Chupurosa. Seņor Drew has a fine one. His name is
Poche."

For the fraction of a second the match that Oliver had handed Chupurosa
stood stationary on its trip to the tobacco in his pipe. Chupurosa
nodded in his slow way again, and the match completed its mission and
fell between the blackened stones.

"And you like saddles and bridles, too, I know. You should see Seņor
Drew's equipment, Chupurosa."

Several thoughtful puffs. Then--

"Is it here, Seņorita?"

"Yes," said the girl breathlessly. "Will you go out and look at it?"

This time the headman puffed for nearly a minute; then suddenly he rose
with surprising briskness.

"I will look at this horse called Poche," he announced, and stalked out
ahead of them.

A number of Indians, old and young, had gathered about the horses
outside the little gate. They were silent but for a low, seemingly
guarded word to one another now and then. Every black eye there was
fixed on the gorgeous saddle and bridle of Poche in awe and admiration.

Then came Chupurosa, tall, dignified as the distant mountain peaks, and
they backed off instantly. At his heels were Oliver and the girl, whose
cheeks now glowed like sunset clouds and whose eyes spoke volumes.

Thrice in absolute silence the headman walked round the horse.
Completing the third trip, he stepped to Poche's head and stood
attentively looking at the left-hand _concha_ with its glistening stone.
Then Chupurosa lifted his hands, slipped the chased-silver keeper that
held the throatlatch in place, and let the throatlatch drop. Both hands
grasped the cheekstrap near the brow-band, and turned this part of the
bridle inside out.

Oliver felt a slight trembling, it was all so weird, so portentous. He
almost knew that the jet eyes were searching for the "B" chiselled into
the silver on the inside of the _concha_, knew positively by the quick
dilation of the pupils when they found it.

At once the old man released the bridle and readjusted the throatlatch.
He turned to them then, and silently motioned toward the hut. Jessamy
cast a triumphant glance at Oliver as they followed him inside.

To Oliver's surprise he closed the door after them. Then, though it was
now so dark inside that Oliver could scarce see at all, Chupurosa stood
directly before him and looked him up and down.

He spoke now in the melodious Spanish.

"Seņor," he asked, "is there in the middle of your body, on the left
side, the scar of a wound like a man's eye?"

Oliver caught his breath. "Yes," he replied. "I brought it back from
France. A bayonet wound."

Up and down went the iron-grey head of the sage. "I have never seen the
weapon nor the sort of wound it makes," he informed Oliver gravely.
"Take off your shirt."

"Oh, Chupu-_ro_-sa!" screamed Jessamy as she threw open the door and
slammed it after her.




CHAPTER XI

CONCERNING SPRINGS AND SHOWUT POCHE-DAKA


It was evident to Oliver Drew that Clinker Creek was lowering fast, as
Damon Tamroy had predicted that it would do. He feared that it would go
entirely dry just when certain vegetables would need it most. Again,
also following Tamroy's prophecy, the flow from his spring proved
insufficient to keep all of his plantings alive, even though he had
impounded the surplus in a small clay-lined reservoir.

He stood with hands on hips today, frowning at the tinkling stream of
water running from the rusty length of pipe into the reservoir.

"There's just one thing to do," he remarked to it, "and that's to see if
I can't increase your putter-putter. I want to write an article on
making the most of a flow of spring water, anyway; and I guess I'll use
you for a foundation."

Whereupon he secured pick and shovel and sledge and set about removing
the box he had so carefully set in the ground to hold his domestic
water.

When the box was out he enlarged the hole, and, when the water had
cleared, studied the flow. It seeped out from a fissure in the
bedrock--or what he supposed was the bedrock--and it seemed a difficult
matter to "get at it." However, he began digging above the point of
egress in the resistant blue clay, and late that afternoon was down to
bedrock again.

And now when he had washed off the rock he discovered a strange thing.
This was that the supposed bedrock was not bedrock at all, but a wall of
large stones built by the hand of man. Through a crevice in this wall
the water seeped, and when he had gouged out the puttylike blue clay the
flow increased fivefold.

He sat down and puzzled over it, expecting the flow to return to normal
after some tiny unseen reservoir had been drained of its surplus. But it
did not lessen, and had not lessened when night came.

At midnight, thinking about it in bed and unable to sleep, he arose,
lighted a lantern, and went down to the spring. The water was flowing
just the same as when he had left it.

He was not surprised to find the work of human hands in and about his
spring, but this wall of stones was highly irregular. It appeared that,
instead of having been built to conserve the water, it was designed to
dam up the flow entirely. The old flow was merely seepage through the
wall.

He was at it again early next morning, and soon had torn down the wall
entirely and thrown out the stones. At least five times as much water
was running still. He recalled that Damon Tamroy had said the spring had
given more water in Tabor Ivison's day than now.

There was but one answer to the puzzle. For some strange reason somebody
since Tabor Ivison's day had seen fit to try to stop the flow from the
spring altogether. But who would go to such pains to do this, and hide
the results of his work, as these had been hidden? And, above all, why?

It is useless to deny that Oliver Drew at once thought of the Poison
Oakers. But what excuse could they produce for such an act? Surely, with
the creek dry and the American River several miles away, they would
encourage the flow of water everywhere in the Clinker Creek Country for
their cattle to drink.

It was beyond him then and he gave it up. He laid more pipe and covered
it all to the land level again, and viewed with satisfaction the
increased supply of water for the dry summer months to come. And it was
not until a week later that Jessamy Selden unconsciously gave him an
answer to the question.

He was scrambling up the hill to the west of the cabin that day to
another bee tree that he had discovered, when he heard her shrill
shouting down below. He turned and saw her and the white mare before the
cabin, and the girl was looking about for him.

He returned her shout, and stood on a blackened stump in the chaparral,
waving his hat above the foliage.

"I get you!" she shrilled at last. "Stay there! I'm coming up!"

Fifteen minutes later, panting, now on hands and knees, now crawling
flat, she drew near to him. A bird can go through California "locked"
chaparral if it will be content to hop from twig to twig, but the
ponderous human animal must emulate Nebuchadnezzar if he or she would
penetrate its mysteries.

"What a delightful route you chose for your morning crawl," she puffed,
as at last she lay gasping at the foot of the stump on which he sat and
laughed at her.

Oliver lighted a cigarette and inhaled indolently as he watched her
lying there with heaving breast, her arms thrown wide. She did
everything as naturally as does a child. She wore fringed leather chaps
today, and remarked, when she sat up and dusted the trash from her hair,
that she was glad she had done so since he had made her come crawling to
his feet.

"And that reminds me of something that I've decided to ask you," she
added. "Has it occurred to you that I am throwing myself at you?" She
looked straight into his face as she put the naïve question to him.

"Why do you ask that?" he countered, eyes on the tip of his cigarette.

"I'll tell you why when you've answered."

"Then of course not."

"I suppose I _am_ a bit crude," she mused. "At least it must look that
way to the natives here-about. I was fairly confident, though, that you
wouldn't think me unmaidenly. I sought you out deliberately. I was
lonely and wanted a friend. I had heard that you were a University man.
You told Mr. Tamroy, you know. It's perfectly proper deliberately to try
and make a friend of a person, isn't it?--if you think both of you may
be benefited. And does it make a great deal of difference if the subject
chances to be of the other sex?"

"I'm more than satisfied, so far as I come in on the deal," Oliver
assured her.

"I thank you, sir. And now I've been accused to my face of throwing
myself at you--which expression means a lot and which you doubtless
fully understand."

"Who is your accuser?"

"The author of 'Jessamy, My Sweetheart.'"

"Digger Foss, eh?"

She closed both eyes tightly and bobbed her head up and down several
times, then opened her eyes. "He's a free man again--tried and
acquitted."

"No!"

"Didn't I tell you how it would be?"

He puffed his cigarette meditatively. "Doesn't it strike you as strange
that you and I were not subpoenaed as witnesses?"

"I've been expecting that from you. No, sir--it doesn't. Digger's
counsel didn't want you and me as witnesses."

"But the prosecuting attorney."

"_He_ didn't want us either."

"Then there's corruption."

"If I could think of a worse word than corruption I'd correct you, so
I'll let that stand. Digger Foss is Old Man Selden's right hand; and Old
Man Selden is Pythias to the prosecuting attorney of this man's county."

Oliver's eyes widened.

"Elmer Standard is the gentleman in question. What connection there can
be between him and Adam Selden is too many for me; but Selden goes to
see him whenever he rides to the county seat. Only the right witnesses
were allowed to take the stand, you may be confident. I knew the
halfbreed's acquittal was a foregone conclusion before the smoke from
his gat had cleared."

Both were silent for a time, then she said: "Elmer Standard runs things
down at the county seat. I've heard that he allows open gambling, and
that he personally finances three saloons and several gaming places."

"But there are no saloons now."

"Indeed!" she said with mock innocence. "I didn't know. I never have
frequented them, so you'll overlook my ignorance. Anyway, Digger Foss is
as free as the day he was born; and Henry Dodd, the man he murdered,
lies in the little cemetery in the pines near Halfmoon Flat. But there's
another piece of news: Adam Selden has--"

"Pardon my interrupting you," he put in, "but you haven't finished with
Digger Foss."

"Oh, that! Well, I met him on the trail between Clinker Creek and the
American yesterday. He accused me of being untrue to him while he was in
jail."

"Yes?"

"I admitted my guilt. Never having had the slightest inclination to be
true to him, I told him, it naturally followed that I was untrue to
him--and wasn't it a glorious day? How on earth the boy ever got the
idea that he has the right to consider me in the light that he does is
beyond me. I don't scold him, and I don't send him packing--nor do I
give him the least encouragement. I simply treat him civilly when he
approaches me on a commonplace matter, and ignore him when he tries to
get funny. And he's probably so dense that all this encourages him. How
can he be so stupid! I haven't been superior enough with him--but I hate
to be superior, even to a halfbreed. And he's quarter Chinaman. Heavens,
what am I coming to!"

"How did the meeting end?" queried Oliver.

"Well, we both went a little further this time than ever before. He
attempted to kiss me, and I attempted to cut his face open with my
quirt. Both of us missed by about six inches, I'm thankful to say. And
the grand climax took the form of a dire threat against you. By the way,
I've never seen you pack a gun, Mr. Drew."

He shrugged. "I used to down on the cow ranch in San Bernardino County,
but I think I grew up over in France."

"You have one, of course."

"Yes--a 'forty-five."

"Can you handle a gun fairly well?"

"I know which end to look into to see if it's loaded."

"Can you spin a dollar in air with your left hand, draw, and hit it
before it strikes the ground?"

"Aw, let's be sensible!" he cried. "I'm after another colony of bees.
Come on up and look at 'em."

"Sit still," she ordered. "Can you do what I asked about?"

"I don't know--I've never tried."

"Digger Foss can," she claimed.

"Well, that's shooting."

"It is. I'd strap that gun on if I were you and practice up a bit."

"Cartridges are too high-priced," he laughed. "What's the rest of the
news?"

"The store up at Cliffbert, about fourteen miles from here and off the
railroad, was broken into three days ago and robbed of cutlery,
revolvers, and other things to the tune of several hundred dollars."

"M'm-m! Do they have any idea who did it?"

"Oh, yes. The Poison Oakers."

"They know it?"

"Of course--everybody knows it. But it can't be proved. It's nothing
new."

"I didn't know the gang ever went to such a limit."

"Humph!" she sniffed significantly. "And the next piece of news is that
Sulphur Spring has gone dry for the first time in many years. And here
it's only May!"

"Where is Sulphur Spring?"

"About a mile below your south line, in this caņon. I heard Old Man
Selden complaining about it last night, and thought I'd ride around that
way this morning. It's as he said--entirely dry, so far as new water
running into the basin is concerned."

"Well," said Oliver, "my piece of news is just the opposite of that. My
spring is running a stream five times as large as heretofore--"

She straightened. "What caused that?" she demanded quickly.

He explained in detail.

"So!" she murmured. "So! I understand. Listen: I have heard the menfolks
at the ranch say that all these caņon springs are connected. That is,
they all are outbreaks from one large vein that follows the caņon. If
you shut off one, then, you may increase the flow of the next one below
it. And if you open one up and increase its output, the next below it
may go entirely dry. The flow from yours has been cut off in time gone
by to increase the flow of Sulphur Spring. And now that you've taken
away the obstruction, your spring gets all the water, while Sulphur
Spring gets none."

"I believe you're right," asserted Oliver. "And do you think it might
have been the Poison Oakers who closed my spring to increase the flow
down there?"

"Undoubtedly."

"But why? They were running cows on my land, too, before I came.
Wouldn't it be handier to have a good flow of water in both places?"

"No doubt of that," she answered. "And I can't enlighten you, I'm sorry
to say. All I know is that Old Man Selden is hopping mad--angrier than
the situation seems to call for, as springs are by no means scarce in
Clinker Caņon."

Jessamy's disclosures had ended now, so they scrambled on up the hill
toward the bee tree.

The colony had settled in a dead hollow white-oak. The tree had been
broken off close to the ground by high winds after the colony had taken
up residence therein. The hole by which they made entrance to the hollow
trunk, however, was left uppermost after the fall, and apparently the
little zealots had not been seriously disturbed.

Anyway, here they were still winging their way to and from the prostrate
tree, the sentries keeping watch at the entrance to their increasing
store of honey.

Oliver had found the tree two weeks before, purely by accident. At that
time the hole at which the workers entered had been unobstructed. Now,
though, tall weeds had grown up about the tree, making a screen before
the hole and preventing the nectar-laden insects from entering readily.

"This won't do at-all-at-all," he said to Jessamy, as she took her seat
on a limb of the bee tree. "There must be nothing to obstruct them in
entering, for sometimes they drop with their loads when they have
difficulty in winging directly in, and can't get up again."

"Uh-huh," she concurred.

She had unlaid one of her black braids and was replaiting it again after
the havoc wrought by the prickly bushes.

Oliver lighted his bee-smoker and sent several soft puffs into the hole
to quiet the bees. Then without gloves or veil, which the experienced
beeman seldom uses, he laid hold of the tall weeds and began uprooting
them. Thus engaged, he kneeled down and reached under the tree trunk to
get at the roots of certain obstinate plants; and in that instant he
felt a sharp sting in the fleshy part of his wrist.

"Ouch! Holy Moses!" he croaked. "I didn't expect to find a bee under
there!"

"Get stung?"

"Did I! Mother of Mike! I've been stung many times, but that lady must
have been the grandmother of--Why, I'm getting sick--dizzy!--"

He came to a pause, swayed on his knees, and closed his eyes. Then came
that heart-chilling sound which, once heard, will never be forgotten,
and will ever bring cold terror to mankind--the rattlebone
_whir-r-r-r-r_ of the diamond-back rattlesnake.

Oliver caught himself, licked dry lips, and was gazing in horror at two
bleeding, jagged incisions in his wrist. The girl, with a scream of
comprehension, darted toward him. He balanced himself and smiled grimly
as she grabbed his arm with shaking hands.

"Got me," he said, "the son-of-a-gun! And I'd have stuck my hand right
back for another dose if he hadn't rattled."

Jessamy grabbed him by both shoulders and tried to force him to the
ground.

"Sit down and keep quiet!" she ordered, sternly, her nerves now firm and
steady, her face white and determined. "No, not that way!"

She grasped him under the arms and with the strength of a young Amazon
slued him about as if he had been a sack of flour.

Deftly she bound his handkerchief about his arm, drawing it taut with
all her strength. Something found its way into his left hand.

"Drink that!" she commanded. "All of it. Pour it down!"

Then her lips sought the flaming wound; and she clamped her white teeth
in his flesh and began sucking out the poison.

At intervals she raised her head for breath and to spit out the deadly
fluid.

"Drink!" she would urge then. "And don't worry. Not a chance in the
world of your being any the worse after I get through with you."

Oliver obeyed her without question, taking great swallows from the flask
of fiery liquor and closing his eyes after each. His senses swam and he
felt weak and delirious, though he could not tell whether this last was
because of the poison or the liquor he had consumed.

At last Jessamy leaned back and fumbled in a pocket of her chaps. She
produced a tiny round box, from which she took a bottle of dry
permanganate of potash and a small lancet. With the keen instrument she
hacked a deep x in his arm, just over the wound. Then she wet the red
powder with saliva and worked a paste into the cuts with the lancet.

This done, she sat back and regarded her patient complacently.

"Just take it easy," she counselled. "And, whatever you do, don't worry.
You won't know you were bitten in an hour. Sip that whisky now and then.
It won't kill the poison, as some folks seem to believe, but it will
make you light-hearted and you'll forget to worry. That's the part it
plays in a case like this. Now if I can trust you to keep quiet and
serene, I'll seek revenge."

He nodded weakly.

She arose, and presently again came that sickening _whir-r-r-r-r-r_
miscalled a rattle, followed immediately by a vicious _thud-thud-thud_.

"There, you horrid creature!" he heard in a low, triumphant tone. "You
thought I was afraid of you, did you? Bring total collapse on all your
fictitious traditions and bite before you rattle, will you! _Requiescat
in pace_, Mr. Showut Poche-daka!"

Half an hour afterward Oliver Drew was on his feet, but he staggered
drunkenly. To this day he is not just sure whether he was intoxicated or
raving from the effects of the snakebite. Anyway, as Jessamy took hold
of him to steady him, his reason left him, and he swept her into his
arms and kissed her lips time and again, though she struggled valiantly
to free herself.

Ultimately she ducked under his arms and sprang away from him backward,
her face crimson, her bosom heaving.

"Sit down again!" she ordered chokingly. "Shame on you, to take
advantage of me like that!"

"Won't sit down!" he babbled, reaching about for her blindly. "I love
you an' I'm gonta have you!"

"You're out of your head! Sit down again! Please, now." Her tone changed
to a soothing note. "You're--I'm afraid you're drunk."

He was groping for her, staggering toward a threatening outcropping of
rock. With a rapid leap she closed in on him unexpectedly, heaved
desperately to the right and left, and threw him flat on his back. Then
she scrambled on top of his knees as he strove to rise again.

"Now, looky-here, mister," she warned, "you've gone just about far
enough! In a second I'll get that bee-smoker and put you out of
business. Please--please, now, be good!"

He seemed partially stunned by the fall, for he lay now without a move,
eyes closed, his mind wandering dreamily. And thus he lay for half an
hour longer, when he suddenly raised his head and looked at her, still
propped up on his knees, with eyes that were sane.

"Golly!" he breathed.

"Golly is right," she agreed drolly. "Were you drunk or crazy?"

"Both, I guess. I'm--mighty sorry." His face was red as fire.

"Do you wish to get up?"

"If you please."

He stood on his feet. He was still weak and pale and dizzy.

"Heavens! That liquor!" he panted. "What is it? Where did you get it?"

"At home. Old Adam gave me the flask over a year ago. It's only whisky.
I always carry a flask for just such an emergency as this. And I never
go a step out of the house in the summer without my snakebite kit.
Nobody ought to in the West."

He shook his head. "That's not whisky," he said. "I'm not exactly a
stranger to the taste of whisky. That's brimstone!"

"I was told it was whisky," she replied. "I know nothing about whisky.
I've never even tasted it."

He held the flask to the sun, but it was leather-covered and no light
shone through. He unscrewed the metal cap and poured some of the liquor
into it.

It was colourless as water.

"Moonshine!" he cried. "And I know now why the flow from my spring was
cut off. A still calls for running water!"

"You may be right," she said without excitement. "You will remember that
I told you there is another reason besides Selden's covetousness of your
grass land why you are wanted out of the Clinker Creek Country."




CHAPTER XII

THE POISON OAKERS RIDE


A red-headed, red-breasted male linnet sat on the topmost branch of the
old, gnarled liveoak near Oliver's window and tried to burst his throat
to the accompaniment of Oliver's typewriter. When the keys ceased their
clicking the singer finished a bar and waited, till once more the
dicelike rattle encouraged him to another ecstatic burst of melody.

"Well, I like to be accommodating," remarked Oliver, leaning back from
his machine, "but I can't accompany you all day; and it happens that I'm
through right now."

He surveyed the last typewritten sheet of his manuscript on the cleaning
of springs for the enlarging of their flow; but, the article completed,
his mind was no longer engrossed by it.

Other and bigger matters claimed his thoughts, and he sat in the soft
spring air wondering about old Chupurosa Hatchinguish and his strange
behaviour on seeing the gem-mounted _conchas_ stamped with the letter B.

When Oliver had stripped off his shirt in the hut that day the scar that
a German bayonet had left in his side had carefully been examined by the
ancient chief. Oliver fancied there had been a strange new look in his
inscrutable eyes as he silently motioned for him to put on his shirt
again. He had made no comment whatever, though, and said nothing at all
until the young man had finished dressing. Then he had stepped to the
door and opened it, rather impolitely suggesting that his guest's
presence in the hut was no longer necessary. As Oliver passed out he had
spoken:

"When next the moon is full," he said, "the Showut Poche-dakas will
observe the Fiesta de Santa Maria de Refugio, as taught them years ago
by the padres who came from Spain. Then will the Showut Poche-dakas
dance the fire dance, which is according to the laws laid down by the
wise men of their ancestors. Ride here to the Fiesta de Santa Maria de
Refugio on the first night that the moon is full. _Adios, amigo!_"

That was all; and Oliver had passed out into the bright sunlight and
found Jessamy Selden.

The two had talked over the circumstances often since that day, but
neither could throw any light on the matter. But the first night of the
full moon was not far distant now, and Oliver and the girl were awaiting
it impatiently. Oliver felt that at the fiesta he would in some way gain
an inkling of the mysterious question that had puzzled his father for
thirty years, and which eventually had brought his son into this country
to find out whether its answer was Yes or No.

Oliver tilted back his chair and lighted his briar pipe. Out in the
liveoak tree the linnet waited, head on one side, chirping plaintively
occasionally, for the renewed clicking of the typewriter keys. But
Oliver's thoughts were far from his work.

That burning, colourless liquor that had so fiercely fired his brain was
undoubtedly moonshine--and redistilled at that, no doubt. Jessamy had
told him further that she had not so much as unscrewed the cap since old
Adam had given her the flask, at her request, and had had no idea that
the flask had not contained amber-coloured whisky. Was this in reality
the reason why the Poison Oakers wished him to be gone? Had they been
distilling moonshine whisky down at Sulphur Spring to supply the blind
pigs controlled by the prosecuting attorney at the county seat? And had
his inadvertent shutting off of Sulphur Spring's supply of water stopped
their illicit activities? They had known, perhaps, that eventually he
would discover that his own spring had been choked by some one and would
rectify the condition. Whereupon Sulphur Spring would cease to flow and
automatically cut off one of their sources of revenue. Oliver decided to
look for Sulphur Spring at his earliest opportunity.

His brows came together as he recalled the episode on the hill, when
either the fiery raw liquor or the poison from the diamond-back's
fangs--or both--had deprived him of his senses.

He remembered perfectly what he had said--what he had done. He had heard
sometime that a man always tells the truth when he is drunk. But had he
been drunk, or rabid from the hypodermic injections of Showut
Poche-daka? Or, again--both? One thing he knew--that he thrilled yet at
remembrance of those satin lips which he had pressed again and again.

Had he told the truth? Had he said that day what he would not have
revealed for anything--at that time?

His brows contracted more and more, and a grim smile twitched his lips.
His teeth gripped the amber stem of his pipe. Had he told the truth?

He rose suddenly and went through a boyish practice that had clung to
him to the years of his young manhood. He stalked to the cheap
rectangular mirror on the wall and gazed at his wavy reflection in the
flawed glass. Blue eye into blue eye he gazed, and once more asked the
question:

"Did I tell the truth when I said I loved her?"

His eyes answered him. He knew that he had told the truth.

Then if this was true--and he knew it to be true--what of the halfbreed,
Digger Foss? He remembered a gaunt man, stricken to his death, reeling
against the legs of a snorting white mare and clutching at them blindly
for support--remembered the gloating grin of the mounted man, the muzzle
of whose gun followed the movements of his wounded enemy as a cobra's
head sways back and forth to the charmer's music--remembered the cruel
insolence of the Mongolic eyes, mere slits.

He swung about suddenly from the mirror and caught sight of a knothole
in the cabin wall, which so far he had neglected to patch with tin. He
noted it as he swung about and dived at the pillow on his bed. He hurled
the pillow one side, swept up the ivory-handled '45 that lay there,
wheeled, and fired at the knothole. There had been no appreciable pause
between his grasping of the weapon and the trigger pull, yet he saw no
bullet hole in the cabin boards when the smoke had cleared away.

He chuckled grimly. "I might get out my army medals for marksmanship and
pin 'em on my breast for a target," he said.

Then to his vast confusion there came a voice from the front of the
house.

"Ain't committed soothin' syrup, have ye?" it boomed.

There was no mistaking the deep-lunged tones. It was Old Man Selden who
had called to him.

Oliver tossed the gun on the bed and walked through to the front door,
which always stood open these days, inviting the countless little
lizards that his invasion of the place had not disturbed to enter and
make themselves at home.

The gaunt old boss of the Clinker Creek Country stood, with
chap-protected legs wide apart, on Oliver's little porch. His
broad-brimmed black hat was set at an angle on his iron-grey hair, and
his cold blue eyes were piercing and direct, as always. In his hands he
held the reins of his horse's bridle. Back of the grey seven men lounged
in their saddles, grinning at the old man's sally. Digger Foss was not
among the number.

"How d'ye do, Mr. Selden," said Oliver in cordial tones, thrusting forth
a strong brown hand.

Selden did not accept the hand, and made no effort to pretend that he
had not noticed it. Oliver quickly withdrew it, and two little lumps
showed over the hinges of his jaws.

He changed his tone immediately. "Well, what can I do for you
gentlemen?" he inquired brusquely.

"We was ridin' through an' thought we heard a shot," said Selden. "So I
dropped off to see if ye wasn't hurt."

"I beg your pardon," Oliver returned, "but you must have been dismounted
when I fired. This being the case, you already had decided to call on
me. So, once more, how can I be of service to you?"

The grins of the men who rode with Adam Selden disappeared. There was no
mistaking the businesslike hostility of Oliver's attitude.

"Peeved about somethin' this mornin'," one of them drawled to the rider
whose knee pressed his.

Oliver looked straight at Old Man Selden, and to him he spoke.

"I am not peeved about anything," he said. "But when a man comes to my
door, and I come and offer him my hand, and he ignores it, my inference
is that the call isn't a friendly one. So if you have any business to
transact with me, let's get it off our chests."

Oliver noted with a certain amount of satisfaction the quick, surprised
looks that were flashed among the Poison Oakers. Apparently they had met
a tougher customer than they had expected.

All this time the cold blue eyes of Adam Selden had been looking over
the pitted Bourbon nose at Oliver. Selden's tones were unruffled as he
said:

"Thought maybe the poison oak had got too many for ye, an' ye'd shot
yerself."

"I don't care to listen to subtle threats," Oliver returned promptly.
"Poison oak does not trouble me at all--neither the vegetable variety
nor the other variety. I'm never in favour of bandying words. If I have
anything to say I try to say it in the best American-English at my
command. So I'll make no pretence, Mr. Selden, that I have not heard you
don't want me here in the caņon. And I'll add that I am here, on my own
land, and intend to do my best to remain till I see fit to leave."

Selden's craggy brows came down, and the scrutiny that he gave the young
man was not without an element of admiration. No anger showed in his
voice as he said:

"Just so! Just so! I wanted to tell ye that I been down to the
recorder's office and up to see Nancy Fleet, my wife's sister. Seems
that you're right about this prop'ty standin' in your name an' all; but
I thought, so long's we was ridin' along this way, I'd drop off an' have
a word with ye."

"I'm waiting to hear it."

"No use gettin' riled, now, because--"

"If you had accepted my hand you'd not find me adopting the tone that I
have."

"Just so!" Selden drawled. "Well, then, I'll accept her now--if I ain't
too bold."

"You will not," clicked Oliver. "Will you please state your business and
ride on?"

"Friendly cuss, ain't he, Dad?" remarked one of the Selden boys--which
one Oliver did not know.

"You close yer face!" admonished Selden smoothly, in his deep bass.
"Well, Mr. Drew, if ye want to stay here an' starve to death, that's
none o' my concern. And if ye got money to live on comin' from
somewheres else, that's none o' my concern either. But when ye stop the
run o' water from a spring that I'm dependin' on to water my critters in
dry months, it _is_ my concern--an' that's why I dropped off for a word
with ye."

"How do you know I have done that?" Oliver asked.

"Well, 'tain't likely that a spring like Sulphur Spring would go dry the
last o' May. Most o' these springs along here are fed from the same
vein. You move in, and Sulphur Spring goes dry. So that's what I dropped
off to talk to ye about. Just so!"

"I suppose," said Oliver, "that the work I did on my spring has in
reality stopped the flow of Sulphur Spring. But--"

"Ye do? What _makes_ ye suppose so?--if I ain't too bold in askin'."

Oliver's lips straightened. Plainly Selden suspected that Jessamy had
told him of the peculiarity of the caņon springs, and was trying to make
him implicate her. But the old man was not the crafty intriguer he
seemed to fancy himself to be. He already had said too much if he wished
to make Oliver drag the girl's name into the quarrel.

"Why, what you have just told me, added to my knowledge of what I did to
clean out my spring, leads to that supposition," he replied. "But, as I
was about to remark when you interrupted me, I can't see that that is
any concern of mine. That's putting it rather bluntly, perhaps; but I am
entirely within my rights in developing all the water that I can on my
land, regardless of how it may affect land that lies below me."

"Right there's the point," retorted Selden. "I'm a pretty good friend o'
the prosecutin' attorney down at the county seat. He tells me ye can't
take my water away from me like that."

"Then I should say that your legal friend is not very well posted on the
laws governing the development and disposition of water in this state,"
Oliver promptly told him.

"I wrote him," said Selden, "an' I'll show ye the letter if ye'll invite
me in."

For the first time Oliver hesitated. Why did Selden wish to enter the
cabin? Could not the letter be produced and read on the porch? It
flashed through his mind that the old fox wished to get him inside so
that some of his gang might investigate the spring and find out the
volume of the water that was flowing, and what had been done to increase
it. This only added to his belief that the Poison Oakers were
responsible for the wall of stones that had choked the stream. Well, why
not let them find out all that they wished to know in this regard?

"Certainly," he invited. "Come in." And he stood back from the door.

Selden clanked his spur rowels across the threshold. At the same time he
was reaching into his shirtfront for the letter.

Then an odd thing occurred. He was about to take the chair that Oliver
had pushed forward when his blue eyes fell upon the saddle and bridle
which had come to stand for so much in Oliver's life, hanging from a
thong in one corner of the room.

The old Poison Oaker's eyes grew wide, and, as was their way when he was
moved out of his customary brooding mood, his thick nostrils began
dilating. But almost instantly he was his cold, insolent self again.

"I heard some of 'em gassin' about that rig o' yours," he remarked.
"Said she was a hummer all 'round. That it there? Mind if I look her
over?"

"Not at all." Oliver was quick to grasp at any chance that might lead to
the big question and its answer.

Old Man Selden's leather chaps whistled his legs to the corner, where he
stood, long arms at his sides, gazing at the saddle, the bridle, and the
martingales. His deep breathing was the only sound in the room. Outside,
Oliver heard foot-steps, and suspected that the investigation of his
spring was on.

At last Adam Selden made a move. He changed his position so that his
spacious back was turned toward Oliver. Quietly Oliver leaned to one
side in his chair, and he saw the cowman's big hand outstretched toward
the gem-mounted _concha_ on the left-hand side of the bridle--saw thumb
and fingers turn that part of the bridle inside-out.

Again the room was soundless. Then Selden turned from the exhibit, and
Oliver grew tense as he noted the strange pallor that had come on the
old man's face.

"That's a han'some rig," was all he said, as he sank to his chair and
laid a letter on the oilcloth-covered table.

The letter contained the information that its recipient had claimed, and
was signed Elmer Standard. Oliver quickly passed it back, remarking:

"He's entirely wrong, and ought to know it. I have had occasion to look
into the legal aspect of water rights in California quite thoroughly,
and fortunately am better posted than most laymen are on the subject."

But the chief of the Poison Oakers was scarce listening. In his blue
eyes was a faraway look, and that weird grey pallor had not left his
face.

Suddenly he jerked himself from reverie, and, to Oliver's surprise, a
smile crossed his bearded lips.

"Just so! Just so! I judge ye're right, Mr. Drew--I judge ye're right,"
he said almost genially. "Anyway you an' me'd be out-an'-out fools to
fuss over a matter like that. There's plenty water fer the cows, an' I
oughtn't to butted in. But us ol'-timers, ye know, we--Well, I guess we
oughta be shot an' drug out fer the cy-otes to gnaw on. I won't trouble
ye again, Mr. Drew. An' I'll be ridin' now with the boys, I reckon. Ye
might ride up and get acquainted with my wife an' step-daughter--but I
guess ye've already met Jess'my. I've heard her mention ye. Ride up some
day--they'll be glad to see ye."

And Oliver Drew was more at a loss how to act in showing him out than
when he had first faced him on the porch.

The Poison Oakers, with Old Man Selden at their head, rode away up the
caņon. Oliver Drew was throwing the saddle on Poche's back two minutes
after they had vanished in the trees. He mounted and galloped in the
opposite direction, opening the wire "Indian" gate when he reached the
south line of his property.

An hour later he was searching the obscure hills and caņons for Sulphur
Spring, but two hours had elapsed before he found it.

It was hidden away in a little wooded caņon, with high hills all about,
and wild grapevines, buckeyes, and bays almost completely screened it.
While cattle might drink from the overflow that ran down beyond the
heavy growth, they could not have reached the basin which had been
designed to hold the water as it flowed directly from the spring.
Moreover, it was doubtful if, during the hot summer months, the rapid
evaporating would leave any water for cattle in the tiny course below
the bushes.

Oliver parted the foliage and crawled in to the clay basin. Cold water
remained in the bottom of it, but the inflow had ceased entirely.

He bent down and submerged his hand, feeling along the sides of the
basin. Almost at once his fingers closed over the end of a piece of
three-quarter-inch iron pipe.

Then in the pool before his face there came a sudden _chug_, and a
little geyser of water spurted up into his eyes. Oliver drew back
instinctively. His face blanched, and his muscles tightened.

Then from somewhere up in the timbered hills came the crash of a
heavy-calibre rifle.




CHAPTER XIII

SHINPLASTER AND CREEDS


White Ann and Poche bore their riders slowly along the backbone of the
ridge that upreared itself between Clinker Creek Caņon and the American.
Occasionally they came upon groups of red and roan and spotted longhorn
steers, each branded with the insignia of the Poison Oakers. Once a deer
crashed away through thick chaparral. Young jackrabbits went leaping
over the grassy knolls at their approach. Down the timbered hillsides
grey squirrels scolded in lofty pines and spruces. Next day would mark
the beginning of the full-moon period for the month of June.

Jessamy Selden was in a thoughtful mood this morning. Her hat lay over
her saddle horn. Her black hair now was parted from forehead to the nape
of her neck, and twisted into two huge rosettes, one over each ear,
after the constant fashion of the Indian girls. So far Oliver Drew had
not discovered that he disliked any of the many ways in which she did
her hair.

"What are your views on religion?" was her sudden and unexpected
question.

"So we're going to be heavy this morning, eh?"

"Oh, no--not particularly. There's usually a smattering of method in my
madness. You haven't answered."

"Seems to me you've given me a pretty big contract all in one question.
If you could narrow down a bit--be more specific--"

"Well, then, do you believe in that?" She raised her arm sharply and
pointed down the precipitous slopes to the green American rushing
pell-mell down its rugged caņon.

They had just come in sight of the gold dredger, whose great shovels
were tearing down the banks, leaving a long serpentine line of débris
behind the craft in the middle of the river.

"That dredge?" he asked. "What's it to do with religion?"

"To me it personifies the greed of all mankind," she replied. "It makes
me wild to think that a great, lumbering, manmade toy should come up
that river and destroy its natural beauty for the sake of the tiny
particles of gold in the earth and rocks. Ugh! I detest the sight of the
thing. The gold they get will buy diamond necklaces for fat, foolish old
women, and not a stone among them can compare with the dewdrop flashing
there in that filaree blossom! It will buy silk gowns, and any spider
can weave a fabric with which they can't begin to compete. It will build
tall skyscrapers, and which of them will be as imposing as one of these
majestic oaks which that machine may uproot? Bah, I hate the sight of
the thing!"

"Gold also buys food and simple clothing," he reminded her.

"I suppose so," she sighed. "We've gotten to a point where gold is
necessary. But, oh, how unnecessary it is, after all, if we were only as
God intended us to be! I detest anything utilitarian. I hate orchards
because they supplant the trees and chaparral that Nature has planted. I
hate the irrigating systems, because the dams and reservoirs that they
demand ruin rugged caņons and valleys. I hate railroads, because their
hideous old trains go screeching through God's peaceful solitudes. I
hate automobiles, because they bring irreverent unbelievers into God's
chapels."

"But they also take cramped-up city folks out into the country," he
said. "And all of them are not irreverent."

"Oh, yes--I know. I'm selfish there. And I'm not at all practical. But I
do hate 'em!"

"And what _do_ you like in life?" he asked amusedly.

"Well, I have no particular objection to horned toads, for one thing,"
she laughed. "But I'm only halfway approaching my subject. Do you like
missionaries?"

"I think I've never eaten any," he told her gravely.

But she would not laugh. "I don't like 'em," she claimed. "I don't
believe in the practice of sending apostles into other countries to
force--if necessary--the believers in other religions to trample under
foot their ancient teachings, and espouse ours. All peoples, it seems to
me, believe in a creator. That's enough. Let 'em alone in their various
creeds and doctrines and methods of expressing their faith and devotion.
Are you with me there?"

"I think so. Only extreme bigotry and egotism can be responsible for the
zeal that sends a believer in one faith to the believers in another to
try and bend them to his way of thinking."

"I respect all religions--all beliefs," she said. "But those who go
preaching into other lands can have no respect at all for the other
fellow's faith. And that's not Christlike in the first place."

He knew that she had something on her mind that she would in good time
disclose, but he wondered not a little at her trend of thought this
morning.

"The Showut Poche-dakas are deeply religious," she declared suddenly.
"Long years ago they inhabited the coast country, but were gradually
pushed back up here. Down there, though, they came under the influence
of the old Spanish padres; and today their religion is a mixture of
Catholicism and ancient tribal teachings. They are sincere and devout. I
have as much reverence for a bareheaded Indian girl on her knees to the
Sun God as I have for a hooded nun counting her beads. They believe in a
supreme being; that's enough for me. You'll be interested at the fiesta
tomorrow night. I rode up there the other day. Everything is in
readiness. The _ramadas_ are all built, and the dance floor is up, and
Indians are drifting in from other reservations a hundred miles away."

"Will you ride up with me tomorrow afternoon?" he asked.

"Yes, I think so--that is, since I heard what Old Man Selden had to say
about you the day after he called. I'll tell you about that later. Yes,
all the whites attend the _fiestas_. The California Indian is crude and
not very picturesque, compared with other Indians, but the _fiestas_ are
fascinating. Especially the dances. They defy interpretation; but
they're interesting, even if they don't show a great deal of
imagination. By the way, I bought you a present at Halfmoon Flat the
other day."

She unbuttoned the flap on a pocket of her _chaparejos_, and handed him
a small parcel wrapped in sky-blue paper.

"Am I to open it now or wait till Christmas?" he asked.

"Now," she said.

The paper contained a half-dozen small bottles of liquid courtplaster.

"Oh, I'm perfectly sane!" she laughed in her ringing tones as he turned
a blank face to her.

"Tomorrow," she went on, "you are to smear yourself with that liquid
courtplaster, from the soles of your feet to your knees. When one coat
dries, apply another; and continue doing so until the supply is
exhausted."

She threw back her head and her whole-souled laughter awoke the echoes.

"It's merely a crazy idea of mine," she explained. "I had a bottle of
the stuff and was reading the printed directions that came with it. It
seems to be good for anything, from gluing the straps of a décolletté
ballgown to a woman's shoulders to the protection of stenographer's
fingers and harvesters' hands at husking time. It's almost invisible
when it has dried on one's skin; and I thought it might be of benefit to
you in the fire dance."

"Say," he said, "you're in up to your neck, while I've barely got my
feet wet. Come across!"

"Well, I'm not positive," she told him, "but I'm strongly of the opinion
that you're going to dance the fire dance at the Fiesta de Santa Maria
de Refugio tomorrow night."

"I? I dance the fire dance? Oh, no, Miss--you have the wrong number. I
don't dance the fire dance at all."

"I think you will tomorrow night, and I thought that liquid courtplaster
might help protect your feet and legs. I put some on my second finger
and let it dry, then put my finger on the cookstove."

"Yes?"

"Well, I took it off again. But, honestly, the finger that had none on
at all felt a little hotter, I imagined. I'm sure it did, and I only had
two coats on. I know you'll be glad you tried it, and the Indians will
never know it's there."

"I'm getting just a bit interested," he remarked.

"Well," she said, "after what passed between you and Chupurosa
Hatchinguish that day, I'm almost positive that tomorrow night you are
to be extended the honour of becoming a member of the tribe. And I know
the fire dance is a ceremony connected with admitting an outsider to
membership. White men who have married Indian women are about the only
ones that are ever made tribal brothers by the Showut Poche-dakas; so in
your case it is a distinct honour.

"I have seen this fire dance. While a white person cannot accurately
interpret its significance, it seems that the fire is emblematical of
all the forces which naturally would be pitted against you in your
endeavour to ally yourself with the Showut Poche-dakas.

"For instance, there's your white skin and your love for your own
people, the difference in the life you have led as compared with theirs,
what you have been taught--and, oh, everything that might be against the
alliance. All this, I say, is represented by the fire. And in the fire
dance, my dear friend, you must stamp out these objections with your
bare feet if you would become brother to the Showut Poche-dakas."

"With my bare feet? Stamp out these objections?"

"Yes--as represented by the fire."

"You mean I must stamp out a _fire_ with my bare feet? _Actually?_"

"Actually--literally--honest-to-goodnessly!"

"Good night!" cried Oliver. "I'll cleave to my kith and kin."

"And never learn the question that puzzled your idealistic father for
thirty years? Nor whether the correct answer is Yes or No?"

"But, heavens, I don't put out a fire that way!"

"It's not so dreadful as it sounds," she consoled. "You join the tribe,
and you all go marching and stamping about a big bonfire for hours and
hours and hours, till the fire is conveniently low. Then the one who is
to be admitted to brotherhood and a chosen member of the tribe--the
champion fire-dancer, in short--jump on what is left of the fire and
stamp it out. Of course there are objections to you from the view-point
of the Showut Poche-dakas, and they must be overcome by a representative
of them. If the fire proves too much for your bare feet the objections
are too strong to be overcome, and you never will be an honourary Showut
Poche-daka. But if the two of you conquer the fire with your bare feet
the ceremony is over, and you're It. And when the other Indians see that
you two Indians"--her eyes twinkled--"are getting the better of the
fire, they'll jump in and help you."

"A very entertaining ceremony--for the grandstand," was Oliver's dry
opinion.

"Of course the Indian's feet are tough as leather, and they have it on
you there. Hence this liquid courtplaster. It's worth a trial. Honestly,
I held my finger on the stove--oh, ever so long! A full second, I'd
say."

Back went her glorious head, and her teeth flashed in the sunlight as,
drunk with the wine of youth and health, she sent her rollicking
laughter out over the hills and caņons.

"I'll be there watching and rooting for you," she assured him at last.
"I can do so openly now--since you've won the heart of Adam Selden. What
do you think? He told me to invite you over sometime! But all this
doesn't fit in quite logically with the ivory-handled Colt I see on your
hip today for the first time. Explain both, please."

"Well," he said, "Selden seemed ready to cut my throat till he examined
Poche's bridle and saw the B on the back of a _concha_."

"Ah!" she breathed, drawing in her lips.

"And then he grew nice as pie--and that's all there is to that."

"And the six?"

"Well, I buckled it on this morning, thinking I might practice up a bit,
as you advised."

"So far so good. Now amend it and tell the truth."

"I went down to Sulphur Spring after the Poison Oakers left me, and as I
was examining the water a bullet plunked into it from the hills and I
got my eyebrows wet. As I don't like to have anybody but myself wet my
eyebrows, I'm totin' a six. And I rather like the weight of it against
my leg again. It reminds me!"

"Who shot at you?"

He shrugged.

"_At_ you, do you think?--or into the water to frighten you?"

"Whoever fired could not see me, but knew I was in the bushes about the
spring. Took a rather long chance, if he merely wished to give me a
touch of highlife, don't you think?"

"I wonder if the bullet is still in the basin."

"I never thought of that. I ducked for cover at once, of course, and, as
nobody showed up, rode back home."

She lifted White Ann to her hind legs and spun her about in her tracks.
"We'll ride to Sulphur Spring and look for that bullet," she announced.

"And be ambushed," he added, as Poche followed White Ann's lead.




CHAPTER XIV

HIGH POWER


Jessamy and Oliver had wheeled their horses with such unexpected
suddenness that the man who was trailing them was caught off his guard.
He stood plainly revealed for a moment in the open; then he found his
wits and plunged indiscriminately into the shielding chaparral.

"Oh-ho!" cried Jessamy in a low tone. "The plot thickens! Did you see
him?"

"I'm going after him," declared her companion.

"Stop!" she commanded, as he lifted Poche for a leap toward the
skulker's vanishing point.

He reined in quickly. "Why?"

"What good will come of it? Why try to nose him out? We may be ahead in
the end if we play the game as they do. We have more chance of finding
out what they're up to by leaving them alone, I'd say."

"Play the game, eh?" he repeated. "So there's a game being played. I
didn't just know. Thought all that's afoot was the big idea of chasing
me over the hills and far away. And from Selden's latest attitude, it
looks as if that had been abandoned. Game, eh?"

"That's what I'd call it. Quite evidently the man was spying on us."

"Did you recognize him?"

"I can't make sure."

"But you think you know him," he said with conviction.

"Yes. I imagined it was Digger Foss. But he got to cover pretty
quickly."

"His horse can't be far away. Maybe we can locate him somewhere along
the back trail. I'd know that rawboned roan."

"So should I. Let's send 'em along a little faster."

They had by this time reached the opening in the chaparral into which
their shadow had dodged. By common consent they passed it without
looking to right or left.

"He may imagine we didn't see him," whispered Jessamy. "I hope he does."

There was an open stretch ahead of them, and across it they galloped,
the girl piercing the thickets on the right in search of a saddle horse,
Oliver sweeping the slopes that descended to the river. But neither saw
a horse, and in the trail were no hoofprints not made by their own
mounts.

"He has been afoot from the start," decided Jessamy. "I wish I knew
whether or not it was Digger Foss."

They wound their way down to Sulphur Spring presently, and came to a
halt in the ravine below it.

"Now," said Oliver, "who knows but that my sniper is not hidden up there
in the hills?"

"I'll look for that bullet," she purposed, and swung out of her saddle.

"Oh, no you won't!" His foot touched the ground with hers.

"Yes--listen! No one would shoot at me. But they might take another crack
at you, even with me along to witness it. If they were hidden and could
get away unseen, you know. But they'd not shoot at me."

"How do you know?"

"Well, I'm one of them--after a fashion. They all like me--and at least
one of them wants to gather me to his manly breast and fly with me."

"But things are different since I came. You've taken sides with me. If
any one looks for that slug, I'm the one that'll do it."

He started toward the spring.

"Stop!" she ordered, and grasped his shirt-sleeves. "Listen here: I'd
bet a dollar against a saddle string that that was Digger Foss we saw up
on the ridge."

"Well?"

"He's afoot. He can't have had time to get down here and guard Sulphur
Spring."

"All right. Well?"

"And I know positively that Adam Selden and the boys are up north today
after a bunch of drifters. So none of them can be here. That eliminates
six of the Poison Oakers. There would be left only Obed Pence, Ed
Buchanan, Chuck Allegan, and Jay Muenster--all privates, next to
outsiders. None of them would shoot at me, and--" She came to a full
stop and eyed him speculatively. "And I'm going to look for that
bullet," she finished limpingly.

Oliver looked her over thoughtfully. "I can't say that I get what you're
driving at at all," he observed. "But it seems to me that you're trying
to convey that, with the Seldens and Digger Foss eliminated, there is no
danger."

She closed her eyes and gave him several vigorous, exaggerated nods.

"But aren't all of the Poison Oakers concerned in my speedy removal from
this country?"

"Well--yes"--hesitatingly. "That's right. But the four will not molest
me. I know. Please let's not argue about what I _know_ is right!"

His lips twitched amusedly. "But one of the four _might_ take a pot-shot
at me. Is that it?"

Again the series of nods, eyes closed. "You see," she said, "only the
Seldens and Digger Foss accuse me of being on your side. So if any one
of the other four were to see me go to the spring he'd think I was
merely after water, or something. But if you were to go, why--why, it
might be different."

Saying which she unexpectedly darted away from him up the ravine, left
the shelter of the trees, and walked boldly to the spring.

She parted the bushes and disappeared from sight.

Oliver stole quickly to the edge of the cover and hid behind a tree, his
Colt unholstered and hanging in his hand. His eyes scoured the timbered
hills on both sides of the spring, but not a movement did he see.

He puzzled over Jessamy's speech as he watched for evidences of a
hostile demonstration.

"It smacks of a counter-plot," he mused. "All of the Poison Oakers want
me out of here, but only the Seldens and the halfbreed are aware that
Jessamy is friendly with me. But these four _must_ know it--everybody in
the country does by now. It would look as if Old Man Selden and his
chosen five are the only ones who suspect her of having an interest in
me beyond pure friendship, then. That's it! She said there was another
reason other than the grazing matter why Old Man Selden wants me away.
And that can't be moonshining, after all; for if Pense and the others
are likely to shoot me at the spring, they're in on that. But now
apparently Selden wants to appear friendly. I can't get it! Jessamy's
not playing just fair with me. She's keeping something back. She's too
honest and straightforward to be a good dissembler; she's bungling all
the way."

She was returning swiftly down the ravine before he had reached the end
of his conclusions. She held up something between dripping fingers as
she entered the concealment of the trees.

"It's perfect still," she announced. "I thought it wouldn't be flattened
or bent, since it struck the water."

Oliver took the small, soft-pointed, steel-banded projectile from her
hands and studied it.

"M'm-m!" he muttered. "What's this? Looks no larger than a twenty-two."

She nodded. "So I'd say. A twenty-two high-power--wicked little pill."

"And which of the Poison Oakers packs a twenty-two high-power rifle? Do
you know?"

"It happens that I do. I've taken the pains to acquaint myself
with the various guns of the Poison Oakers. Most of them use
twenty-five-thirty-fives. Old Man Selden, Bolar, and Jay Muenster use
thirty-thirties. There's one twenty-two high-power Savage in the gang,
and it's a new one. They say it's a devilish weapon."

"Who owns it?"

"Digger Foss."

"Then it was Foss who shot?"

"Yes--and it's he who was following us today. You see, Digger lives
closer to this part of the country than any of the rest. He'd be the
only one likely to come in afoot."

"Do you think he tried to lay me out?"

She looked off through the trees, and her face was troubled. "I'm afraid
he did," she replied in a strained, hushed key. "Had you been in sight,
we might determine that he had shot at the water before your face to put
the fear of the Poison Oakers into your heart. But he couldn't see you,
in there hidden by the dense growth. It was a fifty-fifty chance whether
he got you or not. If he'd merely wished to bully you, he'd never taken
the chance of killing you by firing into the growth."

"I guess that's right," he said. "And now what's to be done? I'll never
be able to forget the picture of Henry Dodd clutching at White Ann's
legs for support in his death struggle. The situation is graver than I
thought. I expected to be bullied and tormented; but I didn't expect a
deliberate attempt on my life."

With an impetuous movement she threw her bare forearm horizontally
against a tree trunk, and hid her eyes against it.

"Oh, I wish you hadn't come!" she half sobbed. "But you had to--you had
to! And now you can't leave because that would be running away. And
you're as good as dead if this side-winder gets the right chance at you.
What _can_ we do!"

Oliver was silent in the face of her distress. What could he do indeed!
All the chances were against him, with his enemies ready and willing to
take any unfair advantage, while his manliness would not let him stoop
to the use of such tactics. They probably would avoid an out-and-out
quarrel, where the chances would be even for a quick draw and quick
trigger work. They would ambush him, as the halfbreed had attempted to
do. He believed now that only the density of the growth about Sulphur
Spring had stood between him and death, for Digger Foss was accounted an
expert shot.

He gently pulled Jessamy Selden from the tree.

"There, there!" he soothed. "Let's not borrow trouble. They haven't got
me yet. Let's ride on. And I think you'd better give me a little more of
your confidence. I feel that you're keeping me in the dark about some
phases of the deal."

She mounted in silence, and they turned up Clinker Creek toward Oliver's
cabin.

"I'd never make a successful vamp, even if I were beautiful," she smiled
at last. "I can't hide things. I give myself away. I'm always bungling.
But I can play poker, just the same!" she added triumphantly.

"Don't try to hide things, then," he pleaded. "Tell me all that's
troubling you."

She shook her head. "That's the greatest difficulty," she complained. "I
shouldn't have let you know that I have a secret, but I bungled and let
it out. And I must keep it. But just the same, I'm with you heart and
soul. I'm on your side from start to finish, and I want you to believe
it."

"I do," he said simply.

As they reached the cabin he asked: "Did you feel the end of the pipe
under the water in the spring?"

She nodded. Then with the promise to meet him next morning for their
ride to the fiesta, she moved her mare slowly up the caņon and
disappeared in the trees.




CHAPTER XV

THE FIRE DANCE


The round moon looked down upon a scene so weird and compelling that
Oliver Drew vaguely wondered if it all were real, or one of those
strange dreams that leave in the mind of the dreamer the impression that
ages ago he has looked upon the things which his sleeping fancy
pictured.

The moon rode low in the heavens. The night was waning. Tall pines and
spruce stood black and bar-like against the silver radiance. Away in the
distance coyotes lifted their yodel, half jocular, half mournful, as a
maudlin drunkard sings dolefully a merry tune.

In a cup of the hills, surrounded by acres and acres of almost
impenetrable chaparral and timber, a hundred or more human beings were
clustered about a blazing fire. Horses stamped in the corrals. Now and
then an Indian dog cast back a vicious challenge at the wild dogs on the
hill. White men and women and Indian men and women stood about the fire
in a great circle, silent, intent on what was taking place at the fire's
edge.

Within this outer circle of spectators revolved another smaller circle
of brown-skinned men and women. But one of this number was white, and in
the flickering light of the fire his skin glowed in odd contrast to the
skins of those who danced with him.

For Oliver Drew was stripped but for a breechcloth about his loins, and
directly opposite him in the circle, always across the fire from him as
the human snake revolved about the flames, was a stalwart young Indian,
likewise nearly nude. He it was who at the proper moment would dash upon
the fire with this white man, when, with hands clasped over it, they two
would strive to beat it to ashes with naked feet.

Side by side, shoulder to shoulder, pressed into the circle like canned
fish, the fire dancers circled the leaping flames. Sweat streamed from
their bodies, for the fire was a huge one and roared and crackled and
leaped at them incessantly.

For two solid hours the dance had been in progress. Now and then an old
squaw, faint from the heat of the fire and the nerve strain which only
the fanatic knows, dropped wearily out and staggered away. Then the rank
would close and fill the vacancy; and this automatically made the circle
smaller and brought the dancers closer to the flames, for they must
touch each other always as they circled slowly.

Round about them hobbled Chupurosa, adorned with eagle feathers dyed red
and yellow and black. In his uplifted hand he held a small turtle shell,
with a wooden handle bound to it by a rawhide thong. In the shell, whose
ends were closed with skin, were cherry stones. The incessant rattling
of them accompanied the dancers' elephantine tread. It was the toy of
childhood, and those who danced to its croaking music were children of
the hills and caņons, simple-minded and serene.

Slowly as moves a sluggish reptile in early spring the dancers circled
the fire, times without number. Guttural grunts accompanied the constant
thud of tough bare feet on the beaten earth. Now and then they broke
into chanting--a weird, uncanny wailing that sent shivers along the
spine and made one think of heathen sacrifices and outlandish, cruel
heathen rites. Straight downward, almost, the dancers planted their
feet. When their feet came down three inches had not been gained over
the last stamping step. It required many long minutes for the entire
circle to complete the trip around the fire; and this continued on and
on till the brain of Oliver Drew swam and the fire in reality took on
the aspect of a tormenting, threatening ogre which this rite must crush.

Occasionally some fanatic would spring from the line and rush upon the
fire, striking at it with his feet, slapping at it with his hands,
growling at it and threatening it in his guttural tongue. Then the dance
would grow fiercer, and the chanting would break out anew, while always
the cherry stones rattled dismally and urged the zealots on.

When would it end? There was fresh, clean pitch in the great logs that
blazed; and it seemed to Oliver that the exorcism must continue to the
end of time.

At first he had felt like an utter fool when he was led from the tent,
almost nude, to face the curious eyes of thirty or more white people.
His simple instructions had been given him by Chupurosa in the hut where
he had been kept virtually a prisoner since his arrival. Then he had
been led forth and pressed into his place in the circle, across from the
other nearly naked man who swam so dizzily before his eyes. Then the
slow ordeal had begun, and round and round they went till he thought he
must surely lose his reason.

On his feet and legs was the liquid courtplaster, and Chupurosa had not
observed it. Coat after coat he had applied, and had a certain feeling
of being fortified. Yet he doubted if, when the moment came for him to
leap upon the fire and clasp hands with the man opposite, any of the
mucilaginous substance would be left on the soles of his already burning
feet.

He had seen Jessamy's face beyond the fire. She had smiled at him
encouragingly. But now her face had blended with the other faces that
danced confusedly before his eyes, and he could not separate it as the
circle went slowly round and round.

An old man dropped, face down, on the earth, completely overcome. From
beyond the circle of dancers a pair of arms reached through and dragged
him out by the heels. The dance went on, and the dancers now were closer
to the fire by the breadth of one human body.

Weirdly rose the chant to the moonlit night. Coyotes answered with
doleful ribaldry. A woman pitched forward on her face--a young woman.
She lay quite still, breathing heavily. Oliver stepped over her body as
they dragged her out to resuscitate her, and it seemed as he did so that
he scarce could lift his feet so high.

Now one by one they dropped, exhausted, reeking with sweat caused by the
intensity of the heat from the burning pitch logs. Two fell at once--one
inward, the other back. Up rose the chant as they were dragged away;
fiercer grew the stamping; frenziedly the cherry stones clicked in the
turtle shell.

Lower and lower rode the radiant moon. Blacker and blacker grew the
outlined woods. The coyotes ceased their insane laughter and scurried
off to where jackrabbits played on moonlit pasturelands. And still the
passionate exorcism went on and on, with men and women dropping every
minute and the circle narrowing about the fire and closing in.

The blaze was lower now. The pitch in the logs no longer sputtered and
dripped blazing to the ground. But the heat was still intense, and the
white man's tender flesh was seared as the giving out of some dancer
forced the circle nearer and nearer to the flames.

But into his heart had come a fierce purpose born of the fanaticism
responsible for this ordeal. He was a man of destiny, he felt, though
obliged to "carry on" with blinded eyes. Something of the fierce, dogged
nature of these wild people of the woods entered his soul. He was dying
by inches, it seemed, but the fire, glowing and spitting hatred at him,
became a real enemy to be conquered by grit and stern endurance: and,
held up by the bodies that pressed against his on either side, he
stamped on crazily, his teeth set, the ridiculous side of his plight
forgotten.

And now the circle was pitiably small; and those who formed it staggered
and reeled, and scarce found breath to chant or revile their dying
enemy. But still the cherry stones rattled on while that old oak of a
Chupurosa moved round and about, tireless as an engine.

Oliver dragged his feet now; he thought he could not lift them. His
brain was a dull, dead thing except for that passionate hatred of the
fire that the weird chanting and the strangeness of it all had brought
about. And now the fire grew lower, lower. Back of the ragged hills the
moon slipped down and left the wilderness in blackness. Only the fire
gleamed.

Then suddenly the rattling of the cherry stones was quieted. Now the
only sounds were the weary thud-thud of tough bare heels and the
stentorian breathing of the zealous worshippers, an occasional
heartrending grunt.

On and on--round and round. The very air grew tense. Dawn was at hand.
Its cold breath crept down from the snow-capped peaks. A glimmer of grey
showed in the eastern sky.

Only fifteen of the Showut Poche-dakas plodded now about the failing
fire, by this time smouldering at their very feet. Fifteen Showut
Poche-dakas--and Oliver Drew! All were men, young men in life's full
vigour. Yet they swayed and reeled and staggered drunkenly as the
dizzying ordeal went on through the grey silence of dawn.

Now dawn came fast and spread its inchoate light over the silent
assemblage in the hills. Then like a burst of sound disturbing a weary
sleeper, the cherry stones resumed their rattling.

At once, back of the circle of tottering dancers, a weird chant arose
till it drummed in Oliver's ears and seemed to be lulling him to sleep.

Out of the void taut fingers came and clasped his own. His hands were
jerked high over his head. Something stung his feet and legs, and he
thought of the rattler on the hill. The chant rose to a riotous
shouting. The air was filled with imprecations, wailings, shrieks, and
spiteful challenges. Now Oliver realized that his fingers were locked
with those of the nude Indian who had danced opposite him; that they two
were over the waning fire, fighting it with their feet.

How long it lasted he never knew. Life came back to his mistreated
muscles, and with his feet he fought this thing that stung him and
seared him and filled his heart with burning wrath. Then came a long,
concerted shout. In rushed the Showut Poche-dakas to the fighters' aid.
Bare feet by twenty-fives and fifties slapped at the fire, and a herd of
dark forms trampled over it and beat it to extinction.

A long shout of triumph that sped away on swift wings toward the coming
dawn and the distant mountain! And then a single voice lifted high in
words which in English are these:

"The evil fire god has been defeated. No barrier stands between the
white man and the Showut Poche-dakas. From this hour to the end of time
he who has danced the fire dance tonight and conquered the evil spirit
shall be brother to the Showut Poche-dakas!"

Then just before Oliver fainted in some one's arms he heard in English:

"Seven hours and twenty minutes--the longest fire dance in the history
of the tribe!"

And the new brother of the Showut Poche-dakas heard no more.




CHAPTER XVI

A GUEST AT THE RANCHO


Then there was feasting and racing and dancing and much ado. Dice
clicked; cards sputtered; the pawn passed in the ancient _peon_ game.
There was a barbecued steer, athletic contests, and competitions in
markmanship. The Fiesta de Santa Maria de Refugio was to continue
throughout the entire period of the full moon, and there must be
diversion for every day and every night.

Oliver Drew awoke the next day after the fire dance in the _ramada_
which had been assigned to him. He felt as if he had been passed through
a stamp mill, so sore were his muscles and so burned and blistered were
feet and legs. He had been carried to his bed of green willow boughs
directly after the dance, where he had slept until nearly nightfall.
Then he had been awakened and given food. After eating he fell asleep
once more, and slept all night, his head in the silver-mounted saddle
that Bolivio had made.

He dragged himself from the shakedown and went and sat at an opening in
the booth. The _ramada_ of the California Indian is merely an arbourlike
structure built of newly cut limbs of trees, their still unwithered
leaves serving to screen the occupants from outside eyes.

The birds were singing. Up the steep mountainside back of the
reservation the goats and burros of the Showut Poche-dakas browsed
contentedly on buckthorn and manzanita bushes. There was the smell of
flowers in the drowsy air, mingling strangely with that indescribable
odour that permeates an Indian village.

It was noticeably quiet outside. Doubtless the Indians were enjoying an
early-morning siesta after some grilling orgy of the night before.
Oliver groaned with the movements necessary to searching his pockets for
cigarette materials. His groan was mimicked by a familiar voice in the
doorway.

Jessamy Selden entered.

"I've been listening for a sound from you," she chirruped. "My, how you
slept! All in?"

"Pretty nearly," he said.

She came and sat beside him on a box.

"Are you badly burned?"

"Oh, no. I guess your courtplaster helped some. But I'm terribly sore.
And, worst of all, I feel like an utter ass!"

"Why, how so?"

He snorted indignantly. "I went nutty," he laughed shortly. "I have lost
the supreme contempt which I have always had for people who go batty in
any sort of fanatical demonstration, like that last night. I've seen
supposedly intelligent white folks go absolutely wild at religious camp
meetings in the South, and I always marvelled at their loss of control.
Now I guess I understand. Hour after hour of what I went through the
other night, with the chanting and wailing and the constant rattle of
those confounded cherry stones, and the terrible heat, and men and women
giving out all about me, and the perpetual thud-thud of bare feet--ugh!
I wouldn't go through it again for ten thousand dollars."

"I thought it best not to warn you of the severity of it beforehand,"
she announced complacently. "Very few white men have ever danced the
fire dance, and only one or two have held out to the end. Of course
failure to do so signifies that the powers working against the
affiliation are too strong to be overcome. These men who failed, then,
did not become brothers of the Showut Poche-dakas."

"Lucky devils!"

"Here, here!" she cried. "Don't talk that way. You're glad, aren't you?"

"I'm tickled half to death."

"Is it possible that you do not take this seriously, Mr. Drew?"

"Look here," he said: "why didn't you tell me more of what I might
expect at this fool performance?"

"I was afraid you might look at the matter much as you're looking at it
now," she answered. "I knew you'd go through with it, though, if you
once got started. I knew it to be a terrible ordeal, but I was confident
that you would win."

"I thank you, I'm sure. Win what, though? The reputation of being a
half-baked simpleton?"

"Do you imagine that the white people who saw you are ridiculing you?"

"Aren't they?"

"Absolutely nothing of the sort! You're the hero of the hour. People
about here always attend the fiestas, and you'll be surprised to note
the seriousness and lack of levity that they show in regard to the rites
and ceremonies of the Showut Poche-dakas. It's an inheritance from the
old days, I suppose, when the few white men who were here found it
decidedly to their advantage to be friendly with the Indians. They glory
in your grit, and everybody is talking about you. You should have heard
Old Man Selden. 'There's a regular man,' he loudly informed every one
after the dance. And folks about here listen to what Old Man Selden
says, for one reason or another."

"But it was such an asinine proceeding!"

"Was it? I thought you respected the other fellow's beliefs and
religious practices."

"Was that a religious dance?"

"Decidedly. All of their dances are religious at bottom. You were trying
to overcome the evil spirit, represented by the fire, that stood between
you and your union with the Showut Poche-dakas. You are one of the few
who have weathered this ordeal and won. And now you're a recognized
member of the tribe."

"And is that an enviable distinction?"

"What do _you_ think about that?"

Oliver was silent a time. "Tell the truth," he said at last, "I've been
thinking more of my sore muscles and scorched legs, and of the
ridiculous figure I supposed I had cut the other night. I suppose,
though, that when a hundred or more fellow creatures unanimously admit a
rank outsider to the plane of brotherhood, one would be shallow minded
indeed to look upon it too lightly."

"Exactly. Just what I wanted to hear you say. And the more simple
natured and trusting they are, the more it devolves upon you to treat
their brotherhood with respect and reverence. You are now brother to the
Showut Poche-dakas; and you'll be a wiser man before you're older by
many days. In this little village you have always a refuge, no matter
what the world outside may do to you. Nothing that you could do against
your own race can make you an utter outcast, for here are your brothers,
always eager to shelter you. If you owned a cow and lost it, a word from
you would send fifty mounted men scouring the hills till the cow had
been found and restored to you. Will the people of your own race do
that? If the forest was burning throughout the country, rest assured
your property would be made safe before your brothers turned their
efforts to protecting the homes of other white men. Is it trivial, my
friend?"

"No," said Oliver shortly.

"You have been greatly honoured," she concluded. "You are the first
white man on record who has been adopted by the Showut Poche-dakas
without first marrying an Indian girl. And even then they must win out
in the fire dance. If they fail, their brides must go away with them,
ostracized from their people for ever."

"How many white men have been honoured with membership?" he asked.

"Very few. Old Dad Sloan was over and saw the dance. He always attends
fiestas if some one will give him a ride. He said after the dance that
he knew of only three white men before you who had won brotherhood,
though he had seen a dozen or more try for it."

"Did he mention any names?"

"Yes," she said. "He mentioned Old Man Selden, for one."

"Does he belong to the tribe?" cried Oliver.

"No, he fell down in the fire dance. He had married an Indian woman, and
after the dance he took his bride away with him. She died six months
afterward--pining for her people, it was supposed."

"And who else did he speak about?"

"You remember the name of Dan Smeed, of course."

"'Outlaw, highwayman, squawman,'" quoted Oliver, trying to imitate the
old '49er's quavery tones.

"Yes," she said. "He conquered the fire and was admitted to full
brotherhood."

"And got gems for his bridle _conchas_," Oliver added.

Jessamy nodded. "And in some mysterious manner paved the way for you to
become adopted thirty years later."

He turned and looked her directly in the eyes. "Was Dan Smeed my
father?" he asked abruptly.

Her eyes did not evade his, but a slow flush mounted to her cheeks.

"I think we may safely assume that that is the case," she told him
softly.

Oliver stared at the beaten ground under his feet.
"Outlaw--highwayman--squawman!" he muttered.

Quickly she rose and laid a hand on his shoulder. "Don't! Don't!" she
pleaded sympathetically. "Don't think of that! Wait!"

"Wait? Wait for what?"

"Wait till the Showut Poche-dakas have taken you into full confidence.
Wait for my Hummingbird to speak."

Oliver said nothing.

She waited a little, then resumed her seat and said:

"And the next man that Old Dad Sloan mentioned as having tried the fire
dance was--guess who?"

"The mysterious Bolivio."

She nodded vigorously, both eyes closed.

"He succeeded?"

"He did."

"And the third man to succeed before me?"

"I forget the name. It is of no consequence so far as our mystery is
concerned."

"_Your_ mystery, you mean," he laughed. "I'm beginning to believe you
know all about it--all about me, about my father and his young-manhood
days."

"Oh, no!" she quickly protested.

"But you know more than I do. And you see fit to make mystery of it to
my confusion."

"Silly! I'm doing nothing of the sort. I've positively told you all I
can."

"Be careful, now! Can, will, or may?"

"Don't pin me down. You know I'm a feeble dissembler."

"You've told me all you _may_, then," he said with conviction.

"Have it that way if you choose. How about some breakfast?--and then
your triumphal entry into the festivities?"

"I hate to show myself--actually."

"Pooh! I'm disappointed in you. Come on--I've ordered breakfast for us
in the restaurant booth. Red-hot chili dishes and _bellota_. It should
be ready by now."

The Showut Poche-dakas, at least, paid very little attention to Oliver
as he limped from the _ramada_ at Jessamy's side. But he was
congratulated by white men on every hand, among them Mr. Damon Tamroy,
the first friend he had made in the country.

"I wish you could 'a' heard what Old Dad Sloan had to say after the
dance," was Tamroy's greeting. "The dance got the old man started, and
he opened up a little. Selden wasn't about at the time, and Dad said
that once, years ago, Selden married a squaw and made a try at the fire
dance. There was two dances that night, Old Dad said. Selden's partner,
too, married an Indian girl, and both of 'em danced. Selden's partner
won out, and was made a member o' the tribe; but Selden fell down."

"Did you get this partner's name?" asked Oliver.

"Le's see--what was the name Dad said?"

"Smeed?" asked Oliver.

"That's it. Dave Smeed. No--Dan Smeed. This Smeed lived with the tribe
afterwards, it seems, but Selden and his girl beat it, accordin' to the
rules, and--"

"Sh!" warned Oliver. "Here comes Old Man Selden now."

The old monarch of the hills strode straight up to them, rowels
whirring, chaps whistling.

"Howdy, Mr. Drew--howdy!" he boomed. "Howdy, Tamroy." He extended a
horny hand to each.

"Some dance, as they say--some dance," he went on admiringly, and there
was almost a smile on his stern features. "The boys was bettin' on how
it would come out. The odds was ag'in ye, Mr. Drew. But I told 'em ye'd
hold out. I been through the mill myself. Might as well own up, since
everybody knows it now--and that I danced to a fare-you-well, but fell
down hard. When ye gonta' pull yer freight, Mr. Drew?"

"I thought of riding home today," said Oliver.

"I was just talkin' to Jess'my," Selden continued. "Her and me concluded
this here'd be a good time to invite ye over to get acquainted. Can't ye
ride to Poison Oak Ranch with us just as well as ye can ride on home?"
He tried to grin, but the effort seemed to cause pain.

Toward them Oliver saw Jessamy walking. He always had admired her long,
confident stride, and he watched her throughout the brief space allowed
him by courtesy to study his answer to her step-father. Then he caught
her eye. She began nodding vigorously.

"I should have watered my garden before coming to the fiesta," he told
the old man. "I'm afraid it will suffer if I don't get back to it
directly. But--"

"Oh, she'll stand it another day. Folks irrigate too much, anyway. Ride
home with us today and stay all night."

"I thank you, I'm sure," said Oliver.

"Yes, do come, Mr. Drew," put in Jessamy as she reached the group.

"Just so!" added Selden.

And so it was arranged.

The four stood in conversation. Over the girl's shoulder Oliver now saw
Digger Foss and two of the men who had ridden with Selden the day he
called at the cabin. They were staring at their chief and Jessamy. A
glowering look was on the face of at least one of them, and that one was
the halfbreed, Digger Foss.

He stood with feet planted far apart, his fists on his hips--squat, his
bullet head juked forward aggressively, his Mongolic black eyes
glittering. A sneer curled his lips. He nodded now and then as one or
the other of his companions spoke to him, but he did not reply and did
not remove his steadfast glance from the group of which Oliver made one.

"They's a hoss race comin' off in a little," Selden was saying. "We'll
stay for that, then throw on the saddles and cut the dust for the
rancho."

Here Foss, with a shrug of his wide, strong shoulders, turned away and
disappeared in the crowd, his companions following at his heels.

Presently Selden and Tamroy left Jessamy and Oliver together.

"What's the idea?" Oliver asked her.

"It's quite apparent that he wants to be friendly with you," she pointed
out.

"It's just as well, of course," said he. "But I can't fathom it. And at
least one of the Poison Oakers doesn't approve. I just saw Digger Foss
glowering at us from behind Old Man Selden's back."

Jessamy elevated her dark eyebrows. "No, he wouldn't approve," she
declared. "That's merely because of me, I guess. Well, we can't help
that. It's your part to play up to Old Man Selden and find out what is
the cause of his sudden change of heart toward you."

"It's my riding outfit," he averred. "That, and the fact that I've
danced the fire dance. I'm gradually picking up a thread here and there.
By the way, you neglected to tell me this morning, when we were on the
subject, that Dan Smeed's partner was none other than Old Man Selden."

She glanced at him quickly. "I see that Mr. Damon Tamroy is in character
today. He does love to talk, doesn't he?"

"You knew it, then?"

She hesitated. "Yes--Old Dad Sloan let it out last night," she admitted.
"I think he would have told me as much the day you and I called on him
if he hadn't thought it might hurt my feelings. I don't think it was his
forgetfulness that made him trip over the subject that day."

"But if he mentioned it in your presence after the fire dance, he must
have forgotten that you are vitally interested."

Her long black lashes hid her eyes for an instant. "That's true," she
admitted.

Oliver smiled grimly to himself. A lover would have small excuse for
distrusting this girl, he thought, for deception was not in her. A
little later he left her and sought out Damon Tamroy again.

"Just a question," he began: "You know I'm seeking information of a
peculiar character in this country; so don't think me impertinent. You
said that Old Man Selden wasn't about when Dad Sloan spoke of him as
having been the partner of Dan Smeed."

Tamroy nodded. "He'd gone to bed in one o' the _ramadas_," he said.

"Did Jessamy Selden overhear Old Dad Sloan when he told that?"

"No, she wasn't there either," replied Tamroy. "I reckon she'd gone to
bed too."

"Thank you," Oliver returned.

He knew now that Jessamy Selden had merely been repeating some one
else's version of Dad Sloan's disclosures. He knew that she had been
aware all along that Dan Smeed, his father, had been the partner of Adam
Selden. Had she known it, though, the day she questioned the patriarch?
It had seemed that she was trying her utmost to make him mention the
name of Dan Smeed's partner. Perhaps she had felt safe in the belief
that, out of consideration for her feelings, Dad Sloan would not couple
her step-father's name with that of a "highwayman, outlaw, and squawman"
who, he had said, was a "bad egg."

Oliver was beginning to believe that Jessamy Selden at that very moment
knew the question that had puzzled Peter Drew for thirty years, and what
the answer to it should be. He believed that Jessamy had known just who
he was, and why he had come into the Clinker Creek Country, the day she
rode down to make his acquaintance. It seemed that she had considered it
a part of her life's work to seek him out. Later, she had worried a
little for fear he might think her bold in riding to his cabin as she
had done.

She had not been seeking his companionship because she liked him, then.
There was some ulterior motive that was governing her actions. In him
personally, perhaps, she had no interest whatever. There was some secret
connected with Old Man Selden, and it dated back to the days when Selden
and Oliver Drew's father were partners, and had both married Indian
girls. Jessamy had stumbled on this, and when Oliver came she had known
the reason that brought him, and had made haste to ally herself with him
in order to carry out whatever she had in mind. It was this that had
kept her in such close touch with him--not friendship for Oliver
himself.

Oliver brooded. The thought hurt him. The damage had been done. He had
learned all this too late. He loved her now, and wanted her more than he
wanted anything else in life. She knew he loved her. She must know that
he was not the sort to tell her what he had told her if he had not meant
it, and to grasp her in his arms and kiss her, even under the strange
condition in which the scene had occurred. Not a word had passed between
them regarding that episode since he had blushingly apologized for his
behaviour. She had taken it quite serenely, as she seemed to take most
things in life, and had displayed no confusion when next they met.

"You look so funny," she remarked when he at last sought her out after
the pony race. "Is anything the matter?"

"Nothing at all," he told her. "I'm going for our _caballos_ now. Selden
and the boys are saddling up. I suppose we'll all ride together."

A little later he shook the withered hand of Chupurosa Hatchinguish and
bade him good-bye in Spanish. The chief of the Showut Poche-dakas called
him brother, and patted his back in a fatherly manner as he followed him
to the door of his hovel. But he made no mention of a future meeting,
and said nothing more than "brother" to indicate that a new relation
existed between them.

Oliver led Poche and White Ann to Jessamy, and they swung into the
saddles and galloped to where Old Man Selden, Hurlock, and Bolar were
awaiting them in the dusty road.

Hours later the little party of five rode over the baldpate hill, then
in single-file formation descended by the steep trail to the bed of the
American River. A half-hour afterward they entered the cup in the
mountainside, and Oliver Drew looked for the first time upon the
headquarters of the Poison Oakers.

The girl, Selden, and Oliver left their saddles at the door, and the
boys rode on and led their horses to the corrals. Oliver was conducted
into the immense main room of the old log house, where he was presented
by the girl to her mother.

The afternoon was nearly gone, and the two women at once began preparing
supper, while Old Man Selden and his guest sat and smoked near a window
flooded with the reflection of the sunset glow on fleecy clouds above
the caņon.

Selden's talk was of cows and grazing conditions and allied topics.
Oliver Drew, half listening and putting in a stray comment now and then,
watched Jessamy in a rôle which was new to him.

She had put on a spotless red-checkered gingham dress that fitted
perfectly, and revealed slim, rounded, womanly outlines which are the
heritage of strength and perfect health. Her black hair was coiled
loosely on top of her head, and a large red rose looked as if Nature had
designed it to splash its vivid colour against that ebony background.
With long, sure strides this girl of the mountains moved silently about
from the great glossy range to the work table, washing crisp lettuce,
deftly beheading snappy radishes, her slim fingers now white with dough
and flour, or stirring with a large spoon in some steaming utensil over
the fire. An extra fine dinner was in progress of preparation in honour
of the Seldens' guest; yet the girl worked serenely and swiftly, with
not a false move, not a flutter of excitement, never gathering so much
as a spot on her crisp, stiff dress, always sure of herself, master of
her diversified tasks. Was this the girl that an hour before he had seen
so gracefully astride in a fifty-pound California saddle, her slim legs
covered by scarred, fringed chaps, her black hair streaming to the
bottom of her saddle skirts in two long, thick braids? There was a
desperate tugging at the heart-strings of Oliver Drew. He knew now that
if he failed to win this girl it were better for him had he not been
born. And again and again she had sought him out for some obscure reason
in no way connected with a desire for his companionship. He thought
again of the episode on the hill after the rattlesnake bite, and he grew
sick at heart at remembrance of the feel of those soft, firm lips.

When they arose from the bounteous meal Selden said to his guest:

"It's still light outdoors. Wanta look over the ranch a bit?"

They two strolled out to the stables and talked horses and saddles. They
looked perfunctorily over the green young fruit in the orchard, and
Selden showed Oliver the new pipe line which now carried spring water
into all three of the living houses. They killed time till late
twilight, and as one by one the stars came out the old man led the way
to a prostrate pine at the edge of a fern patch. On it they seated
themselves.

"They was little matter I wanted to talk to you about," said Selden half
apologetically. "Le's have a smoke and see if we can't come to an
understandin'. Just so! Just so!"




CHAPTER XVII

THE GIRL IN RED


Jessamy Selden finished washing and drying the supper dishes. Then she
hurried to her room and slipped into a red-silk dress, by no means out
of date, silk stockings, and high-heeled pumps with large shell buckles.
A few deft pats and her rich hair suited her, and the red rose glowed
against the black distractingly. She spun round and round before the
mirror of her plain little dresser, one set of knuckles at her waist,
like a Spanish dancer, her face trained over her shoulder at her
reflection in the glass. There was a mischievous gleam in her jetty eyes
as she reached the conclusion that she was all right. Just a hint of
heightened colour showed in her cheeks when she started for the living
room.

Old Man Selden had not yet returned with the guest of the house. The
trace of a pucker of disappointment came between her eyes, then she was
serene again as she lighted coal-oil lamps and sat down with a book. She
was alone in the great rough-walled room, like a gorgeous flower in a
weather-beaten box. Her mother was dressing--one dressed after dinner
instead of _for_ dinner in the House of Selden. Bolar and Moffat
presumably had gone to sit and look at their saddles while daylight
lasted, since coming night forbade them to mount and ride.

Minutes passed. Jessamy stared at the open book in her hands, but had
not read a word. Why was Old Man Selden keeping their guest out there in
the night? A girlish pout which might have surprised Oliver Drew, had he
seen it, puckered her lips. The girl looked down at her red-silk dress
and the natty buckles on her French-heel pumps, and the pout grew more
pronounced.

She went out doors, but no sound came to her save the intimate night
sounds of the wilderness.

"_Darn_ the luck!" she cried in exasperation, her serenity for once
completely unavailing.

Five minutes later she stepped from the gorgeous dress with a sigh of
resignation. She kicked off the pumps and pulled on her morocco-top
riding boots. She donned shirt and riding skirt, and slipped out by her
own door into the young night.

Cautiously she approached the stables and corrals, but found nobody.
Lights gleamed in the windows of Hurlock's and Winthrop's cabins, and
from the latter came the doleful strains of Bolar's accordion. She
doubted if Selden and Oliver were in either of these houses.

She walked up the hill toward the spring, and presently heard the bass
boom of Old Man Selden's voice.

A little later, flat on the ground, she was wriggling her way through
tall ferns toward two indistinct figures seated on a fallen pine. Like
an Indian she crept on silently, till by and by she lay quite still,
close enough to hear every word that passed between the men who sat in
front of her. And her conscience seemed not to trouble her at all.

It had been practicable to come to a pause at some little distance from
the two, for their voices carried a long way through the tranquil
wilderness night. Behind her and up the hill the frogs were croaking at
the spring. Their horse-fiddling ceased abruptly, as if they had been
suddenly disturbed, and it was not immediately continued. Trained to
read a meaning in Nature's signs, she wondered at this; then presently
she heard a stealthy step between her and the spring.

Lifting her head and shoulders above the fronded plants, she saw a dark,
crouched shape approaching warily. Some one had walked past the spring
and disturbed the croaking choir. She ducked low and waited
breathlessly, hoping that this second would-be eavesdropper, whoever he
might be, would not come upon her engaged in a like pursuit. At the same
time she was trying to hear what Selden was saying to Oliver Drew.

It seemed from Old Adam's slightly hesitating manner that he was as yet
not well launched on the subject that had caused him to pilot Oliver to
this lonely spot. He said:

"I reckon they told ye ye wouldn't be welcome down on the Old Ivison
Place. Didn't some of 'em say, now, that a gang called the Poison Oakers
might try to drive ye out?--if I'm not too bold in askin'."

"Yes," said the voice of Oliver Drew.

"Uh-huh! I thought as much. Well, Mr. Drew, ye got to make allowances
for ol'-timers in the hills. We get set in our ways, as the fella says;
and I reckon we _don't_ like outsiders to come in any too well.

"But anybody with any savvy oughta know its different in a case like
yours. Why, what little feed we'd get offen your little piece, if you
wasn't there, wouldn't amount to the price of a saddle string. It was
plumb loco for any one to tell ye we'd raise a rumpus 'bout ye bein'
down there."

"I thought about the same," observed Oliver Drew quietly.

There came a distinct pause in the dialogue. Once more Jessamy
straightened her arms and pushed head and shoulders above the ferns. The
person who had disturbed the frogs was nowhere to be seen. He too,
perhaps, had taken up a lizardlike progress through the ferns, and was
now listening to all that was being said by Oliver and Selden.

She flattened herself again, and held one hand behind her ear to catch
every word.

"Yes, sir, plumb loco," Old Man Selden reiterated. "And they ain't no
reason on earth why you and us can't be the best o' friends. That's what
we oughta be, seein' we're pretty near neighbours."

"I'm sure I'm perfectly willing to be friendly, Mr. Selden."

"Course ye are. Just so! An' so are we. And listen here, Mr. Drew: Don't
ye put too much stock in that there Poison Oaker racket."

"I don't know that I understand that."

"Well," drawled Selden, "they ain't any such thing as a Poison Oaker
Gang. That there's all hot air. It's true that Obed Pence and Jay
Muenster and Buchanan and Allegan and Foss run what cows they got with
ourn, and they're pretty good friends o' my boys an' me. But as fer us
bein' a gang--why, they's nothin' to it. Nothin' to it a-tall! Just
because we use a poison-oak leaf for our brand--why, that's what got 'em
to callin' us the Poison Oakers. And when anything mean is done in this
country, why, they gotta hang it onto somebody--and as a lot of 'em
don't like me and my friends, why, they hang it onto us and call us the
Poison Oakers. Now that there ain't right and just, is it, Mr. Drew?"

"When you put it that way," Oliver evaded, "I should say that it is
not."

"No, sir, it ain't--not a-tall! An' I'm glad ye understand and ain't got
no hard feelin's."

There was another long pause. Fragrant tobacco smoke floated to
Jessamy's nostrils.

"If I ain't too bold in askin', Mr. Drew--what was ol' Damon Tamroy
fillin' yer ear with about me today?"

"He was telling me how Old Dad Sloan had spoken of your having once
danced the fire dance."

"Uh-huh! Just so! Some o' my friends overheard Old Dad spoutin' about it
after I'd hit the feathers. Well, I don't reckon I care any. It's
nothin' to try to hide. Was that all Tamroy had to say?"

Jessamy could imagine on Oliver Drew's lips the grave, half-whimsical
smile that she had seen twitching them so often. She waited eagerly for
his reply.

"I think that the subject you mention is all that he talked to me
about," it came at last.

"Just so! Just so!" muttered Selden. "But didn't he say as how others
had danced the fire dance besides me and you?"

"Yes, he mentioned others."

"Just so! And who, now--if I ain't too bold in askin'."

"Let me see," said Oliver after a pause. "Some other man's name was
mentioned. A short name, if I remember correctly."

"Uh-huh! Plumb forget her, eh?"

"It seems to me it was Smeed, or something like that. Yes--Dan Smeed."

Silence. Again tobacco smoke was wafted over the ferns.

"Dan Smeed, eh?" ruminated Selden finally. "Mr. Drew, did ye ever hear
that name before Damon Tamroy said it to ye?"

Another thoughtful intermission; then--

"Yes, I had heard it before."

"Just so! Just so! And if I ain't too bold in askin'--just where, Mr.
Drew?"

"Why, I heard it first from Old Dad Sloan himself. Miss Selden and I
rode over to his cabin one morning, and we got him to talking of the
days of 'Forty-nine. He can be quite interesting when he doesn't
wander."

"Uh-huh! And ye say ye heard the name Dan Smeed over to Old Dad Sloan's
fer the first time?"

"Yes, sir."

"_The first time in yer life, Mr. Drew?_"

"Yes. I had never heard of it until then."

A short, low snort from Selden. Jessamy knew it well. It signified: "I
don't believe you!"

Said Selden presently: "Well, then, I'm gonta put another question to
ye, Mr. Drew. I don't want ye to think I'm tryin' to butt in, as the
fella says. But s'long's Tamroy was talkin' about me, I reckon it's
right an' just that I should be interested. Now, what did Tamroy tell ye
Old Dad Sloan had to say 'bout this here Dan Smeed and _me_?"

"He said that you and Dan Smeed were one time partners."

"Oh! Uh-huh! Just so! Partners, eh? And was that the first time ye ever
heard that, Mr. Drew?"

"Yes, the first time," said Oliver patiently.

Again that peculiar little snort of Selden.

"How ye gettin' along down to the Old Ivison Place, Mr. Drew?" was
Selden's abrupt shift of the conversation.

"Oh, my garden is fine. And I have two colonies of bees storing up honey
for me. Besides, I've located another colony up in the hills, and will
get them as soon as I can get around to it."

"But ye can't live on garden truck an' honey!"

"I suppose I should have some locusts to go along with them," laughed
Oliver; but his flight was lost on Old Man Selden. "You forget, though,"
the speaker added, "that I am writing for farm journals. I've sold three
little articles since I settled down there. I'll get along, if my luck
holds out."

"Oh, yes--ye'll get along. I ain't worryin' 'bout that. I'll bet ye
could draw a check right this minute that'd pay fer every acre o' land
'tween here an' Calamity Gap."

"I'll bet I couldn't!" Oliver positively denied.

Old Man Selden chuckled craftily. "Ye're pretty foxy, Mr. Drew--pretty
foxy!" He had lowered his deep tones until Jessamy could barely
distinguish words. "Yes, sir--_mighty_ foxy! A garden an' bees an'
writin' for a story paper, eh? Oh, ye'll get along. I'll tell a man
ye'll get along!"

"I really have no other source of revenue, Mr. Selden."

"Just so! I understand. Well, Mr. Drew, maybe I been a mite too bold;
but I'll step in another inch or two and say this: When ye need any help
down there on the Old Ivison Place, just send word to Dan Smeed's
partner. D'ye understand?"

"I thank you, I'm sure," Oliver told him dryly. "But really I don't
think I'll need any help. My garden is so small that--"

"Just so! Still, ye never can tell when a foxy fella like you'll need
help. And Dan Smeed's partner'll be always ready to help. Just remember
that."

"Help with what?" asked Oliver testingly.

"In watchin' the dead," was Selden's surprising answer, spoken in a
crafty half-whisper.

"In watching the dead!" cried his listener. "Why, I--"

"Le's go in to the womenfolks now," interrupted Selden. "And keep
thinkin' over this, Mr. Drew. Always ready to help--d'ye savvy? And
don't ye pay no attention to that there supposed gang that they call the
Poison Oakers. They ain't no such gang. But if anybody does try to
bother ye, tell me. Get me? Tell Dan Smeed's partner. He'll help ye
watch the dead."

"You're talking in riddles," Oliver snorted. "I don't understand--"

"Oh, yes, ye do! Ye savvy, all right. Ye're foxy, Mr. Drew. I'll say no
more just now. But when ye need my help...."

Their voices trailed off.

Once again the girl's supple body rose from the hips, and she searched
the ferns on every side. For several minutes she lay quite still in the
same position. Then, perhaps fifty feet on her left, a head rose above
the tall fronds, and then a body followed it. Next instant a dark figure
was hurrying back toward the spring.

Jessamy waited until sight and sound of it were no more, then rose and
ran with all her might toward the house.

She slipped in at her private door, hustled out of her clothes, and
began donning her gorgeous red dress again.

"So Old Man Selden always shoots straight from the shoulder,
eh?" she muttered. "Piffle! When he wants to be he's a regular
Barkis-is-willin'!"

In the midst of her dressing her mother tapped.

"Jessamy, where have you been?" she asked. "Mr. Selden and Mr. Drew are
in the living room now. I've knocked twice, but you didn't answer."

"I was outdoors," Jessamy replied. "I'm dressing now. I'll be right
out."

And a minute or two later Oliver Drew gasped and his blue eyes grew wide
as a silk-garbed figure, with a red rose in her raven hair, glided
toward him.

Yea, even as the girl in red had planned that he should gasp!




CHAPTER XVIII

SPIES


Smith, the shaggy, mouse-coloured burro, lifted his voice in that
sobbing wail of welcome which has caused his kind to be designated as
desert canaries, as Oliver rode into the pasture. Smith's was a
gregarious soul. To be left entirely alone was torture. His ears were
twelve inches long, and the protuberances over his eyes were so craggy
that Oliver had hesitated between the names of Smith and William Cullen
Bryant. On the whole, though, "Smith" had seemed more companionable.

Oliver loosed Poche to console the lonesome heart of Smith and went at
the irrigating of his garden. When a stream of water was trickling along
every hoed furrow he put on heavy hobnailed laced-boots and went into
the hills in search of his third bee tree.

It seems illogical to set down that one could live for nearly two months
on forty acres of land without having explored every square foot of it.
But Oliver had not trod upon at least two thirds of his property. Locked
chaparral presents many difficulties. Farmers detest it, and artists go
wild over it. But farmers are obliged to sprawl flat and crawl through
it occasionally, while artists sit on their stools at a distance from it
that brings out all the alluring browns and yellows and greens and
olives of which it is capable under the magic of the changing sunlight.

Oliver had seen bees darting like arrows from the flowers in the
creekbed in a westerly direction, up over the thickest of the chaparral.
Up there somewhere was another colony of winged misers and their hoarded
wealth of honey. Honey was bringing a good price just then, and a
merchant at Halfmoon Flat would buy it. So now the beeman climbed the
hill and crawled into the chaparral in the direction the insects had
flown.

Scattered here and there through the dense thicket were pines and spruce
and black oak. In one of these trees the bees must have their home; and
his task of finding it was not entirely a haphazard quest. When he
crawled to an opening in the bushes he would climb into the crotch of
one of them and locate the nearest tree. Then, flattening himself once
more, he would crawl to this tree and look for a hollow for the bees.
Finding none, he would locate another tree and crawl to it.

Thus wearisomely engaged he crawled into a depression three feet deep in
the earth beneath him. This allowed him to sit erect for the first time
in minutes, and he availed himself of the chance, industriously mopping
his brow.

Now, Oliver Drew was not a miner, but he was a son of the outdoor West
and knew at once that he was seated in an ancient prospect hole. About
the excavation were piled the dirt and stones that had been shovelled
out.

He speculated over it. For all he knew, it might date back to the
fascinating days of '49. A great forest of pines might have stood here
then. Or maybe the pines had been burned away, and a forest of gigantic
oaks had followed the conifers, to rear themselves majestically above
the pigmies that delved, oftimes impotently, for the glittering yellow
treasure at their roots. Or, again, the prospect hole might have been
dug years later, after the oaks had disappeared and the chaparral had
claimed the land. There was no way of telling, for every decade or so
forest fires swept the country almost clean, and some new growth
superseded the old in Nature's endless cycle.

Fifty feet farther on he plopped into a second prospect hole, and a
little beyond that he found a third.

He noted now that in all cases no chaparral grew up through the muck
that had been thrown out. This would seem to signify that the work had
been done in recent years, while the bushes that now claimed the land
still grew there. He found a fourth hole soon, and near it were
manzanita stumps, the tops of which had been cut off with an ax.

This settled it. While the soil might show evidences of the work of man
for an interminable length of time, the roots of the lopped-off
manzanitas would rot in a decade, perhaps, and freezing weather would
loosen the stumps from their moorings. But this wood was still sound.
The prospecting had been done not many years before. And who had been
prospecting thus on patented land?

When he had wormed his way to the crest of a hill he had passed about
twenty of these shallow holes. Now, at the top, the earth had been
literally gophered. The workings here looked newer still; and presently
he came upon evidence that proved work had been done not longer than a
year before, for dry leaves still clung to the tops of manzanita bushes
that had been chopped off and pitched to one side.

It has been stated that he was not a miner. Still, having been born and
raised in a mining country, he knew something of the geological
formations in which gold ordinarily is found. He was in a gold producing
country now, yet the specimens that he picked up near the prospect holes
proved that only a rank tenderfoot would have searched so persistently
in this locality.

He picked up a bit of white substance and gave it study. It resembled
lithia. The water of his spring contained a trace of lithium salts,
according to the analysis furnished him by the State Agricultural
College, to which he had mailed a sample. He pocketed the specimen for
future reference.

As he sat on the edge of this hole, with his feet in it, he heard a
rustling in the bushes close at hand. At first he thought it might be
caused by a jackrabbit; but soon it became certain that some heavier,
larger body was making its way slowly through the chaparral.

A coyote? A bobcat? A deer?

He carried no gun today, and the swift thought of a mountain lion was a
bit unpleasant.

He quickly slid from his seat and stretched himself on the ground in the
shallow excavation. Oliver was an ardent student of nature, and he liked
nothing better than secretly to watch some wild thing as it moved about
it its customary routine, unconscious of the gaze of human eyes. Once he
had hidden in wild grapevines and watched a skunk searching for bugs
along a creekbed, until suddenly the moist bank crumbled beneath him,
and he fell, and--But what followed is what might be called an unsavory
story.

The crackling, scraping sounds drew nearer, but whatever was making them
was not moving directly toward him. They ceased abruptly, and then he
knew that the man or animal had reached the open space in the brush in
which the prospect holes were situated.

As the noises were not continued, he began raising himself slowly, until
he was able to look over the edge of the hole.

It was not a browsing deer nor a hunting coyote upon which he gazed. A
squat, dark man, with chaps and spurs and Stetson, was making his way
across the open space to the continuation of the chaparral beyond it.
His eyes were mere slits, black, Mongolic.

He was Digger Foss, the half-white, right-hand man of Adam Selden.

The progress of the gunman was not stealthy, for undoubtedly he
considered himself particularly safe from observation up here in the
wilderness of chaparral. He slouched bow-leggedly across the break in
the thicket, and dropped to hands and knees when he reached the edge of
it. He disappeared in the chaparral.

The general direction that he was pursuing was straight toward Oliver's
cabin. Oliver lay quite still and listened to the renewed sounds of his
progress through the prickly bushes.

Then once more they stopped suddenly. Oliver knew that in the short
space of time elapsed Digger Foss could not have crawled beyond the
reach of his hearing. He had paused again.

For perhaps five minutes he listened, but could hear no further sounds.
Then from not far distant there came the familiar clatter of a dry pine
cone in the manzanita tops.

A moment more and Oliver was smiling grimly. For Foss had suddenly
appeared above the tops of the chaparral. He was climbing a giant digger
pine, which only a short time before Oliver had investigated as the
possible home of the bees he was striving to find. There in plain sight
the halfbreed was climbing like a bear from limb to limb, keeping the
trunk of the tree between his chunky body and the cabin in the valley.

Presently he settled astride a horizontal bough on Oliver's side, his
back toward the watcher. He adjusted himself as comfortably as possible,
and then there appeared in his hands a pair of binoculars. Leaning
around the tree trunk, screened by the digger pine's long,
smoke-coloured needles, he focused the glasses on the cabin down below.

It looked to Oliver Drew as if this were not the first time that the
gunman had perched himself up there to watch proceedings in the caņon.
There had been no hesitancy in his selection of a tree which stood in
such a position that other trees would not obstruct his view from its
branches, no studying over which limb he might occupy to the best
advantage.

Vaguely Oliver wondered how many times he had laboured and moved about
down below, with the keen, black, Chinese eyes fixed on him. It was not
a comfortable feeling, by any means.

Now, though, his thoughts were taken up by the problem of getting away
unobserved by the spyglass man. Digger Foss was not a hundred feet from
where Oliver lay and watched him. If he should turn for an instant he
would see Oliver there, flat on his face in the excavation, for the
halfbreed's perch was twenty feet above the tops of the chaparral.

Oliver had decided to make a try at crawling on up the hill as
noiselessly as possible, when new and far slighter sounds came to his
ears. So slight they were indeed that, if he had not been close to the
earth, he might not have detected them at all.

But no bird or small animal could be responsible for them, for they were
continuous and dragging. Once again he hugged the ground while he
watched and waited.

The sounds came on--sounds that seemed to be the result of some one's
dragging something carefully over the shattered leaves on the ground.
And presently there hove into view another human being.

He was an Indian--a Showut Poche-daka. Oliver remembered his swarthy
face, his inscrutable eyes. He had been pointed out to him at the fiesta
by Jessamy as the champion trailer of all the Paubas, of which the
Showut Poche-daka Tribe was a sort of branch. Often, Jessamy had said,
this Indian, who was known by the odd and laughable name of Tommy My-Ma,
had been employed by the sheriff of the county in tracking down escaped
prisoners or fleeing transgressors against the law.

He wore no hat. He was barefooted. His only covering seemed to be a pair
of faded-blue overalls and a colourless flannel shirt. Neither did he
carry any weapon, so far as Oliver could see.

His progress was now soundless as he came from the chaparral, flat on
his belly, wriggling along like a lizard with surprising speed. His
black, glittering eyes were unquestionably fixed with rapt intentness on
the man aloft in the digger pine; and by reason of this alone he did not
see Oliver Drew.

His movements commenced to be extraordinary. He wriggled himself
speedily over the unlittered earth and made no sound. There was a pile
of dry brush at one edge of the clearing, the tops of the bushes that
had been cut off to facilitate the sinking of the prospect holes. Toward
this Tommy My-Ma glided; and when he reached it he passed out of sight
on the other side.

Then suddenly he reappeared again. Instantly he lowered his head to the
ground at the edge of the pile of brush; then swiftly the head and
shoulders disappeared, the trunk and legs following. For a second Oliver
saw the bare brown feet, then they too went out of sight.

Oliver understood the disappearing act of Tommy My-Ma, he thought. The
pile of brush covered another of the prospect holes, and into the hole
the Showut Poche-daka had snaked himself. It seemed that he too had
sought a hiding place often frequented. In there he perhaps could sit
erect and, screened by the pile of brush, would be entirely hidden,
while he himself could watch the spy in the branches of the digger pine.
For that he was in turn spying on the man who was watching Oliver's
cabin Oliver did not for a moment doubt.

But why? That was another matter!

He was quite aware of his own unprotected position; and with Tommy My-Ma
now hidden in the brush scarce fifty feet away from him, he dared not
get out of his hole and try to crawl away.

The situation struck him as ridiculous in the extreme. Foss trying to
spy on him; Tommy My-Ma spying on Foss--the object of all this intrigue,
Oliver himself, spying on both of them!

And how long must it continue?

The only sounds now were the soft moaning of the wind through the
needles of the pines, and from afar, occasionally, the clear, cool call
of a valley quail: "Cut that out! Cut that out!" The sun was hot on the
resinous needles of the pines, and the smell of them filled the air.




CHAPTER XIX

CONTENTIONS


Two horsemen met on the backbone of the ridge that separated Clinker
Creek and the green American.

Obed Pence was a tall individual with a small mouth, a great Roman nose,
close-set black eyes over which black brows met so that they formed a
continuous line, and large, tangled front teeth.

The man who met him in the trail--a boy who had just turned
twenty-one--was sandy-haired, freckled, snub-nosed, and blue-eyed. His
face was too boyish to show marked wickedness, but Chuck Allegan was not
the least important member of the Poison Oaker Gang.

"Howdy, Pencie?" he drawled, crooking his leg about his saddle horn as
his black horse stopped to rub noses with the bay that the other rode.

"Where you headin' for?" asked Obed Pence.

"Down toward Lime Rock. There's some cows o' mine and a bunch o' calves
down there. That breechy old roan devil steered 'em up thataway. She's
always wanderin' off with a bunch like that. Come on down with me--I
want to move 'em up with the rest o' the bunch. Soil's thin down
thataway, an' grass's already gettin' brown."

"Any o' mine in that bunch?"

"I dunno. Like's not. Come on--you ain't got nothin' to do."

"Maybe I have and maybe I ain't," retorted Pence half truculently.

"What you doin', then?"

"Watchin' out for that fella Drew."

"Who told you to? Old Man?"

Pence spat a stream of tobacco juice. "Not a-tall," he replied. "I guess
you ain't heard what's new."

"I ain't heard nothin' new. Spring it!"

"Foss is the one told me to keep my eye on Drew. Said for me to keep to
this ridge over here and try to get a line on what he's up to if he come
up this way. Digger's over in the hills on the other side o' the caņon,
watchin'. He's got glasses."

"What's the good o' watchin' this guy? Why don't we get in and fire 'im
out o' the country, like we said we was goin' to do?"

Obed Pence's irregular teeth twisted off another chew of tobacco.

"That's the funny part of it," he observed. "Digger's workin' alone, it
seems. Old Man tells him not to bother Drew at all. Says he'll tend to
'im 'imself, when he gets 'round to it. First time I ever saw Old Man
Selden hang back on puttin' a bur under anybody's tail when he wanted to
get rid of 'im. An' now he passes the word for nobody to bother Drew
till he says to. Digger don't like it. He's sore on the old man."

"What'd Digger say?"

"I just know mostly by the way he acts. There's somethin' funny goin'
on. Ever since that day we all rode down to Drew's cabin and heard the
shot inside, Old Man's been actin' funny. Digger an' me was wonderin'
what them two was talkin' about in the cabin, that made the old man
change the way he done. Why, say, he went down there to scare the ticks
outa Drew that day. And after that, you know, we had it all made up to
turn cows in on Drew's garden when he was away, an' let 'em get at his
spring. Then Jay Muenster was goin' to slip in sometime and put a live
rattlesnake in Drew's bed. And if all that didn't start 'im, we was
gonta begin plunkin' at him from the chaparral, you know--just drop a
few bullets at his feet when he was workin' in his garden. Wasn't that
right?"

"Sure was, Pencie."

"An' we rode down there to start things goin'," Pence continued. "And
when Old Man come outa the cabin he was bowin' and scrapin', and this
and that and the other, like him and Drew had been pals all their lives.
There's somethin' funny. Digger don't like it a-tall!"

"Does Ed know anything?" asked Chuck after a pause.

"No, he don't," answered Obed Pence. "It was Ed told Old Man 'bout
Digger takin' a crack at Drew when he was monkeyin' 'round Sulphur
Spring. And Old Man told Ed to tell Digger to cut it out, and that he
was runnin' the gang and would tell anybody when he wanted 'em to throw
down on Drew."

"I know."

"And Digger asks 'im when he sees 'im did he want Drew monkeyin' about
the spring and gettin' onto the pipe that took water to the still. And
Old Man says to hell with the still; he was gonta cut out makin' booze,
anyway."

"Cut it out?"

"That's what he told Digger Foss."

"Hell, he makes more money sellin' monkey rum to Standard than outa
anything else! And it's always been safe. Pro'bition didn't cut no ice
with us--just give us ten times the profit!"

Pence shrugged his ridgy shoulders. "I'm just tellin' you how things are
goin'. Drew made us loose the Sulphur Spring water to run the still
with, and Old Man didn't seem to give a whoop about it. Drew finds the
pipe, like as not, and that don't seem like it worried the boss. Just
says he'll cut out distillin'. Why, he's layin' right down to this fella
Drew. Drew's got Old Man buffaloed!"

"Not a-tall," disagreed Chuck Allegan. "You know better'n that, Pencie.
Man don't live that c'n buffalo Old Man Selden. He's double-crossin'
us--that's what! There's somethin' behind all this. What's Digger
watchin' Drew for? Is that any way to run a man outa the country? I'm
askin' you!"

"That runnin'-out-o'-the-country business has got to be an old gag.
Le'me tell you somethin': I wasn't goin' to, but I will. Digger said not
to mention it. But listen! You know Old Man took Drew home with 'im
after the fiesta."

Chuck nodded his boyish head.

"Well, Digger wasn't asleep at the switch. When it got dark he rides
across the river and into the ranch to see if he c'n find out what's
stirrin'. He ain't liked the way things 'a' been goin' since he got outa
jail. Course it's Jess'my that's got his goat. Drew's cuttin' 'im out;
and since the day we rode into Drew's Digger thinks Old Man's ag'in 'im,
an's helpin' Drew get Jess'my.

"Anyway, whatever's the reason, Digger leaves his horse in the chaparral
and sneaks in and sees 'em at supper. And he sticks 'round till supper's
over and Old Man steers Drew out to the corrals for a talk. They set
down on that old felled pine in the ferns below the spring, and Digger
snakes up through the ferns and hears 'em talkin'."

"What'd he say they said?" Chuck asked eagerly.

"Didn't have any too much to say about it," Pence replied. "Just said
Old Man and Drew was nice as pie to each other; and Old Man told Drew
there wasn't any use him bein' scared o' the Poison Oakers, 'cause there
wasn't no such outfit."

"Said there wasn't no such outfit?"

"That's what I said!"

"And Digger wouldn't tell no more?"

"No, he wouldn't. And I'll bet you there was a lot more to tell. I
savvied Digger wasn't springin' all he heard. But he don't like it."

"Maybe they was talkin' 'bout Jess'my. Then he wouldn't have nothin' to
say, you can bet yer life!"

"I got my doubts," Pence ruminated. "No, there was somethin' else. I
know that shifty little bullet eye o' Digger's. He was keepin' somethin'
back that he ought to told the rest of us. I don't like the way things
are goin'. Since this Drew showed up, seems like we all got somethin' to
keep from one another. Old Man's tryin' to double-cross the gang
someway. Foss is tryin' to get in on it, or else he's aimin' to
double-cross us an' Old Man, too, all on his lonesome. An' we can't make
any more booze 'cause o' Drew; an' Old Man says, We sh'd worry! A hell
of a mess! We're due for a big bust-up, I'm thinkin'. What's Foss
sneakin' about watchin' Drew for? Huh! Answer me that? An' why'd he tell
me to watch up here an' trail 'im if I saw 'im, without tellin' me why?
I'm gettin' about sick o' the whole dam' deal! I ain't takin' orders
from Digger Foss!"

"Me, too," agreed Allegan. "And that fire dance--that's 'at gets me!
Funny about this guy Drew, comin' here a stranger, an' dancin' the fire
dance right away. Somethin' funny, all right! Most folks thought maybe
he'd hooked up with a squaw, but it ain't that. Gets _my_ goat! But how
'bout the Selden boys?"

"They ain't said a word. I reckon they're in with Old Man, whatever he's
got on his chest. If we come to a split-up, that'll make Old Man and the
four boys on one side, and me an' you an' Ed Buchanan and Jay Muenster
on the other side. Five to four."

"But how 'bout Digger? He's always been strong with Old Man Selden.
He'll stick with him."

"Maybe--maybe. He won't be with us, though. An' I'm doubtin' if he'll be
with Selden, either. He's out fer Foss!"

"Fer Jess'my, ye mean!"

"'Sall the same," shrugged Obed Pence. "Le's ride down an' get a couple
o' drinks, an' then I'll fog it down to Lime Rock with ye. T'hell with
Digger Foss an' his orderin' me 'round!"

They rode away in silence, winding their way down into Clinker Creek
Caņon when a mile or more below the forty acres of Oliver Drew. They
dismounted at Sulphur Spring and pushed through the growth surrounding
it.

Only a little water now remained in the clay-lined reservoir. The
protruding end of the three-quarter-inch pipe was now plainly visible,
eight inches above the surface of the tiny pool.

"Just think," Obed Pence observed: "That pipe's took water down the
caņon for us for years; and s'long's the pool was full o' water nobody
ever found the end of it here. At least they never let on they did. An'
now comes this Drew an' puts the kibosh on everything! I'll tell a man
I'm gettin' sore about it, Chuck. I want my booze, and I want my share
o' what we could get out of it. I'm bettin' Standard'll be wild when he
learns Old Man won't distil any more."

"Can't," corrected Chuck.

"Can't, eh? Who's stoppin' 'im? Drew, that's who, and nobody else! And
he won't send Drew over the hills talkin' to 'imself, like he's done to
many a better man before 'im. I'm sore, I tell you. And I'm gonta find
out what's doin', or know the reason why."

"Le's get clay an' cover the end o' the pipe," suggested Chuck. "Some
deer hunter's likely to see it if we don't, now that the water's pretty
near gone."

They solemnly administered this rite in remembrance of dead days, and
rode on down the caņon single-file.

Over three-quarters of a mile from the spring they left their horses in
the creek bottom and clambered up a steep slope, slipping on the
polished pine needles underfoot. Near the summit the trees thinned, and
heavy chaparral usurped the land. On hands and knees they plunged into
it, and presently were crawling on their stomachs over an unmarked
route.

In the heart of the chaparral they came suddenly upon a circular opening
made by the hand of man. Here was a high ledge of schist, and under it a
small cave. Grass grew here, for the spot marked the other end of the
pipe line from Sulphur Spring, and the water that had represented the
spring's overflow had trickled out to cool the copper coil of the Poison
Oakers' still, incidentally refreshing the barren land.

The pipe line represented a great amount of toil and patience, but, as
the pipe had been stolen from a railroad shipment, no great outlay of
funds. Clinker Creek Caņon dipped so steadily below Sulphur Spring that
it had been possible to lay the pipe to this hidden spot in the heart of
the chaparral, far up on the hillside, and still maintain a goodly fall
for the flow of water.

Only by crawling flat on his face could one reach this secluded
rendezvous; and in all the years that they had made molasses rum here
the Poison Oakers had not been disturbed. Not even a hunter would find
it necessary to penetrate this fastness. Men would have laughed if told
that water was flowing up here on the dry, rocky eminence.

Before the cave's mouth was an adobe furnace for the fire, and over it
the now dry end of the pipe hung uselessly. The still was removable, and
was now in the cave, together with distilled stock on hand and kegs of
molasses that had been packed into the caņon on burros' backs, then
trundled laboriously up into the chaparral.

Chuck and Obed entered the open cave and sat themselves down beside a
barrel with a wooden spigot. They found glasses and wiped soil and
cobwebs from them with their thumbs, and soon the water-coloured liquor
flowed to the temporary gladdening of their hearts.

But as it flowed again and again they began renewing their grievances,
and shook their heads over "the good old days," and mouthed vague
threats, and forgot all about Lime Rock and the breachy cow.

In the midst of their maudlin conversation Obed Pence heard a sound,
despite his rum-dulled sensibilities.

"Cut it out!" he husked. "Somebody's beatin' it in here."

He lay flat in the mouth of the cave and looked down the hillside under
the chaparral.

"Old Man and Bolar," he announced.

"Le's get out an' beat it over the hill, and back down to our
_caballos_--and they won't know we been here," Chuck suggested.

"Huh! Not me!" retorted Pence. "They already seen our horses, I'll bet.
Anyway, I'm liquored up just right to tell Old Man how the war broke
out. I'm glad he's comin'. I'm gonta know what's what right pronto!"




CHAPTER XX

"WAIT!"


For over an hour Oliver Drew was obliged to lie flat at the bottom of
the shallow prospect hole, while Foss remained astride the limb of the
digger pine and Tommy My-Ma kept hidden under the pile of brush.

There was no chance to steal out and crawl away through the chaparral,
for, while Digger's back was always toward him, he could not tell which
way the brush-screened Showut Poche-daka was looking.

At last, though, the man on lookout began to show signs of vast
uneasiness. His position was uncomfortable, and down at the cabin there
was, of course, no movement to arouse his interest and relieve the
tedium of his watch. He squirmed incessantly for a time; and then
apparently he decided that the object of his espionage had left the
ranch, for he thrust his glasses in his shirt front and began monkeying
to the ground.

Oliver's security now was in the hands of chance. If the halfbreed left
his observation post by a route which passed near the prospect hole,
Oliver would be discovered. If he decided to leave the thicket by
crawling downhill, Oliver would be safe from detection.

It was rather a breathless minute that followed, and then he heard the
gunman moving off through the chaparral in the direction of the
caņon--the least difficult route by far. Apparently he had not come
mounted, else he would have retraced his course back to where he would
have left his horse.

Gradually the sounds of his retreat died away. Still there was no
movement in the pile of brush, so far as Oliver's ears were able to
detect. He dared not look up over the edge of the prospect hole that hid
him.

Minutes passed. Quail called coolly from afar. Still not the slightest
sound from the brush pile.

For half an hour longer Oliver lay motionless and silent. Had Tommy
My-Ma slipped out noiselessly and followed Foss? Or was he for some
obscure reason still hiding under the dry manzanita tops? At the end of
this period Oliver decided that the Indian must have gone. Anyway, he
did not purpose to remain in that hole till nightfall.

So he elevated his nose to the land level and peered about cautiously.

Everything remained as he had seen it last. He rose to his feet, left
the hole, and walked boldly to the brush pile.

A swift examination of the ground showed that Tommy My-Ma had left his
place of concealment, perhaps long since. There was a plainly marked
trail through the shattered leaves that led in the same direction taken
by the departing halfbreed.

Oliver studied the brush pile, and found that the facilities for hiding
were as he had deduced. Pine limbs had been laid across the hole like
rafters, and the brush heaped on top of them. Beneath was a space deep
enough for a man to sit erect; and he might thrust his head up into the
brush and peer out in all directions. Loose brush concealed the
entrance, and it had been replaced when the Indian took his leave.

What was the meaning of it all? Foss, of course, had reason to hate him;
but what could he gain by secretly watching him from cover? And why was
the Indian watching Foss in turn? All indications pointed to the belief
that Foss had occupied his observation tree often, and that his shadow
had as frequently trailed him and spied on him from a prearranged hiding
place.

What strange, mysterious intrigue had enveloped his life because of the
unanswered question with which old Peter Drew had struggled for over
thirty years? When would he face the question? Would the answer be Yes
or No? Would his college education prove a safeguard against his reading
the answer wrong, as his poor, unlettered old father had hoped? And
Jessamy! Would she figure in the answer? Somehow he felt that hope and
life and Jessamy hung on whether his answer would be Yes or No. His dead
father's hand seemed to be weaving the warp and woof of his destiny.

Oliver gave up further search for the bees that day. By a circuitous
route he returned to his irrigating of the garden.

June days passed after this, and July days began. The poison oak had
turned from green to brilliant red, and now was dark-green once more.
The air was hot; the grass was sear and yellow; the creek was dry but
for a deep pool abreast the cabin. But Oliver did not worry much now
about the creek, except for the loss of its low, comforting murmur and
the greenness with which it had endowed its banks, because the enlarged
flow from his spring was ample for his needs.

No longer did linnets sit near his cabin window and sing to the
accompaniment of his typewriter keys. Their season of love was over; the
young birds were feathered out and had left their nests. The wild
canaries still were with him, and hovered about the rambling willow over
the spring. Eagles soared aloft in the clear, hot skies. Lizards basked
lazily about the cabin, and blinked up contentedly when he tickled their
sides with a broomstraw, or dangled pre-swatted flies before their
grinning lips.

For a week now he had seen no member of the Poison Oaker Gang. The cows
bearing their brand were all about him, but gave him no trouble, and he
thought it strange that he chanced to meet no one riding to look after
them. He had not been bothered. Whether Digger Foss spent his idle hours
watching him from the branches of his lookout pine he did not know or
care. He had not seen Jessamy since the morning he left Poison Oak
Ranch, and all his worriment and discontent found vent in this.

Why had she not ridden down to him, as of old? Had he offended her in
any way? The thought was unbelievable, for he could recall not the
slightest hint of any misunderstanding.

He brooded and moped over it, and loved her more and more--realized,
because of her absence, just how deeply he desired her. He experienced
all the tortures of first love; and then one day he found his senses.

Then he laughed loud and long, and ran for Poche, and threw the
silver-mounted saddle on his back. She had come to him when he could not
go to her. Now her step-father had invited him to her home, and if he
wished her companionship he must take the male's part and seek it. What
an utter ass he had been indeed!

It was one o'clock when Poche bore him into the cup in the mountains
that cradled Poison Oak Ranch. At once the longed-for sight of her
gladdened his heart once more, for she apparently had seen him coming
and was walking from the house to meet him.

How her sturdy, womanly figure thrilled his soul! Black as night was the
hair that was now coiled loosely on her head, in which a red rose blazed
as when he had seen her last. The confident poise of her head, the warm
tints of that strong column that was her neck, the brave carriage of her
shoulders, her swinging stride, the long black lashes that seemed to be
etched by an Oriental artist--they set his heart to pounding until he
felt faint; the yearning, hopeless void of love tormented him.

And then with his senses awhirl he leaned from the saddle and felt her
warm, soft hand in his, and gazed dizzily into the unsounded depths of
the trout pools shaded by grapevines, to which his fancy had likened her
eyes. His hand shook and his heart leaped, and his soul cried out for
her; and all that he could say was:

"How do you do, Miss Selden!"

He saddled White Ann, and over the hills they rode together.
Commonplaces passed between them until the wilderness enveloped them.
Then as they sat their horses and gazed down a precipitous slope to the
river, she asked:

"Just why have you kept away from us all these weeks?"

He reddened. "I'll tell you frankly," he said: "I was a fool. I was
moping because you had not ridden to see me. You had come so often
before. And I woke up only today. Today for the first time I realized
that, since Old Man Selden has opened his door to me, it is my place to
go to you."

"Of course," she said demurely.

He cleared his throat uncomfortably.

"Some time ago," he told her, "I realized that you sought me out in the
first place for a purpose."

He paused, and the look he cast at her was eager, though guarded
carefully.

"Yes?" she questioned.

"Yes," he went on. "I realized that. And also that you _continued_ to
come because that purpose was not yet fulfilled, and because conditions
made it necessary for you to look me up."

"Yes, I understand--" as he had come to a stop, rather helplessly.

"Well, just that," he floundered. "And then Selden changed his tactics,
and I could go to you. So you--you didn't come to me any more."

"Fairly well elucidated," she laughed, "if repetition makes for
clearness. Well, you understand now--so let's forget it."

"I want you to understand that it wasn't because I didn't wish to come.
It was just thick-headedness."

"So you have said. Yes, I understand."

The gaze of her black eyes was far away--far away over the deep, rugged
caņon, over the hills that climbed shelf after shelf to the mystic
snow-topped mountains, far away into a country that is not of the earth
earthy. Under her drab flannel shirt her full bosom rose and fell with
the regularity of her perfect breathing. Her man's hat lay over her
saddle horn. Like some reigning goddess of the wilderness she sat and
overlooked the domain that was hers unchallenged; and the profile of her
brow, and the long, black, drooping lashes, tore at the heart-strings of
the man until he suffered.

"I can't stand that!" he cried out in his soul; and a pressure of the
reins brought Poche close to White Ann's side. "Jessamy!" said the man
huskily. "Jessamy!"

He could say no more, for his voice failed him, and a haze swam before
his eyes as when he had lost control of himself on the hillside.

"Jessamy!" he managed to cry again; and then, for lack of words, he
spread his arms out toward her.

The black lashes flicked downward once, but she did not turn her face to
him. The colour deepened in her throat and mounted to her cheeks, and
her bosom rose and fell more rapidly.

Then slowly she turned her face to his, and her level gaze searched him,
unafraid. But not for long this time. Down drooped the black lashes till
they seemed to have been drawn with pen and India ink on her smooth
brown cheeks; and they screened a light that caused his heart to bound
with expectation that was half of hope.

Her red lips moved. "Wait!" she whispered.

His arms fell to his sides. "You--you won't hear me!"

"No--not now."

"You know what I'm trying so hard to say. It means so much to me. It's
hard for a man to say the one word which he knows will make him or break
him for all time to come. He'd rather--he'd rather just hope on blindly,
I guess, than to speak when he can't guess how the woman feels.
Must--must I say it--right out, Jessamy?"

"No, my friend, don't say it."

"Is there anything that stands between us?"

"Yes. But don't ask what."

"Then you don't love me!"

Her red lips quivered. "I said for you to wait," she told him softly.

"Why should I wait? For what? I know myself. I'm grown. I know that I--"

"Don't!" she interrupted. "Wait!" And she leaned in the saddle and swung
White Ann away from him.

"Let's ride back home," she said. "You'll stay to supper? The moon will
be bright for your ride home later. I'll make you a cherry pie!"




CHAPTER XXI

"WHEN WE MEET AGAIN!"


It will be necessary to return to the day that Chuck Allegan and Obed
Pence met on the ridge beyond the Old Ivison Place, and rode together to
the hiding place of the Poison Oakers' moonshine still.

Obed Pence continued to lie prone in the mouth of the cave, while his
close-set eyes angrily watched the progress of Old Man Selden and his
son Bolar through the chaparral.

As the continued crawling of the coming pair brought them nearer to the
retreat Obed Pence withdrew his lank figure into the shadowy cave; and
he and his companion endeavoured to appear innocent and unconcerned.

Then when Old Man Selden and the boy reached the opening and stood
erect, Obed appeared at the mouth again and greeted them with a
matter-of-fact:

"Hello, there!"

"Why, howdy, Obed," returned Adam Selden. "Didn't know ye was here.
Who's with ye?"

"I reckon you see our horses down in Clinker Caņon," returned Obed in
trouble-hunting tones. "And you know every horse between Red Mountain
an' the Gap."

"Yea, me and Bolar thought we saw a couple o' animals through the trees.
But we hit the ground farther up the creekbed, and come in slonchways.
Thought maybe one o' the brutes was Chuck's."

Obed Pence snorted softly, but did not add more fuel to an argument
along this line.

"Me an' the kid was packin' a sack o' salt on a burro down toward the
river," Adam observed, approaching the cave, "an' thought we'd belly up
an' have a little smile. Cows need salt. Hello there, Chuck!"--as the
round, boyish face of Allegan shone like a small moon from the dark
interior.

"Hello, Old Man!" replied the youth. He was apprehensive over Pence's
glowering silence, and, to hide his feelings, quickly opened the spigot
over a glass and passed the water-white drink to his chief.

Adam Selden sat down with it, and Bolar came into the cave and was also
given a drink by Chuck.

"How early you gonta start the drive for the mountains this year, Old
Man?" asked the self-appointed host, nervously filling glasses for
himself and the glowering Pence, who stood with arms folded Napoleonlike
across his breast, scowlingly regarding the newcomers.

"Well, grass's holdin' out _muy bueno_," said Selden thoughtfully. "Late
rains done it. I don't think we'll have cause to move 'em any earlier
than common. The filaree down in the river bottom is--"

But here Napoleon broke his moody silence. "I got somethin' to talk
about outside o' grass," snapped Obed Pence.

A tense stillness ensued, during which Old

Man Selden deliberately drained his glass and passed it back to Chuck to
be refilled.

"Well, Obed," he drawled lazily, "got anything important to say, just
say her."

"Oh, I'll say her!" cried Pence, and tossed off his drink of burning
liquor by way of fortification.

"Ain't been settin' here by that bar'l a mite too long, have ye,
Obed?--if I ain't too bold in askin'," was Selden's remark, spoken in
the tone which turneth away wrath.

"No, I ain't been here too long," Pence told his captain. "And I'm glad
you've come, Old Man. I want to talk to you about this fella Drew, and
the way things 'a' been a-goin'."

"Shoot!" invited the old man's booming voice.

Obed came directly to the point. "Well, why ain't we runnin' Drew out?"

Old Man Selden balanced his glass on one peaked knee while he reached
into a pocket of his _chaparejos_ for a plug of tobacco. He was
deliberate as he replied:

"Well, Obed, I was waitin' a spell 'count of a little matter that's on
my mind just at present. I'd advise ye not to be worryin' about Drew.
I'll tend to him when it's the proper time."

"Yes, you will!" sniffed Pence sarcastically. "But, allowin' that you
will, I want my booze in the meantime."

"There's the bar'l," said Old Man Selden.

"That ain't gonta last forever!"

"Just so! But time she gets low, we'll be makin' more ag'in. Time Drew's
gone and we get water runnin' from Sulphur Spring ag'in."

"And I'm wantin' my profit from what we could sell," Pence added,
unmollified. "I got no money, and won't have none till killin' time,
'less the still's runnin'. 'Tain't worryin' you none. You got all you
want without makin' monkey rum. But it ain't like that with me. Why, we
was makin' five gallon a day--at twenty-five bucks a gallon! And now
nary a drop. I need the money."

"Well, Obed, they's money all about ye," the old man boomed. "And they's
things that can be turned into money layin' 'round loose everywhere."

"And there's a county jail, too!" snapped Pence.

"And also federal prisons," Adam added, nodding toward the still and the
crude fermentation vats.

"Rats! Pro'bition sneaks ain't got me scared! But bustin' into
somebody's store's a different matter. And while we're talkin' about it,
Old Man, I don't see as you're so keen for a little job like that as you
was some months ago."

"Gettin' old, Obed--gettin' old, as the fella says. Squirt another shot
into her, Chuck." He passed his glass again. "I'll leave all that to you
kids in future, I'm thinkin'."

"But take your share, o' course," sneered Pence.

"Oh, I reckon not, Obed--I reckon not. I got enough to die on--that's
all I need. Just putter 'round with a few critters for my remainin'
years, then turn up my toes peaceful-like. I'm gettin' old, Obed--just
so!"

There was another prolonged, strained silence. Pence emptied his glass
twice while it lasted, and his Dutch courage grew apace.

"Looky-here, Old Man," he said at last, "Le's get down to tacks: You're
double-crossin' us, an' we're dead onto it. For some reason you don't
wanta drive Drew outa Clinker Creek Caņon. It's got somethin' to do with
that fire dance. There's more in it for you if you leave Drew alone than
if you put a burr under his tail. That's all right so far's it goes. But
you're tryin' to hog it. You're squeezin' the rest o' the Poison Oakers
out--all but your four kids. Ed and Digger and Chuck here and Jey and
me's left out in the cold. That's what! And we don't like it, and ain't
gonta stand for it. If there's more profit in it to leave Drew alone,
leave 'im alone. But le's all get our share o' this big profit, like we
always did."

"Couple o' more shots and ye'll be weepin' about her, Pencie," dryly
observed old Adam.

"Never mind that! I c'n handle my booze. You come across."

"I've known ye about thirteen year, Obed," said Adam in tones
dangerously purring, "and I've never heard ye talk to me thataway
before. I wouldn't now, if I was you."

"And I've never seen you act like you're doin' in those thirteen years!"
cried Pence. "Before now there wasn't no need to bawl you out. But
you're turnin' crooked."

Adam rose and placed an enormous hand on Obed's shoulder.

"Just so! Just so!" he purred. "Now, you ramble down an' get in yer
saddle an' ride on home, Pencie. Ye've had enough liquor for today. An'
when ye're sober we'll all talk about her. Just so! That's best. Go on
now--yer blood's hot!"

Pence jerked his shoulder away and backed farther into the gloom of the
cave. Old Man Selden quickly moved so that his body was not silhouetted
against the light streaming in at the mouth.

"I don't want none o' yer dam' fatherly advice," growled Pence. "I just
want a square deal. If there's a reason why Drew oughta be left alone I
want to know it. And I want to know it now!"

"Just so! Are ye really mad, now, Pencie?"

"I am mad!"

"_And_ sober?"

"Yes, sober. Shoot her out!"

The eagle eyes of Old Man Selden were fixed intently on the face showing
from the gloom. Every muscle was tense, every faculty alert. His
beetling grey brows came down and hid his eyes from the younger man, but
those cold blue eyes saw everything.

"Bein's ye're sober, Obed," the old man drawled, "I'll be obliged to
tell ye that no Poison Oaker ner any other man ever talked to me like
you been doin' and got away with it. Just so! And, bein's ye're sober,
I'll say that my business is my own, an' I'll keep her to myself till I
get ready to tell her. Furthermore, I'm still runnin' the Poison Oakers,
and what I say goes now same as a couple months ago. I know what's good
for us boys better'n any o' the rest o' ye, and I'm doin' it."

"You're a dam' liar!" shouted Pence.

Old Man Selden's gun hand leaped to his hip. "Come a-shootin', kid!" he
bellowed.

He whipped out his Colt, shot from the hip. The roar of his big gun
filled the cave. Screened by the smoke of it, Old Man Selden sprang
nimbly to the deeper shadows.

There he crouched, his cavernous eyes peering out through the dense,
confined smoke like a lynx posing to spring upon a burrowing gopher.

Obed Pence had not been slow. He too had leaped the instant the old
man's hand dropped to his holster. He had ducked into deeper shadows
still, and had not been hit. Now he fired through the smoke wreaths in
the direction he supposed the old man had darted. A report from Adam's
gun roared on the heels of his own, and rocks and earth rattled down a
foot from his shoulder.

The cave extended to right and to left of the opening. Each of the
fighters was hidden by the darkness of his particular end, and now the
smoke of the three shots hung in a heavy blanket between them directly
opposite the door. Under cover of this Chuck and Bolar, sprawling flat,
had wriggled frantically out of the cave. Each from his own nook, the
belligerents leaned cautiously forward, guns ready, breath held in, and
tried to pierce the rack of smoke and the obscurity of the other's
hiding place.

It seemed to the younger men, gazing in, that the situation meant a
deadlock. Neither gunman could see the other, and, with no breath of air
stirring in the cave, the smoke lay between them like a solid wall.

Five minutes passed without a sound inside. Then Bolar drew nearer to
the cave and shouted in:

"What you gonta do? Neither o' you c'n see the other. You can't shoot.
What you gonta do?"

Complete silence answered him. Then he realized that neither his father
nor Obed Pence would dare to speak lest the sound of his voice reveal
his whereabouts and call forth a shot from the other end of the cave.

"You got to give it up for now!" he shouted in again. "I'll count
one-two-three; and when I say three, both o' ye throw yer guns in front
o' the mouth. I'll ask if ye'll do this. Both o' you answer at once.
Ready!... Will you?"

"Yes," came the smothered replies of both men in the cave.

"All right now. Get ready! One ... two ... _three_!"

At the word "three" two heavy-calibre Colts clattered on the dirt floor
before the entrance and lay not a foot apart, proving that there was a
recognized code of honour among the Poison Oakers. Bolar stooped and
entered, gathering them in his hands.

"All set," he announced. "Come out an' begin all over ag'in."

Old Man Selden was the first to come out. Pence quickly followed him.
Bolar had emptied both weapons of cartridges, and now he silently passed
each his gun.

"What'll it be, Pencie?" asked Old Man Selden, bending his fiery glance
on his dark, slim enemy. "Shall we draw when we meet ag'in, er forget it
entirely--or see who c'n load an' shoot quickest right here an' now?"

"It's up to you, Old Man."

"Forget it," advised Bolar. "For now, anyway."

"Shall we go our ways now, an' draw when we come together ag'in?" It was
Old Adam's question.

"Why can't you come across an' do the square thing now?" Pence growled.
"Then ever'thing's settled."

"Just so! But y're answerin' my question with another'n. Do we draw when
we meet ag'in?"

"You won't be square?"

"I'll tell ye nothin'. Ye called me a dam' liar, so you couldn't believe
it if I had anything to say to ye."

Pence shrugged indifferently and turned away. "When we meet ag'in," he
said lightly.

"Just so!" drawled Old Man Selden. "Just so!"




CHAPTER XXII

THE WATCHMAN OF THE DEAD


Oliver Drew knew that the Mona Fiesta would be held by the Showut
Poche-dakas when the July moon was full. The Mona Fiesta was the tribal
"Feast of the Dead." It was purely an Indian rite, unmixed with any
ceremonies incident to the feast days of the Catholic saints, as were
most other celebrations. Consequently, while the whites were not
definitely prohibited from being spectators, they were not invited to
attend. They often went out of curiosity, Oliver had been told by
Jessamy, but always they observed from a respectful distance and went
unnoticed by the worshippers.

The underlying principle of the Feast of the Dead was ancestor worship,
in which all of the Pauba Tribes were particularly devout. Jessamy told
Oliver that she had witnessed the ceremony once from a distance, but
that, as it occurred at night, she had seen little of what was taking
place.

Oliver had wondered that he had received no message from old Chupurosa
Hatchinguish after the night of the fire dance. He was now a member of
the tribe, he supposed, but all actual contact with his new-found
brethren seemed to have ceased when he rode away from the fiesta. The
mystery of why he was in this country hung on his connection with the
Showut Poche-dakas. He was impatient to get in closer touch with the
wrinkled old chief and bring matters to a head.

And now another feast day was close at hand. In two more nights a full
moon would shower its radiance over the land of the Poison Oakers. He
had received no word, no intimation that he would be wanted at the
reservation for the Mona Fiesta. Whites were excluded, he knew; but,
then, he was now a brother of the Showut Poche-dakas, and he hoped
against hope that he would be commanded to appear.

But the two intervening days went by, and the evening of the celebration
was at hand, with no one having arrived to bid him come.

He was seated on his little porch that evening, listening to the night
sounds of chaparral and forest, as the moon edged its big round face
over the hill and smiled at him. He was thinking half of Jessamy, half
of an article that he had planned to write. Two fair-sized checks for
previous work had reached him that week, and he was beginning to have
visions of a future.

In a pine tree close at hand an owl asked: "Who? Who? Who--o-o-o?" in
doleful tones. From a distant hilltop came the derisive, outlaw laughter
of coyotes. A big toad hopped on the porch, blinked at the man in the
moonlight, and then started ponderously for his door. Oliver rose and
with his foot turned him twice, but the toad corrected his course
immediately and seemed determined to enter the house willy-nilly.

"But I don't want you in there," Oliver protested boyishly. "I might
step on you in the dark, or accidentally put my hand on your old cold
back."

He closed the door, and the toad hopped on the threshold, as if resolved
to await his chance for a strategic entrance.

"All right," said Oliver. "Sit there! When I'm ready to go in I'll climb
through a window. You are not going into that house!"

He laughed at himself. His was a lonesome life when he was not with
Jessamy; and, always a lover of every living thing that God has created,
he had made friends with the wild life that moved about his cabin, so
that toads and lizards, birds and squirrels looked to him for food and
had no fear of him.

He sat puffing at his pipe and giving the obstinate toad blink for
blink, when there came to his ears strange sounds from up the lonely
caņon.

At first he imagined they were made by roving cattle, then he recognized
the ring of shod hoofs on the stones in the trail. Then voices. And
presently he knew that many horsemen were riding toward the cabin--a
veritable cavalcade.

He rose from his chair and stood listening, not without a feeling of
apprehension. As the concerted thudding of many hoofs drew closer and
closer he ran into the cabin and strapped on his six-shooter. He had
been at a complete loss to interpret Old Man Selden's later attitude
toward him, and was wary of a trap. The sounds he heard could mean
nothing to him except that the Poison Oakers were at last riding upon
him to begin their raid.

Suddenly from the other direction came the clattering hoofbeats of a
single galloping horse. Silvery under the magic light of the moon, a
white horse burst into view, galloping over a little rise to the south.
It carried a rider. Now came a familiar "Who-hoo!" And Jessamy Selden
soon was bending from her saddle at the cabin door.

"Thank goodness, I'm in time!" she said. "I didn't know when they would
start, and I waited too long."

"What in the mischief are you doing in the saddle this time of night?"
he demanded.

"Oh, that's nothing! I get out of bed sometimes and saddle up for a
moonlight ride. I love it."

"But--"

"Here they come! I wanted to get here ahead of them and warn you to
pretend you were expecting them. You're--you're supposed to know."

"I'm supposed to know what?"

"About the Mona Fiesta. It's to be observed here on the Old Ivison
Place. It always is. And--and you're supposed to know it."

"How explicit you aren't! Well, what--"

"Sh! There they are! I can't explain now."

Oliver's thoughts were moving swiftly, and he did not put them aside
even when he saw his gate being opened to a large company of horsemen.

"I've got you," he said. "Your little attempt at subterfuge has failed
again. Those are the Showut Poche-dakas coming?"

She nodded in her slow, emphatic manner.

"Uh-huh! I see. And you might have told me many days ago that they would
come. And if that isn't so, you could have got here much earlier tonight
to warn me in time. But that would have given me an opportunity to
question you, and this you didn't want. So you waited till they were
almost upon me, then made a Sheridan dash to warn me, when there would
be no time to answer embarrassing questions. Pretty clever, sister! But
you see I'm dead on to your little game."

Her laugh was as near to a giggle as he had ever heard from her.

"You're a master analyst," she praised. "I'll 'fess up. It's just as you
say. You know my nature makes it necessary for me to dodge direct
issues, where your mystery is concerned. But they're right on us--go out
and meet 'em."

"You'll wait?"

"Sure."

The foremost riders of the long cavalcade were now abreast the cabin,
and Oliver Drew stepped toward them as they halted their ponies.

The strong light of the full moon was sufficient to reveal the
wrinkled-leather skin of old Chupurosa Hatchinguish, who rode in the
lead, sitting his blanketed horse as straight as a buck of twenty years.
Oliver reached him and held out a hand.

"Welcome to the Hummingbird," he said in Spanish.

"Greetings," returned the old man, solemnly taking the offered hand.
"The July moon is in the full, brother, and I have brought the Showut
Poche-dakas for the yearly Mona Fiesta to the spot where our fathers
worshipped since a time when no man can remember."

"Thou art welcome," said Oliver again, entirely lost as to just what was
expected of him.

Chupurosa left the blanket which he used as a saddle. It was the signal
for all to dismount, and like a troop of cavalry the Showut Poche-dakas
left their horses. They tied them to fenceposts and trees out of respect
for the landowner's rights in the matter of grass.

"Is all in readiness?" asked the ancient chief.

"Er--" Oliver paused.

A hand gripped his arm. "Yes," Jessamy's voice breathed in his ear.

"All is in readiness," said Oliver promptly.

Jessamy then stepped forward and offered her hand to Chupurosa.

"Hello, my Hummingbird!" she caroled mischievously in English.

"The light of the moon takes nothing from the Seņorita's loveliness,"
said the old man gallantly.

By this time the Showut Poche-dakas had formed a semicircle before the
cabin.

"Let us proceed to the Mona Fiesta," said Chupurosa. "Let the son of Dan
Smeed lead the way."

Over this strange new designation Oliver was given no time for thought;
for instantly Jessamy laid a firm grip above his elbow and led him to
the pasture gate. The Showut Poche-dakas followed at the heels of
Jessamy's mare.

"Don't worry," the girl whispered into Oliver's ear. "Nothing much will
be required of you. Just try to appear as if you know all about it, and
had attended to the preliminaries yourself."

"Yes, yes," said Oliver dazedly, his mind now in a whirl.

She led him across the pasture in the direction from which she had
ridden so unexpectedly to the cabin. They reached a little _arroyo_, and
down it they turned to the creekbed. They crossed the watercourse and
turned down it. Presently they entered a cluster of pines and spruce
trees, which was close to what Oliver called The Four Pools.

In succession, four deep depressions in the bedrock of the creekbed were
ranged, and each held clear, cool water, fed by an undiscovered spring,
though the creek proper was now entirely dry. In the bedrock about these
pools Oliver had previously noted several round holes the size of a
half-bushel measure. These were _morteros_, he knew--the mortars in
which the California Indians pound acorns in the making of the dish
_bellota_. He had often speculated on the probable antiquity of these
_morteros_, and had dreamed of early-day scenes enacted there and about
them.

There was a circular open space in the midst of the tall, whispering
trees. Just above this spot, up the steep hillside, he had lain in the
prospect hole and watched Digger Foss spying on the cabin down below,
while Tommy My-Ma hid under the brush and spied on him. Into the open
space in the trees the fearless girl led the way, and there in the
centre of it the moonlight streaming through the branches revealed a
huge pile of brush and wood, arranged as if for a great fire.

She pressed his arm, and they came to a halt. Behind them the Showut
Poche-dakas halted. To Oliver's side stepped Chupurosa, and spoke in the
tongue of the Paubas to a man at his right hand.

This man stepped to the pile of brush and wood and fired it.

As the flames leaped up and licked at the sun-dried fuel the Indians
closed in, and now the light of the fire showed Oliver that there were
women among their number. At the edge of the trees they formed a circle
about the fire, then all of them save Chupurosa squatted on the ground.

And now the firelight brought something else to view. It was nothing
more mysterious than a wooden drygoods box at the foot of one of the
pines, and beside it stood a large red earthen _olla_. What these held
Oliver could not see. He was puzzling over the fact that these simple
arrangements had been made on his land while he sat on his porch two
hundred yards away and smoked, for he had passed this spot early that
evening and it had been as usual then.

The dark-skinned men and women squatted there silently about the fire,
their serious black eyes blinking into it. There was something pathetic
about it all. They were always so serious, so intent, so devout; and
their poor, ragged clothes and bare feet were so evident.

"Join the circle," whispered Jessamy.

Oliver obeyed.

Then Jessamy stepped to Chupurosa, who had been gazing at her silently.

"Good-night, my Hummingbird," she said, and smiled at him.

An answering smile lighted the withered features, and once more the old
man took the girl's slim hand in his.

He dropped it. She turned and vaulted into her saddle. The mare leaped
away over the moonlit pasture. For a time the thudety-thud of her
galloping hoofs floated back, and then came silence.

Amid a continuation of this stillness Chupurosa stepped close to the
fire, now leaping high, and stretched forth his brown, wrinkled hands.
He threw back his head and began speaking softly, directing his voice
aloft. Not a word of what he said was known to Oliver. Gradually his
voice rose, and his tones were guttural, growling. His body swayed from
right to left, but he kept his withered hands outstretched. Presently
tears began trickling down his cheeks, but he continued his prayer, or
address, or invocation, his tears unheeded.

Now one by one his silent listeners began to weep. They wept silently,
and, but for their tears, Oliver would not have realized their deep
emotion. Sometimes they rocked from side to side, but always they
maintained silence and kept their tear-dimmed eyes focused on the
speaker.

Abruptly Chupurosa came to a full stop, backed from the fire, and
squatted on the ground inside the circle. No applause, not a word, no
sign of any nature followed the cessation of his harangue.

Now two young Indians led forth an old, old man. Each of them held one
of his arms. He was stooped and trembly, and his feet dragged pitiably;
and as he neared the fire Oliver saw that he was totally blind.

Never before in his life had the white man seen age so plainly stamped
on human countenance. Oliver had thought Chupurosa old, but he appeared
as a man in the prime of life in comparison with this blind patriarch.
His long hair was white as snow, and this in itself was a mark of
antiquity seldom seen in the race. It was not until long afterward that
Oliver found out that this man was a notable among the Pauba Tribes,
Maquaquish by name--the oldest man among them, a seer, counsellor, and
medicine man whose prophesies and prognostications were forceful in the
regulation of a great portion of the Paubas' lives. He was bareheaded,
barefooted, and wore only blue overalls, a cloth girdle, and a coarse
yellow shirt.

When at a comfortable distance from the fire the trio came to a stop.
The two conductors of the pathetic blind figure knelt promptly on one
knee, one on each side of him. With their bent knees touching behind
him, they gently lowered him until he found the seat which their sinewy
thighs had made for him. There was a few moments' silence, and then he
lifted his trembling hands and began to speak.

Oliver carried no watch, and would not have had the discourtesy to
consult it if he had; but he believed that Maquaquish spoke for two
solid hours without pause. And all this time the two who upheld him on
their knees and steadied him with their hands seemed not to move a
muscle. And not a sound came from the audience beyond an occasional
uncontrollable sob. Maquaquish spoke in hushed tones that blended
strangely with the night sounds of the forest. His physical attitude and
his delivery were those of a story-teller rather than an orator or
preacher; and his listeners hung on every word, their black bead eyes
fixed constantly on his face.

Oliver Drew was dreaming dreams. He would have given all that he had to
be able to interpret what Maquaquish was saying. What strange traditions
was he recalling to their minds? What hidden chapters in the bygone
history of this ancient race? Never was congregation more wrapped up in
a speaker's words. Never were religious zealots more devout. Strange
thoughts filled the white man's mind.

He was roused from his dreaming with a start. Maquaquish had ceased
speaking, and a low chanting sounded about the fire. It grew in volume
as the blind man's escort led him back to his place in the circle. It
grew louder, weirder still, as the two who had aided the seer stepped to
the drygoods box and carried it between them past the fire. As they
walked with it beyond the circle every Indian rose to his feet and
followed slowly. Oliver did likewise, not knowing what else to do.

On the brink of one of the pools the assemblage halted, the firelight
playing over them. From the box its custodians removed bolts of cheap
new calico cloth of many colours. Two of these they unwound, and laid
along the ground, leading away from the edge of the chosen pool.

Then the two slipped out of their clothes and stepped naked into the
water to their waists, where each laid hold of an end of a strip of
calico and stood motionless.

To the edge of the moonlit pool stepped Chupurosa. He extended his hands
over the water and spoke a few sonorous words. As his hands came down
the chanting broke out anew, and now the men in the water began
gathering in the strips of calico, washing the cloth in the water as
they reeled it to them.

At last they finished. The chanting ceased. The two nude men carried the
dripping cloth from the water in bundles. The assemblage filed back to
the dying fire, all but the two who had washed the cloth.

When the Showut Poche-dakas were once more squatting in a circle about
the blaze, one of the two, now dressed, entered the circle with the red
_olla_ filled with water from the pool. This was passed from hand to
hand around the circle, and each one drank from it. When it came to
Oliver he solemnly acted his part, and passed the _olla_ to his
left-hand neighbour.

As the _olla_ finished its round, into the circle danced the two who had
washed the cloth. In their arms they held bolts of dry cloth; and amid
shouts and laughter they threw them into the air, while the feminine
element of the tribe clutched up eagerly at them.

When the last bolt of calico had been thrown and had been captured and
claimed by some delighted squaw, the assemblage, talking and laughing in
an everyday manner, left the Four Pools and started back to their
horses.

The Mona Fiesta was over. Symbolically the clothes of the dead had been
washed. The Showut Poche-dakas had drunk of the water that had cleansed
them. And this was about all that Oliver Drew ever learned of the
significance of the ceremony.

At the cabin Chupurosa waited on his horse until his tribesmen had all
ridden through the gate. Then he leaned over and spoke to Oliver.

"When a year has passed," he said, "and the same moon which we see
tonight again looks down upon us, the Showut Poche-dakas will once more
wash the clothes of the dead and drink of the water. I enjoin thee,
Watchman of the Dead, to have all in readiness once more, as thou hadst
tonight. _Adios_, Watchman of the Dead!"

And he rode off slowly through the moonlight.




CHAPTER XXIII

THE QUESTION


The morning following the Feast of the Dead, Oliver Drew rode Poche out
of Clinker Creek Caņon, driving Smith ahead of them, on the way to
Halfmoon Flat for supplies. Over the hills above the American River he
saw a white horse galloping toward him.

This was to be a chance meeting with Jessamy. He had an idea she would
not be anxious to face him, after her attempted subterfuge of the night
before; so he slipped from the saddle, captured Smith, and led the two
animals back into the woods.

Then he hurried to a tree on the outskirts and hid behind it.

On galloped White Ann, with the straight, sturdy figure in the saddle.
As they came closer Oliver knew by her face that Jessamy had not seen
him; and as they came abreast he stepped out quickly and shouted.

Jessamy turned red, reined in, and faced him, her lips twitching.

"Good morning, my Star of Destiny!" he said.

A flutter of bafflement showed in her black lashes, but the lips
continued to twitch mischievously.

"_Buenos dias_, Watchman of the Dead!" she shot back at him.

Oliver's eyes widened.

"Got under your guard with that one, eh, ol'-timer? Just so!--if you'll
permit a Seldenism. Tit for tat, as the fella says! Your move again."

And then she threw back her head and laughed to the skies above her.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"Ridin'."

"You weren't headed for the Old Ivison Place."

"No, not this morning. I was not seeking you. But since I've met you,
and the worst is over, I'll not avoid you."

"Help me pack a load of grub down the caņon; then I'll go 'ridin' with
you."

She nodded assent.

"I thought so," she observed, as he led Poche and Smith from hiding.

"I thought you'd turn back, or turn off, if you saw me here ahead of
you," he made confession.

"I might have done that," she told him as they herded Smith into the
road and followed him.

They said nothing more about what had taken place the night before until
the bags had been filled and diamond-hitched, and Smith was rolling his
pack from side to side on the homeward trail. Then Oliver asked
abruptly:

"Who laid that fire, and put the box of cloth and the _olla_ at The Four
Pools yesterday?"

"Please, sir, I done it," she replied.

"When?"

"Just before I rode to your cabin last evening."

"Uh-huh!" he grunted, and fell silent again.

At the cabin she helped him throw off the diamond-hitch and unload the
packbags. Then the shaggy Smith was left to his own devices--much to his
loudly voiced disapproval--and Jessamy and Oliver rode off into the
hills.

"Which way?" he asked as they topped the ridge.

"Lime Rock," she replied.

Tracing cow paths single-file, they wound through and about chaparral
patches and rocky caņons till they reached the old trail that led to
Lime Rock.

Lime Rock upreared itself on the lip of a thousand-foot precipice that
overhung the river. It was three hundred feet in height, a gigantic
white pencil pointing toward the sky. At its base was a small level
space, large enough for a wagon and team to turn, but the remainder of
the land about and above it was hillside, too steep for cows to climb.
And from the edge of the level land the caņonside dropped straight
downward, a mass of craggy rocks and ill-nourished growth. The trail
that led to Lime Rock wound its way over a shelf four feet in width,
hacked in the hillside. One false step on this trail and details of what
must inevitably ensue would be hideous.

Oliver led the way when they reached the beginning of the trail. Both
Poche and White Ann were mountain bred animals, sure-footed and
unconcerned over Nature's threatening eccentricities. For a quarter of a
mile the bay and the white threaded the narrow path, their riders
silent. Then they came to Lime Rock and the security of the level land
about it.

Here Oliver and Jessamy sat their horses and gazed down the dizzy
precipice at the rushing river, and up the steep, rocky wall on the
other side.

"Do you know who owns the land on which our horses are standing?"
Jessamy finally asked.

"I've never given it a thought," said Oliver.

"It belongs to Damon Tamroy."

"That so? I didn't know he owned anything over this way."

"Yes, Damon owns it. But I have an option on it."

"You! Have an option on it!"

"Yes, a year's option. It was rather an underhanded trick that I played
on old Damon, but he's not very angry about it. It's my first business
venture.

"You see, I learned through a letter from a girl friend in San Francisco
that a big cement company was thinking of invading this country. She
wrote it merely as a bit of entertaining news, but I looked at it
differently.

"I knew where they'd begin their invasion. Right here! That magnificent
monument there is solid limestone, and the hills back of it are the
same, though covered by a thin layer of soil. So I went to the owner of
the land, Damon Tamroy, and got a year's option on it for twenty-five
dollars--a hundred and sixty acres.

"How Damon laughed at me! I told him outright why I wanted to buy the
land, if ever I could scrape enough together. He didn't consider it very
valuable, and it may become mine any day this year that I can pungle up
four hundred and seventy-five bucks more. When he quizzed me, I told him
frankly that I was doing it in an effort to preserve Lime Rock for
posterity, and he laughed louder than ever.

"But he changed his tune when a representative of the cement company
approached him with an offer of fifteen dollars an acre. He took his
loss good-naturedly enough, but accused me of putting over a slick
little business deal on him. I had done so, in a way, and admitted it;
and ever since I've been talking myself blue in the face when I meet
him, trying to convince him that it's not the money I'm after at all.

"Think of an old hog of a cement company coming in here and erecting a
rumbling old plant, with the noon whistle deriding the reverential calm
of this magnificent caņon, and their old drills and dynamite and things
ripping Lime Rock from its throne! Bah! I'm going to San Francisco soon
to get a job. I may decide to go this week. It will keep me hustling to
put away four hundred and seventy-five dollars between now and the day
my option expires."

Oliver sat looking gravely at the young idealist, suppressing his
disappointment over the possibility of her early departure.

"But we have to have cement," he pointed out.

"Do we? Maybe so. But there's lots of limestone in the west. Men don't
need to search out such spots as this in which to get it. There are less
picturesque places, which will yield enough cement material for all our
needs. Sometimes I think these big money-grabbers just love to ruin
Nature with their old picks and powder. You may agree with me or not--I
don't care. I'm not utilitarian, and don't care who knows it. The
world's against me in my big fight to keep the money hogs from robbing
life of all its poetry; but it's a fight to the last ditch! I'll save
Lime Rock, anyway, if I have to beg and borrow."

"I don't know that I disagree with you at all," he told her softly.
"Money doesn't mean a great deal to me. I've shed no idle tears over my
failure to inherit the money that I expected would be mine at Dad's
death. I hold no ill will toward Dad. There's too much wampum in the
world today. It won't buy much. The more people have the more they want.
The so-called 'standard of living' continues to rise, and with it the
ills of our civilization steadily increase. Luxuries ruin health.
Automobiles make our muscles sluggish. Moving pictures clog our thinking
apparatus. Telephones make us lazy. Phonographs and piano-players reduce
our appreciation of the technique of music, which can come only by study
and practice. What flying machines will do to us remains to be seen, but
they'll never carry us to heaven!

"No, money means little enough to me. Give me the big outdoors and a
regular horse, a keen zest in life, and true appreciation of every
creature and rock and tree and blade that God has created, and I'll
struggle along."

As he talked the colour had been mounting to her face. When he ceased
she turned starry eyes upon him, her white teeth showing between
slightly parted lips.

"Oliver Drew," she said, "you have made me very happy. I--"

A rush of blood throbbed suddenly at Oliver's temples, and once again he
swung his horse close to hers.

"I'll try to make you happy always," he said low-voiced. "Jessamy--"
Again he opened his arms for her, but as before she drew herself away
from him.

"Don't! Not--not now! Wait--Oliver!"

"Wait! Always wait! Why?"

"I--I must tell you something first. I can tell you now--after--after
last night."

"Then tell me quickly," he demanded.

She rested both hands on her saddle horn and rose in her stirrups. For a
long time her black eyes gazed down the precipice below them, while the
wind whipped wisps of hair about her forehead. Oliver waited, drunk with
the thought of his nearness to her.

"Watchman of the Dead!" she murmured at last.

Oliver started.

"Two years ago," she went on softly, "I met the second Watchman of the
Dead. You are the third. The first was murdered in this forest. His name
was Bolivio, and he made silver-mounted saddles and hair-tasseled
bridles."

Oliver scarce dared to breathe for fear of breaking the spell that
seemed to have come over her. She did not look at him. She continued to
gaze into her beloved caņon and at her beloved hills beyond.

"Oh, where shall I begin!" she cried at last. "Where is the beginning? A
man would begin at the first, I suppose, but a woman just can't! But I
won't be true to the feminine method and begin at the end. I won't be a
copy-cat. I'll begin in the middle, anyway."

A smile flickered across her red lips; but still she gazed away from
him.

"Two years ago," she said, "I met the dearest man."

Oliver straightened, and lumps shuttled at the hinges of his jaws.

"I was riding White Ann on one of my lonely wanderings through the
woods. I met him on the ridge above the Old Ivison Place and the river.

"After that I met him many times, in the forest and elsewhere; and the
more I talked with him the more I liked him. He was my idea of a man."

Oliver, too, was now gazing into the caņon, but he saw neither crags nor
trees nor rushing green river.

"And he grew to like me," her low tones continued. "We talked on many
subjects, but mostly of what we've been talking about today.

"He was an idealist, this man. He was comparatively wealthy, but there
are things in life that he placed above money and its accumulation. By
and by he grew to like me more and more, and finally he told me point
blank that I was his ideal woman; and then he grew confidential and told
me all about himself--his past, present, and what he hoped for in the
future. And in my hands he placed a trust. Please God, I have tried to
keep the faith!"

She threw back her head and followed the flight of an eagle soaring
serenely over Lime Rock. And with her eyes thus lifted she softly said:

"That man was Peter Drew--your father."

Oliver's breast heaved, but he made no sound. Once more her eyes were
sweeping the abyss.

"That's the middle," she said. "Now I'll go back to the beginning and
tell you what Peter Drew entrusted to my keeping.

"Thirty years ago Peter Drew, who then called himself Dan Smeed, was the
partner of Adam Selden. They mined and hunted and trapped together
throughout this country.

"There were other activities, too, which I shall not mention. You
understand. Your father told me all about it, kept nothing back.
Remember that I said he was my idea of a man; and if in his youth he had
been wild and--well, seemed criminally inclined--I found that easy to
forget. Certainly the manliness and sacrifice of his later years wiped
out all this a thousand times.

"Well, to proceed: Peter Drew and Adam Selden married Indian girls.
Peter Drew won out in the fire dance and became a member of the Showut
Poche-dakas. Adam Selden failed, and, according to the custom, took his
wife from the tribe and lived with her elsewhere. Six months afterward
the wife of Selden died.

"Peter Drew, however, having become a recognized member of the tribe,
was taken into their full confidence. According to their simple belief,
he had conquered all obstacles that stood between him and this
affiliation; therefore the gods had ordained that full trust should be
placed in him. And with their beautiful faith and simplicity they did
not question his honesty. So according to an old, old tradition of the
tribe the white man was appointed Watchman of the Dead.

"I know little of this story. All of the traditions of the Showut
Poche-dakas are clouded, so far as our interpretation of them goes. But
it appears, from what your father told me, that ages ago a white-skinned
chief had been Watchman of the Dead. Mercy knows where he came from,
for, so far as history goes, the whites had not then invaded the
country. But after him, whenever a white-skinned man conquered the evil
spirits of the fire and became a member, he was appointed Watchman of
the Dead. So in the natural order of things the honour came to Peter
Drew.

"Up to this time the only other Watchman of the Dead remembered by even
old Maquaquish and Chupurosa was the man called Bolivio. Holding this
simple office, it seems that Bolivio had stumbled upon the secret so
jealously guarded by the Showut Poche-dakas. He tried to turn this
secret information to his own advantage, and in so doing he broke faith
with the tribe that had adopted him as a brother. Found dead in the
forest with a knife in his heart, is the abrupt climax of his tale of
treachery. And so the tradition of the lost mine of Bolivio had its
birth.

"Centuries ago, no doubt, the Showut Poche-dakas discovered the
spodumene gems which were responsible for the fiction concerning the
lost mine of Bolivio. They polished them crudely and worshipped them.
Spodumene gems always are found in pockets in the rock, and they are
always hidden in wet clay in these pockets. Solid stone will be all
about them, with no trace of disintegrated matter, until a pocket is
struck. Therein will be found separate stones of varying sizes, always
sealed in a natural vacuum, which in some way forever retains moisture
in the clay.

"This peculiarity appealed to the superstitious natures of the Showut
Poche-dakas. It is their age-old custom to bury their dead in pockets
hacked in cliffs of solid stones, sealing them with a cement of clay and
pulverized granite. One can readily see how the discovery of these
beautiful gems, sealed in pockets as they sealed their dead, might
affect them. They determined that the glittering stones represented the
bodies of their ancestors, and from that time on the lilac-tinted gems
became something to be worshipped and guarded faithfully.

"Doubtless when Bolivio was appointed Watchman of the Dead he was told
this secret, and learned where the stones were to be found. He got some
of them, and sent them East to find out whether they were valuable. He
polished two, and placed them in bridle _conchas_. Then before word came
from New York the Indians stabbed him for his deceit.

"His elaborate equestrian outfit remained with the tribe, and your
father acquired it when he became Watchman of the Dead. For some reason
unknown to him, the stones were allowed to remain in the _conchas_; and
he told me that he always imagined them to be a symbol of his office.
Anyway, you, Oliver Drew, are the Watchman of the Dead, and your right
to own and use that gem-mounted bridle goes unchallenged by the Showut
Poche-dakas."

She paused reflectively.

"All this your father told me," she presently continued. "He told me,
too, that the secret place where the gems are to be found is on the Old
Ivison Place. It was unclaimed land then, and your father camped there
with his Indian wife, as was demanded of the Watchman of the Dead.
Before his time, Bolivio had camped there. Later, Old Man Ivison
homesteaded the place, knowing nothing of its strange history. He was a
kindly old man, liked by everybody; and each year he allowed the Indians
to hold their Mona Fiesta at The Four Pools. Though he had no idea why
they held it in this exact spot each time--that up the slope above them
was a hidden treasure that would have made the struggling homesteader
rich for life.

"Then your father told me the worst part of it all. He and Selden, it
seems, had found out more of the story of Bolivio than is to be
unravelled today, with most of the old-timers dead and gone and the
Indians always closemouthed. Anyway, they two found out about the secret
gems and the significance of the fire dance. So they had planned
deliberately to marry Indian girls to further their knowledge of this
matter.

"It was understood between them that Adam Selden would intentionally
fail to win out in the fire dance, and that Peter Drew, who was a
Hercules for endurance and strength, would win if he could, and thus
become Watchman of the Dead and learn the whereabouts of the brilliants.
This scheme they carried out, and Peter Drew took up residence with his
brown-skinned bride on what is today the Old Ivison Place.

"Then he redeemed himself by falling in love with his wife. In time he
found out where the gem pockets were situated. But when Selden came to
him to see if he'd stumbled on to the secret, he put him off and said,
'Not yet.'

"From the date of the Fiesta de Santa Maria de Refugio until the night
of the Mona Fiesta he remained undecided what to do. Somehow or other,
he told me, though he had been a highwayman and was then protected from
the flimsy law of that day only by his Indian brothers, he could not
bring himself to break faith with them.

"Then came the night of the first Mona Fiesta since he became Watchman
of the Dead; and that night temporarily decided him.

"When he squatted in the circle about the fire and saw the rapt,
tear-stained, brown faces of these people who had placed absolute faith
in him, he fell under the spell of their simplicity, and swore that so
long as he lived he would not betray their trust.

"And he lived up to it, with his partner, Adam Selden importuning him
daily to get the stones and skip the country. And finally to be rid of
Selden and the double game he was obliged to play, Peter Drew left with
his wife one night and did not return for fifteen years.

"And since then there has been no Watchman of the Dead until the night
you defeated the evil spirits in the fire dance.

"Out in the world of white men Peter Drew settled down to ranching. His
Indian wife had died two years after he left this country. With her
gone, and the new order of things all about him, he began to wonder if
he had not been a fool.

"Up here in the lonesome hills was wealth untold, so far as he knew, and
he renounced it for an ideal. To secure those gems he had only to show
ingratitude to the Showut Poche-dakas, had only to break faith with a
handful of ignorant, simple-minded Indians. What did they and their
ridiculous beliefs amount to in this great scheme of life as he now saw
it? Each day men on every hand were breaking faith to become wealthy,
were trampling traditions and ideals underfoot to gain their golden
ends. Business was business--money was money! Had he not been a fool?
Was he not still a fool--to renounce a fortune that was his for the
taking?

"He called himself an ignorant man. He told himself--and truly,
too--that countless men whom he knew, who had read a thousand books to
one merely opened by him--men of education, men of affairs--would laugh
at him, and themselves would have wrested the treasure from its hiding
place without a qualm of conscience. Civilization was stalking on in its
unconquerable march. Should a handful of uncouth Indians, a
superstitious, dwindling tribe of near-savages, be permitted to handicap
his part in this triumphal march? No--never!

"But always, when he made ready to return to the scenes of his young
manhood, there came before him the picture of brown, tear-stained faces
about a fire, and of an old blind man speaking softly as if telling a
story to eager children. Highwayman Peter Drew had been, but never in
his life had he broken faith with a friend. Loyalty was the very
backbone of my idealist, and he turned away from temptation and doggedly
followed his plough.

"For thirty years and more the question faced him. Should he get the
gems and be wealthy, and break faith with those who had entrusted him
with the greatest thing in their lives--these people who had called him
brother, whose last remnant of food or shelter was his for the asking?
Or should he remain an idealist, a poor man, but loyal to his trust? The
answer was No or Yes!

"Can't your imagination place you in his shoes? Unlettered, not sure of
himself, ashamed of what he doubtless termed his chicken-heartedness.
Don't you know that all of us are constantly ashamed of our secret
ideals--ashamed of the best that is in us? We fear the ridicule of
coarser minds, and hide what is Godlike in our hearts. And on top of
this, your father was ignorant, according to present day standards, and
knew it. But for thirty years, Oliver Drew, he prospered while his
idealism fought the battle against the lust for wealth. Idealism won,
but Peter Drew died not knowing whether he had been a wise man or a
fool. He died a conqueror. Give us more of such ignorance!

"And he educated you, left you penniless, and placed his momentous
question in your keeping.

"Fifteen years ago he bought the Old Ivison Place, though the Indians do
not know it. Adam Selden has searched for the gems without result ever
since Peter Drew left the country; and it was because of him that your
father kept his purchase a secret. Two years ago, while you were in
France, Peter Drew came here, met me and liked me, and told me all that
I have told you.

"He knew that when you rode into this country with the saddle and bridle
of Bolivio that the Showut Poche-dakas would know who you were, and
would take you in and make you Watchman of the Dead. Peter Drew wanted
you to be penniless, as he had been when he first faced the question. He
gave me money with which to help along the cause. So far I've only had
to use it for liquid courtplaster, an _olla_, and a few bolts of calico.
You were to learn nothing of the story from my lips. You were to face
the question blindly, with no other influences about you save those that
he had experienced.

"I have done my best to carry out his wishes. You are the Watchman of
the Dead. You own the land on which the treasure lies. You are brother
of the Showut Poche-dakas. The treasure is yours almost for the lifting
of a hand. You are almost penniless.

"There's your question, Oliver Drew. Say Yes and the gems are yours. Say
No, and you have forty acres of almost worthless land, a saddle horse
and outfit, and youth and health, and the lifetime office of Watchman of
the Dead!"

She ceased speaking. There were tears in her great black eyes as she
looked at him levelly.

"But--but--" Oliver floundered. "I don't know where the gems are. Selden
has hunted them for thirty years, and has failed to find them. I've seen
many evidences of his search. Will the Showut Poche-dakas tell me where
they are?"

"Your father thought that perhaps, after what has passed in connection
with former Watchmen of the Dead, you might not be told the exact
location. So he made provision for that."

She reached in her bosom and handed him an envelope sealed with wax.

On it he read in his father's hand:

"Map showing exact location of what is known as the lost mine of
Bolivio."

"If you open it," she said, "your answer probably will be No, and you
become owner of the gems. If you destroy it unopened, your answer is
Yes, and you are a poor man. Yes or No, Oliver Drew? Think over it
tonight, and I'll meet you here tomorrow at noon."

"What do _you_ want my answer to be?" he asked.

"I have no right to express my wishes in the matter," she said. "And
your answer is not to be told to me, you must remember, but to your
father's lawyers."

Then she turned White Ann into the narrow trail that led from Lime Rock.




CHAPTER XXIV

IN THE DEER PATH


The morning following the trip to Lime Rock, Oliver Drew sat at his
little home-made desk, his mind not on the work before him. Tilted
against the ink bottle stood the long, tough envelope that Jessamy had
given him, its black-wax seals still unbroken. He stared at it with
unseeing eyes.

After they had left Lime Rock, Jessamy had given him a little more
information on the subject which now loomed so big in his life.

She thought, she had said, that for years the Showut Poche-dakas had
suspected Old Man Selden of knowing something of their secret. They
could not have missed seeing the gophering that the old man had done on
the hillside above The Four Pools. She knew positively that the Indians
had kept a watchful eye on him, and it could be for no other reason.

The episode concerning Oliver's bayonet wound had come as a complete
surprise to her. It seemed now, she said, that Peter Drew had
communicated with Chupurosa not long before his death, and after
Oliver's return from France, and had told him to be prepared for the
coming of his son and how to make sure that he was genuine. She had not
known that Peter Drew had been in the Poison Oak Country again, since he
left after entrusting her with a hand in guiding Oliver's future.

She told of having overheard Adam Selden and Oliver's conversation that
night at Poison Oak Ranch, and of the other eavesdropper who had stolen
down from the spring. She was almost sure, she told him, that this man
was Digger Foss; but whether or not Foss knew of the treasure she could
not determine. Apparently, though, he suspected something of the kind,
and had been looking out for his own interests that night.

Yes, it was the bridle and saddle and the gem-mounted _conchas_ that had
changed Selden's attitude toward Oliver. The underlying reason for his
wishing Oliver off the Old Ivison Place had been the fear that the
search for the gems, which he had carried on intermittently for so long,
would be interrupted. But to his gang he had pretended that it was sheer
deviltry that caused him to contemplate driving the newcomer out.

Then a sight of the gem-mounted _conchas_ of his old partner, and the
fact that Oliver was at once taken into brotherhood by the Showut
Poche-dakas changed his plans. Oliver knew of the gems and had come to
seek them. He either was Dan Smeed's son, or had been taken into Dan
Smeed's confidence. Oliver would become Watchman of the Dead. If he did
not already know the location of the stones, he soon might learn it from
the Indians. His friendship must be cultivated by all means, so that
Selden might have the better chance of obtaining what he considered his
rightful share of the treasure.

Oliver had then told Jessamy of the prospect holes on the hillside, of
Digger Foss's spying on the cabin, of Tommy My-Ma's strange actions, and
of the lithia he had found.

"Yes, lithia is an indication of gems," she had told him. "And it would
appear that Digger knows of the treasure, after all. Perhaps sometime
Selden confided in him in a careless moment, to enlist his aid in the
search. They're pretty confidential. Digger was watching your movements,
to see if you had any definite idea of the location of the stones or
were searching for them blindly. That's it! He knows! But still he's
suspicious of Old Man Selden. All of the Poison Oakers are now. They
think he's double-crossing them some way, since he made friends with
you.

"As for Tommy My-Ma trailing Digger, I'm not surprised. No doubt the
Showut Poche-dakas are watching Old Man Selden and his gang as respects
their attitude toward the new Watchman of the Dead. If the Poison Oakers
had tried actually to molest you, I have an idea they'd have found
they'd bitten off a chunk. I think they would have had fifty Showut
Poche-dakas on their backs before they had gone very far."

All this passed through Oliver's mind again and again this morning, as
he sat there with pipe gone out and idle pencil in his fingers.

What a romance that old father had woven about the life of his son! How
skilfully and craftily he had planned so that Oliver would be thrown on
his own resources for an answer when he came face to face with the
question! How cleverly Jessamy had carried out the part entrusted to
her, despite her aversion to intrigues and plottings! Step by step she
had led him on till at last the question confronted him, just as it had
confronted his father before him.

To gain possession of the gems would be a simple matter. They were on
his land somewhere--were his by every right in law. He had but to invoke
the protection of the keepers of the peace against the Indians, break
the seals of the long envelope, and dig in the place indicated by the
map this envelope contained.

But there was one thing which doubtless Peter Drew had not foreseen in
his careful planning. He could not have known that his son was to fall
desperately in love with the guiding star that he had appointed for him.
And Oliver Drew knew in his heart that if he robbed the Indians of these
gems, which were to them only a symbol and had no meaning connected with
worldly wealth, he would lose the girl. The only thing that stood
between Jessamy and him, he now believed, was her uncertainty of what
his answer to the question would be. In her staunch heart she respected
the belief of the Showut Poche-dakas, and to her the gems as a symbol
were as worthy of her reverence as the Sacred Book of the Christians. "I
have as much reverence for a bareheaded Indian girl on her knees to the
Sun God as for a hooded nun counting her beads," she had said.

Oliver stared at the inside of the cabin door, scarred and carved and
full of bullet holes--at JESSAMY, MY SWEETHEART.

Peter Drew could not have foreseen this phase of the situation. In
securing the gems Oliver Drew not only would lose his self-respect and
make his father's thirty years of sacrifice a mockery, but he would lose
the girl he loved.

So Oliver took small credit to himself when he rose from his desk at
eleven o'clock, his mind made up.

He placed the letter unopened in his shirt front, and went out and
saddled Poche. Then he rode to the backbone and wormed his way along it
toward Lime Rock.

Jessamy was there ahead of him, sitting erect on White Ann's back,
gazing upon the rugged objects of her daily adoration.

"Well," she said, "you've come," and her level eyes searched him through
and through.

"Yes," he replied, riding to her side, "I've come; and my mind's made
up."

She raised her dark brows in an attempt to betoken a mild struggle
between politeness and indifference; but the hand on her saddle horn
trembled, and the red had gone out of her cheeks.

"I must get out of here tomorrow," he said, "and go to Los Angeles. I've
just about enough money to take me there and back; but I have the
unbounded faith of an amateur in several farm articles now in editors'
hands."

She lowered black lashes over her eyes and nodded slowly up and down.

"Exactly," she said. "You must carry out Peter Drew's instructions to
the letter."

"But I can tell _you_ what my answer to Dad's lawyers is going to be.
I--"

"Don't!" she cried, raising a protesting hand. "Not a word to me. My
responsibility ceased when I placed the envelope in your hands. I'm no
longer concerned in the matter. That is--" she hesitated.

"Yes, go on."

"Until after you have made your report to the attorneys," she added.
"Then, of course, I'll--I'll be sort of curious to know what your answer
is."

"Then I'll come straight back to tell you," he promised. "And--Why,
what's the matter!"

She had leaned forward suddenly in her saddle, and with wide eyes was
looking down the precipice. Then before she could answer there came to
Oliver's hearing the sound of a distant shot from the caņon.

Now he saw a puff of white smoke above the willows on the river bank, a
thousand feet below them. Then a second, and by and by another ringing
report reached them, and the echoes of it went loping from wall to wall
of the caņon.

"Merciful heavens!" cried Jessamy. "It's Old Man Selden! He's shot! Look
at him reel in his saddle! Oh, horrors!... There he goes down on the
ground!... But he's not killed! There--he's on his feet and shooting!"

Oliver, with open mouth, was staring down at the tragedy that had
suddenly been staged for them in the river bed. Now several puffs of
white smoke hung over the trees, and riders rode hither and thither like
pigmies on pigmy horses. Now and then a stream of flame spurted
horizontally, and at once another answered it. Then up barked the
reports, followed by their mocking echoes.

"It's come! It's come!" wailed Jessamy. "Obed Pence, likely as not, has
opened fire on Old Man Selden, and the boys are after him. Look--there's
Chuck and Bolar and Jay and Winthrop--and, oh, most all of them! It's a
general fight. Oh, I knew it would come! I knew it! Obed Pence has been
so nasty of late. They were all drunk last night. Poor mother! Oh, what
shall we do, Oliver? What can we do? We can't get down to them!"

"And could do nothing if we did," he said tensely.

Down below six-shooters still popped, and the balls of smoke continued
to grow in number over the willows. Horsemen dashed madly about,
shouting, firing. The two watchers learned later that Obed Pence,
supported by Muenster, Allegan, and Buchanan--all drunk for two days on
the fiery monkey rum--had lain in wait for Old Man Selden, and Pence had
ridden out and confronted him as he rode down the river trail,
supposedly alone. But the Selden boys for days had been hovering in the
background, to see that their father got a square deal when he and Obed
Pence next met. Pence and Adam Selden had drawn simultaneously; but the
hammer of the old man's Colt had caught in the fringe of his chaps, and
Obed had shot him through the left lung. Knowing their father to be a
master gunman, his sons, who had not been close enough to witness the
encounter, had jumped to the conclusion that Pence had fired from
ambush. They charged in accordingly, and opened fire on Pence, killing
him instantly. Then Pence's supporters had ridden forth in turn, and the
general gun fight was on.

"I can't sit here and see them murdering one another!" Jessamy sobbed
piteously. "They--they all may need killing, but--but I've lived with
the old man and the boys, and--and--My mother!" The tears streamed down
her cheeks as she made a trumpet of her hands and shouted down the
precipice:

"Stop it! Stop it at once, I say!"

Only the echoes of her piercing cry made answer, and she wrung her hands
and beat her breast in anguish.

"I'm going for help!" she cried abruptly. "They'll get behind trees
pretty soon, and fight from cover. I'll ride to Halfmoon Flat for the
constable and a posse to put a stop to this. Can't--can't you ride up
the trail and find a way down to them, Oliver? Old Man Selden maybe will
listen to you. Oh, maybe you can patch up peace between them!"

"I'll try," said Oliver grimly.

She wheeled White Ann and entered the narrow trail. Oliver followed.
Recklessly she moved her mare at her rolling singlefoot along the
dangerous trail, and eventually came out on the hillside. At once White
Ann leaped forward and sped over the hills, a streak of silver in the
noonday sun.

Oliver loped Poche to an obscure deer path that led down to the river,
and as swiftly as possible began negotiating it.

He had not progressed twenty yards when the chaparral before him
suddenly parted, and Digger Foss confronted him, his wicked Colt held
waist-high and levelled.

"Stick 'em up!" he growled. "Be quick!"

Thoroughly surprised, Oliver reined in, and Poche began to dance.
Mechanically Oliver raised his hands above his head, then almost
regretted that he had not tried to draw. But the picture of Henry Dodd
reeling against the legs of Jessamy's mare had been with him since his
first day in the Poison Oakers' country. He knew that the halfbreed's
aim was sure, and that his heart was a reservoir of venom.

The first shock passed, his composure returned in a measure. There stood
the halfbreed, spread-legged in the path. The lids of his Mongolic eyes
were lowered, and the beads of jet glittered wickedly from under them.
He was drunk as a lord, Oliver knew quite well from the augmented
insolence of his cruel lips; but Oliver knew that he might be all the
more deadly, and that some drunken gunmen can shoot better than when
sober.

"What is this?--a holdup?" he asked, and bit his lip as he noted the
tremble in his tones.

"A holdup is right," said Foss. "A holdup, an' a little business matter
you and me's got to attend to."

"Well, let's get at it!" Oliver snapped.

"I'm gonta kill you after our business is settled," Foss told him in a
matter-of-fact tone.

A cold chill ran along Oliver's spine. Should he make a dive for his
gun? Foss had every advantage, but--

Foss was stepping lazily nearer, his eyes intent on the horseman, his
six-shooter ready.

"Down there by the river they're fightin' it out all because o' you
buttin' into this country, where you ain't wanted." Foss had come to a
stop, and was leering up at him. "You've made trouble ever since you
come here. Old Man won't get rid o' you, but I'm goin' to today. But
first, where's them gems?"

"I can't tell you," said Oliver.

"You're a liar!"

"Thank you. You have the advantage of me, you know. Slip your gun in the
holster, and then call me a liar. I'll draw with you. My hands are
up--you'll still have the advantage of having your hand closer to your
gun butt."

"D'ye think you could draw with me?"

"I know it. And before you. Try it and see!"

Foss studied over this. "Maybe--maybe!" he said. "I never did throw down
on a man without givin' 'im a chance. But you got no chance with me,
kid. They don't make 'em that can get the drop on Digger Foss!"

"I'll take a chance," said Oliver quietly.

"We'll see about that later. But where's them stones?"

"I don't know, I tell you."

"What did you come up in this country for?"

"On matters that concern me alone."

"No doubt o' that--or so you think. But they're interestin' to me, too.
What's in that letter Jess'my handed you at Lime Rock yesterday?"

"Oh, you were sneaking about and saw that, were you! Through your
glasses, I suppose. Well, I haven't opened it, and don't know what's in
it. If I did I wouldn't tell you. My arms are growing a little tired.
Will you holster your gun and give me a chance before my arms play out?"

"I will if you come across with what you know about the gems. You might
as well. If I kill you, you won't be worryin' about gems. And if you
croak me, why, what if you did tell me?--I'm dead, ain't I?"

"There's sound logic in that," said Oliver grimly. "I'll take you up.
Put your gun in its holster and drop your hands to your sides. Then
we'll draw, with your gun hand three feet nearer your gun than mine will
be. Come! I've got business down below."

The halfbreed's eyes widened in unbelief. "D'ye really mean it, kid? You
saw me shoot Henry Dodd--d'ye really wanta draw with me?"

"I do."

"But then you'll be dead, and I won't know nothin' about the gems.
Unless that letter tells?"

"Perhaps. You mustn't expect me to take _all_ the chances, you know."

"Does the letter tell?"

"I haven't opened it, I say."

Foss studied in drunken seriousness. "And if you should happen to get
me, why--why, where am I at again?" he puzzled.

Oliver laughed outright. "You're an amusing creature," he said. "I don't
believe you're half the badman that you imagine you are." He believed
nothing of the sort, but his arms were growing desperately weary and he
must goad the drunken gunman into immediate action.

"There's just one thing that's the matter with you," he gibed on, ready
to descend to any speech that would cut the killer and break his deadly
calm. "That's my getting your girl away from you! It's not the gems;
it's that that hurts you. Why, say, do you think she'd wipe her feet on
you!"

Into the eyes of the halfbreed came a viperish light that almost stilled
Oliver's heartbeats. For an instant he feared that he had gone too far,
that Foss was about to shoot him down in cold blood.

Foss stood spread-legged in the path, as before, his face twisting with
anger, the fingers of his left hand clinching and unclinching
themselves. Then Oliver almost ceased to breathe as a silent, dark
figure slipped wraithlike from the chaparral and began stealing toward
the back of Digger Foss.

"That settles it," said Foss. "I'll kill you for that, gems or no gems!
Get ready! If you let down a hand while I'm puttin' up my gun I'll kill
you like that!" He snapped the fingers of his left hand.

"I'll stick by my bargain," Oliver assured him, his glance struggling
between Foss and that silent figure slinking in his rear.

What should he do? There was murder in the black eyes of the man who
stole so stealthily upon the gunman's back. Should he shout to Foss? His
sense of fair play cried out that he should. But Foss might misinterpret
the meaning of his upraised voice, and fire. Should he--

"Here goes! I'm puttin' up my gun. Get ready, kid! When I--"

There was a leap, a flash of steel in the sunlight, a scream of
agonizing pain.

Oliver's gun was out and levelled; but Foss was staggering from side to
side, his arms limp before him, his head lopped forward as if he
searched for something on the ground. He collapsed and lay there gasping
hideously in the path, in a growing pool of blood.

The chaparral opened and closed again; and then only Oliver and the man
in his death throes were remaining.

Even as Bolivio had died, so died Digger Foss, in a path in the
wilderness, with the knife of a Showut Poche-daka in his back.




CHAPTER XXV

THE ANSWER


Two weeks had passed since the battle of the Poison Oakers. That
organization was now no more. Jessamy's efforts to mobilize a posse to
stop the fight had proved fruitless. Only the constable and Damon Tamroy
rode back with her with first aid packages, for Halfmoon Flat had voiced
its indifference in a single sentence--"Let 'em fight it out!" Those
whom the constable would have deputized promptly made themselves scarce.

So the Poison Oakers had fought it out, and in so doing appended "Finis"
to the annals of their gang. Old Man Selden died two days after the
battle. Winthrop was killed outright, and Moffat was seriously wounded,
but might recover. Obed Pence was dead; Digger Foss was dead. Jay
Muenster was dead. Thus half of their numbers were wiped out, and among
them the controlling genius of the gang, Old Man Selden. And without him
those remaining, already split into two factions, were as a ship without
a rudder.

And all because of Oliver Drew!

Oliver stepped from the train at Halfmoon Flat this afternoon, two weeks
after the fight. He had helped Jessamy and her mother through the
difficulties arising from the tragedy, had appeared as witness at the
inquest, and had then hurried to Los Angeles with his sealed envelope.
Now, returning, he caught Poche in a pasture close to the village and
saddled him.

It was one o'clock in the afternoon. He had lunched on the diner, so at
once he lifted Poche into his mile-devouring lope and headed straight
for Poison Oak Ranch.

What changes had taken place since first he galloped along that road,
barely four months before! Few with whom he had come in contact were
still pursuing the even tenor of their ways, as then. He thought of the
fight and of the spectacular death of Digger Foss. At the inquest he had
been unable to throw any light on the identity of the halfbreed's
murderer. He was an Indian--beyond this Oliver could say no more. The
coroner had quizzed him sharply. Whereupon Oliver had asked that
official if he himself thought it likely that he could have looked into
the muzzle of a Colt revolver in the hands of Digger Foss, and at the
same time make sure of the identity of a man stealing up behind him. The
coroner had scratched his head. "I reckon I'd 'a' been tol'able
int'rested in that gun o' Digger's," was his confession.

And Oliver had told the truth. To this day he does not know who killed
the gunman--but he knows that in all probability his own life was saved
when it occurred, and that it was a Showut Poche-daka who struck the
blow.

At Poison Oak Ranch he found Jessamy awaiting him. He had sent her a
wire the day before, telling her he was coming, and the hour he would
arrive.

They shook hands soberly, and after a short conversation with Mrs.
Selden, Oliver saddled White Ann for Jessamy and they rode away into the
hills. They were for the most part silent as their horses jogged along
manzanita-bordered trails. Instinctively they avoided Lime Rock and its
vicinity, and made toward the north, up over the hog-back hills, now
sear and yellow, which climbed in interminable ranks to the snowy peaks.
They came to a ledge that overlooked the river, and here they halted
while the girl gazed down on scenes that never wearied her.

They dismounted presently and seated themselves on two great grey
stones. Jessamy rested her round chin in her hand, and from under long
lashes watched the green river winding about its serpentine curves
below.

The tragedy of death had left its mark on her face. There was a sober,
half-pathetic droop to the red lips. The comradely black eyes were
thoughtful. But the self-reliant poise of the sturdy shoulders still was
hers, and the sense of strength that she exhaled was not impaired.

Her dress today was not rugged, as was ordinarily the case when she rode
into the hills. She wore a black divided skirt, and a low-neck
yellow-silk waist, trimmed with black, and a black-silk sailor's
neckerchief. To further this effect a yellow rose nestled in her
night-black hair. She looked like a gorgeous California oriole, so trim
was her figure, so like that bird's were the contrast of colours she
displayed. And her voice when she spoke, low and clear and throbbing
melodiously, reminded him of the notes of this same sweet songster at
nesting time.

Oliver sat looking at the profile of her face, with the wind-whipped
hair about it. More fully than ever now he realized that she was
everything in life to him. And today--now!--smilingly, unabashed.

"Well, Jessamy," he began, "I have seen Dad's lawyers." She turned her
face toward him, but still rested her elbow on her knee, one cheek now
cupped by her hand.

"Yes," she said softly. "Tell me all about it."

"And I gave them my answer to the question."

For several moments her level glance searched his face, a little smile
on her lips.

"And what is your answer?" she asked.

He rose and moved to the stone on which she sat, seating himself beside
her.

"Don't you know what my answer is?" he asked softly.

She continued to look at him fearlessly, smilingly, unabashed.

"I think I know," she said. "But tell me."

"My answer," he said, "is the same that dear old Dad kept repeating for
thirty years. I shall not enrich myself by sacrificing the confidence
placed in me. I shall remain loyal to my simple trust. I am the Watchman
of the Dead."

Her lips quivered and her eyes glowed warmly, and two tears trickled
down her cheeks. Oliver took from his shirt the envelope and showed her
the black seals, still unbroken. Then on a flat rock before them he made
a tiny fire of grass and twigs, and placed the envelope on top of it.
Then he lighted a match.

"The funeral pyre of my worldly fortune!" he apostrophized. "The lost
mine of Bolivio will be lost indeed when the map has burned."

Together they watched the tiny fire in silence, till the black wax
sputtered and dripped down on the stone, and the eager flames crinkled
the envelope and its contents and reduced them to ashes.

"And now?" said Oliver.

"And now!" echoed Jessamy.

He slowly placed both arms about her and lifted her, unresisting, to her
feet. He drew her close, brushed back her hair, and looked deep into
eyes from which tears streamed unrestrained. Then she threw her arms
about his shoulders, and, with a glad laugh, half hysterical, she drew
his head down and kissed him time and again.

His hour had come. Oliver Drew had captured the star that had led him on
and on--his Star of Destiny. Warm were her lips and tremulous--glowing
were her eyes for love of him. His pulse leaped madly as she gave
herself to him in absolute surrender.

"There's another matter," he said five minutes later, as she lay silent
in his arms, with the fragrance of her hair in his nostrils. "Old
Danforth, the head of the firm of attorneys that attended to Dad's
affairs, looked at me keenly from under shaggy brows when I gave my
answer.

"'So it's No, is it, young man?' he said.

"'No it is,' I told him.

"'In that case,' he said, 'you are to come with me.'

"He took me to a bank and opened a safe-deposit box in the vaults. He
showed me bonds totalling over a hundred thousand dollars, and cash that
represented the interest coupons the firm had been clipping since Dad
died.

"'Here's the key,' he told me. 'If your answer had been yes, these
bonds, too, would have gone to the church. For then you would have had
the gems. Your father didn't mean to leave you penniless. You would have
been fairly well off, I imagine, whether your answer had been Yes or No.
Your father wanted his question answered by a man of education, and I
think he would be pleased at your decision.'"

Jessamy had straightened and twisted in his arms till her face was close
to his.

"Peter Drew never hinted at that to me!" she cried. "I--I suppose you'd
have nothing but the Old Ivison Place if you answered No. Oh, my
romantic Old Peter Drew! God rest his soul! I'm so glad."

"Glad, eh?" He smiled whimsically at her, and she quickly interpreted
his thoughts.

"Oh, but, Oliver--you don't understand! It's not that you're wealthy,
after all--but now you can give Damon Tamroy just what the cement
company would have paid him for Lime Rock!"

"Lime Rock shall be your wedding gift," he laughed.

"Oh, Oliver! And--and when we're--married, you won't take me away from
the Poison Oak Country, will you, dear! I'll go anywhere you say--but
these hills, and the river, and Lime Rock, and Old Dad Sloan, and--my
Hummingbird--and the perfume of the manzanita blossoms in
spring--and--oh, I love my country next to you, dear heart! And in my
dreams I loved you even before you came riding to me in the
silver-mounted saddle of Bolivio, like a knight out of the past. This is
my country--and if we must go, I'll pine for it--and maybe die like the
Indian bride. I want to stay here, Oliver dear--with you--down on the
dear Old Ivison Place!"

Oliver tenderly kissed his Star of Destiny. "I have no other plans," he
whispered into her ear. "My place is there.... I am the Watchman of the
Dead!"


THE END





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