Part 4 (1/2)

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

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

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

She was riding straight down the canon, the white mare gingerly picking her way between boulders and snarls of driftwood. The girl looked up.

Oliver felt that she saw him. Her ears could not have been insensible to the ring of his pick on the flinty stones. She did not leave the trail, however, but continued on in his direction.

He rested on the handle of his tool and waited.

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

The girl smiled and returned his greeting brightly.

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

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

She was no fragile reed, this girl. She was rather more substantially built than most members of her s.e.x. Her figure was straight and tall and rounded, and her strong, graceful neck upreared itself proudly between st.u.r.dy shoulders. Grace and strength, rather than purely feminine beauty, predominated in the impression she created in Oliver. She wore a man's Stetson hat over her lavish crown of coal-black hair, a man's flannel s.h.i.+rt, a whipcord divided skirt, and dark-russet riding boots.

The saddle that she rode in had not been built for a woman to handle, and, with its long, pointed tapaderos, must have weighed close to fifty pounds. The steady, friendly, confident gaze of her large black eyes was thrilling. A man instinctively felt that, if he could win this woman, he would have acquired a wife among a thousand, a loyal friend and comrade, and a partner who could and would shoulder more than a woman's share of their load.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The girl loosed her within the inclosure, and let her drag her reins.

Poche trotted up to make the white's acquaintance, followed by the new mouse-coloured burro, Smith, who long since had a.s.sumed a ”where thou goest I will go” affection for the bay saddler.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

”Er--why, certainly,” he stammered. ”Please don't think me inhospitable.