The Heritage of the Hills Part 9

The patriarch shook his head. "Bad egg; bad egg!" he said sonorously.

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

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

But the old eyes remained blank, and the grey head shook slowly from side to side. "I recollect clear as day what happened sixty to seventy year ago, but I can't recollect what I did last week or where I went,"

Dad Sloan said pathetically. "If I'd ever heard o' Peter Drew in the days o' forty-nine to seventy, I'd recollect it."

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

"Yes, Dan Smeed had a partner," mused Dad Sloan. "Bad egg, Dan Smeed.

Squawman, highwayman, outlaw. Disappeared with his fine saddle and bridle and martingales and the stones from the lost mine o' Bolivio."

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

The old mind seemed to be wandering once more. "Bad eggs--both of 'em.

Bad eggs," was the only answer she could get.

"Well, we're progressing slowly," Jessamy observed as they rode away.

"Our next step must be to visit the Indians. I know a number of them.

Filipe Maquaquish, for instance, and Chupurosa are as old or older than Old Dad Sloan. Chupurosa's face is a pattern in crinkled leather. When we go to see Aunt Nancy Fleet we'll visit the Indian village. And that will be--when?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER VIII

POISON OAK RANCH

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

Jessamy waved good-bye to her new friend at the parting of the ways and lifted White Ann into her long lope to the summit of the denuded hill.

For a little, as they crossed the topmost part of it, the deep, rugged scar that marked the course of the river was visible. Ragged and rocky and covered with trees and chaparral, the canonside slanted down dizzily for over fifteen hundred feet. At the bottom the deep green river rushed pell-mell to the lower levels. A moment and the view was lost to the girl, as White Ann entered the thick chaparral and started the swift descent.

At last they reached the bottom, forded the swirling stream, and began clambering up a trail as steep as the first on the other side. Soon the river was lost to view again, for once more the trail had been cut through a seemingly impenetrable chaparral of buckthorn, manzanita and scrub oak. Around and about tributary canons they wound their way, and at last reached the end of the steep climb. For a quarter of a mile now the trail followed the backbone of a ridge, then entered a canon that eventually spread out into a pine-bordered plateau on the mountainside.

Just ahead lay Poison Oak Ranch. Beyond, the deep, dark forest extended in miles numbered by hundreds to the snow-mantled peaks of the Sierra Nevada range.

While it was possible to reach Poison Oak Ranch from this side of the river, the journey on Shank's mare would have taken on something of the nature of an exploring expedition into unmapped lands. Occasionally hunters wandered to or past the ranch on this side; but for the most part any one who fancied that he had business at Poison Oak Ranch came over the narrow trail that connected the spot with outside civilization.

Few entertained such a fancy, however, for Poison Oak Ranch, secluded, hidden from sight, tucked away in the Hills of Nowhere, and difficult of access, was owned and controlled by a clannish family that had little in common with the world.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Selden's bushy brows came down as he sc.r.a.ped his chair to the table.

Mail for any Selden was an unusual occurrence.

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

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

"Fer me?"

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

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

"It's generally customary to open a letter and read who it is from,"

said Jessamy lightly. "In this instance, however, you will find a notation on the flap of the envelope that reads: 'From Oliver Drew, Halfmoon Flat, California.'"

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

"D'he give it to ye?"

"It is postmarked Halfmoon Flat," said Jessamy, taking her seat beside Bolar, who, indifferent to his father's difficulties, had already consumed three fluffy biscuits spread with b.u.t.ter and wild honey.

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

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

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

Jessamy's round left shoulder gave a little shrug of indifference.

"Coffee, Moffat?" she asked.