Part 11 (2/2)

When Mr. Twiggs had departed again, accompanied by a partner to guide him past the dangerous shoals of Tomlinson's grocery, Rice clapped his hand on Wells's shoulder. ”If it hadn't been for me, sonny, that shark would have landed you into some compromise with that red-haired gal! I saw you weakenin', and then I chipped in. I may have piled up the agony a little on your love for old Quince, but if you aren't an ungrateful cub, that's how you ought to hev been feein', anyhow!”

Nevertheless, the youthful Wells, although touched by his elder partner's loyalty, and convinced of his own disinterestedness, felt a painful sense of lost chivalrous opportunity.

On mature consideration it was finally settled that Jackson Wells should make his preliminary examination of his inheritance alone, as it might seem inconsistent with the previous indifferent att.i.tude of his partners if they accompanied him. But he was implored to yield to no blandishments of the enemy, and to even make his visit a secret.

He went. The familiar flower-spiked trees which had given their name to Buckeye Hollow had never yielded entirely to improvements and the incursions of mining enterprise, and many of them had even survived the disused ditches, the scarred flats, the discarded levels, ruined flumes, and roofless cabins of the earlier occupation, so that when Jackson Wells entered the wide, straggling street of Buckeye, that summer morning was filled with the radiance of its blossoms and fragrant with their incense. His first visit there, ten years ago, had been a purely perfunctory and hasty one, yet he remembered the ostentatious hotel, built in the ”flush time” of its prosperity, and already in a green premature decay; he recalled the Express Office and Town Hall, also pa.s.sing away in a kind of similar green deliquescence; the little zinc church, now overgrown with fern and brambles, and the two or three fine substantial houses in the outskirts, which seemed to have sucked the vitality of the little settlement. One of these--he had been told--was the property of his rich and wicked maternal uncle, the hated appropriator of his red-headed cousin's affections. He recalled his brief visit to the departed testator's claim and market garden, and his by no means favorable impression of the lonely, crabbed old man, as well as his relief that his objectionable cousin, whom he had not seen since he was a boy, was then absent at the rival uncle's. He made his way across the road to a sunny slope where the market garden of three acres seemed to roll like a river of green rapids to a little ”run” or brook, which, even in the dry season, showed a trickling rill. But here he was struck by a singular circ.u.mstance. The garden rested in a rich, alluvial soil, and under the quickening Californian sky had developed far beyond the ability of its late cultivator to restrain or keep it in order.

Everything had grown luxuriantly, and in monstrous size and profusion.

The garden had even trespa.s.sed its bounds, and impinged upon the open road, the deserted claims, and the ruins of the past. Stimulated by the little cultivation Quincy Wells had found time to give it, it had leaped its three acres and rioted through the Hollow. There were scarlet runners crossing the abandoned sluices, peas climbing the court-house wall, strawberries matting the trail, while the seeds and pollen of its few homely Eastern flowers had been blown far and wide through the woods. By a grim satire, Nature seemed to have been the only thing that still prospered in that settlement of man.

The cabin itself, built of unpainted boards, consisted of a sitting-room, dining-room, kitchen, and two bedrooms, all plainly furnished, although one of the bedrooms was better ordered, and displayed certain signs of feminine decoration, which made Jackson believe it had been his cousin's room. Luckily, the slight, temporary structure bore no deep traces of its previous occupancy to disturb him with its memories, and for the same reason it gained in cleanliness and freshness. The dry, desiccating summer wind that blew through it had carried away both the odors and the sense of domesticity; even the adobe hearth had no fireside tales to tell,--its very ashes had been scattered by the winds; and the gravestone of its dead owner on the hill was no more flavorless of his personality than was this plain house in which he had lived and died. The excessive vegetation produced by the stirred-up soil had covered and hidden the empty tin cans, broken boxes, and fragments of clothing which usually heaped and littered the tent-pegs of the pioneer. Nature's own profusion had thrust them into obscurity.

Jackson Wells smiled as he recalled his sanguine partner's idea of a treasure-trove concealed and stuffed in the crevices of this tenement, already so palpably picked clean by those wholesome scavengers of California, the dry air and burning sun. Yet he was not displeased at this obliteration of a previous tenancy; there was the better chance for him to originate something. He whistled hopefully as he lounged, with his hands in his pockets, towards the only fence and gate that gave upon the road. Something stuck up on the gate-post attracted his attention.

It was a sheet of paper bearing the inscription in a large hand: ”Notice to trespa.s.sers. Look out for the Orphan Robber!” A plain signboard in faded black letters on the gate, which had borne the legend: ”Quincy Wells, Dealer in Fruit and Vegetables,” had been rudely altered in chalk to read: ”Jackson Wells, Double Dealer in Wills and Codicils,” and the intimation ”Bouquets sold here” had been changed to ”Bequests stole here.” For an instant the simple-minded Jackson failed to discover any significance of this outrage, which seemed to him to be merely the wanton mischief of a schoolboy. But a sudden recollection of the lawyer's caution sent the blood to his cheeks and kindled his indignation. He tore down the paper and rubbed out the chalk interpolation--and then laughed at his own anger. Nevertheless, he would not have liked his belligerent partners to see it.

A little curious to know the extent of this feeling, he entered one of the shops, and by one or two questions which judiciously betrayed his owners.h.i.+p of the property, he elicited only a tradesman's interest in a possible future customer, and the ordinary curiosity about a stranger.

The barkeeper of the hotel was civil, but brief and gloomy. He had heard the property was ”willed away on account of some family quarrel which 'warn't none of his'.” Mr. Wells would find Buckeye Hollow a mighty dull place after the mines. It was played out, sucked dry by two or three big mine owners who were trying to ”freeze out” the other settlers, so as they might get the place to themselves and ”boom it.” Brown, who had the big house over the hill, was the head devil of the gang! Wells felt his indignation kindle anew. And this girl that he had ousted was Brown's friend. Was it possible that she was a party to Brown's designs to get this three acres with the other lands? If so, his long-suffering uncle was only just in his revenge.

He put all this diffidently before his partners on his return, and was a little startled at their adopting it with sanguine ferocity. They hoped that he would put an end to his thoughts of backing out of it. Such a course now would be dishonorable to his uncle's memory. It was clearly his duty to resist these blasted satraps of capitalists; he was providentially selected for the purpose--a village Hampden to withstand the tyrant. ”And I reckon that shark of a lawyer knew all about it when he was gettin' off that 'purp stuff' about people's sympathies with the girl,” said Rice belligerently. ”Contest the will, would he? Why, if we caught that Brown with a finger in the pie we'd just whip up the boys on this Ledge and lynch him. You hang on to that three acres and the garden patch of your forefathers, sonny, and we'll see you through!”

Nevertheless, it was with some misgivings that Wells consented that his three partners should actually accompany him and see him put in peaceable possession of his inheritance. His instinct told him that there would be no contest of the will, and still less any opposition on the part of the objectionable relative, Brown. When the wagon which contained his personal effects and the few articles of furniture necessary for his occupancy of the cabin arrived, the exaggerated swagger which his companions had put on in their pa.s.sage through the settlement gave way to a pastoral indolence, equally half real, half affected. Lying on their backs under a buckeye, they permitted Rice to voice the general sentiment. ”There's a suthin' soothin' and dreamy in this kind o' life, Jacksey, and we'll make a point of comin' here for a couple of days every two weeks to lend you a hand; it will be a mighty good change from our n.i.g.g.e.r work on the claim.”

In spite of this a.s.surance, and the fact that they had voluntarily come to help him put the place in order, they did very little beyond lending a cheering expression of unqualified praise and unstinted advice. At the end of four hours' weeding and tr.i.m.m.i.n.g the boundaries of the garden, they unanimously gave their opinion that it would be more systematic for him to employ Chinese labor at once.

”You see,” said Ned Wyngate, ”the Chinese naturally take to this kind o'

business. Why, you can't take up a china plate or saucer but you see 'em pictured there working at jobs like this, and they kin live on green things and rice that cost nothin', and chickens. You'll keep chickens, of course.”

Jackson thought that his hands would be full enough with the garden, but he meekly a.s.sented.

”I'll get a pair--you only want two to begin with,” continued Wyngate cheerfully, ”and in a month or two you've got all you want, and eggs enough for market. On second thoughts, I don't know whether you hadn't better begin with eggs first. That is, you borry some eggs from one man and a hen from another. Then you set 'em, and when the chickens are hatched out you just return the hen to the second man, and the eggs, when your chickens begin to lay, to the first man, and you've got your chickens for nothing--and there you are.”

This ingenious proposition, which was delivered on the last slope of the domain, where the partners were lying exhausted from their work, was broken in upon by the appearance of a small boy, barefooted, sunburnt, and tow-headed, who, after a moment's hurried scrutiny of the group, threw a letter with unerring precision into the lap of Jackson Wells, and then fled precipitately. Jackson instinctively suspected he was connected with the outrage on his fence and gate-post, but as he had avoided telling his partners of the incident, fearing to increase their belligerent att.i.tude, he felt now an awkward consciousness mingled with his indignation as he broke the seal and read as follows:--

SIR,--This is to inform you that although you have got hold of the property by underhanded and sneaking ways, you ain't no right to touch or lay your vile hands on the Cherokee Rose alongside the house, nor on the Giant of Battles, nor on the Maiden's Pride by the gate--the same being the property of Miss Jocelinda Wells, and planted by her, under the penalty of the Law. And if you, or any of your gang of ruffians, touches it or them, or any thereof, or don't deliver it up when called for in good order, you will be persecuted by them.

AVENGER.

It is to be feared that Jackson would have suppressed this also, but the keen eyes of his partners, excited by the abruptness of the messenger, were upon him. He smiled feebly, and laid the letter before them. But he was unprepared for their exaggerated indignation, and with difficulty restrained them from das.h.i.+ng off in the direction of the vanished herald. ”And what could you do?” he said. ”The boy's only a messenger.”

”I'll get at that d----d skunk Brown, who's back of him,” said Dexter Rice.

”And what then?” persisted Jackson, with a certain show of independence.

”If this stuff belongs to the girl, I'm not certain I shan't give them up without any fuss. Lord! I want nothing but what the old man left me--and certainly nothing of HERS.”

Here Ned Wyngate was heard to murmur that Jackson was one of those men who would lie down and let coyotes crawl over him if they first presented a girl's visiting card, but he was stopped by Rice demanding paper and pencil. The former being torn from a memorandum book, and a stub of the latter produced from another pocket, he wrote as follows:--

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