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 cañon and disappeared in the trees.
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 cañons, 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.
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 cañon.
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!"
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!
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 cañon. 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.