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. "Señor 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 Cañon that is called the Old Ivison Place, Chupurosa?"
His nod this time was thoughtful.
"Señor 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.
"Señor Drew rode all the way up here horseback," the girl pushed on. "You like good horses, Chupurosa. Señor 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 Señor Drew's equipment, Chupurosa."
Several thoughtful puffs. Then—
"Is it here, Señorita?"
"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.
"Señor," 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.
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 cañon. 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 cañon springs are connected. That is, they all are outbreaks from one large vein that follows the cañon. 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 Cañon."
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."
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 cañon. 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 cañon 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 cañon. 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 cañons for Sulphur Spring, but two hours had elapsed before he found it.
It was hidden away in a little wooded cañon, 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.
White Ann and Poche bore their riders slowly along the backbone of the ridge that upreared itself between Clinker Creek Cañon 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 cañon.
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 cañons 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 cañons.
"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.