Part 15 (1/2)

This was that the supposed bedrock was not bedrock at all, but a wall of large stones built by the hand of man. Through a crevice in this wall the water seeped, and when he had gouged out the puttylike blue clay the flow increased fivefold.

He sat down and puzzled over it, expecting the flow to return to normal after some tiny unseen reservoir had been drained of its surplus. But it did not lessen, and had not lessened when night came.

At midnight, thinking about it in bed and unable to sleep, he arose, lighted a lantern, and went down to the spring. The water was flowing just the same as when he had left it.

He was not surprised to find the work of human hands in and about his spring, but this wall of stones was highly irregular. It appeared that, instead of having been built to conserve the water, it was designed to dam up the flow entirely. The old flow was merely seepage through the wall.

He was at it again early next morning, and soon had torn down the wall entirely and thrown out the stones. At least five times as much water was running still. He recalled that Damon Tamroy had said the spring had given more water in Tabor Ivison's day than now.

There was but one answer to the puzzle. For some strange reason somebody since Tabor Ivison's day had seen fit to try to stop the flow from the spring altogether. But who would go to such pains to do this, and hide the results of his work, as these had been hidden? And, above all, why?

It is useless to deny that Oliver Drew at once thought of the Poison Oakers. But what excuse could they produce for such an act? Surely, with the creek dry and the American River several miles away, they would encourage the flow of water everywhere in the Clinker Creek Country for their cattle to drink.

It was beyond him then and he gave it up. He laid more pipe and covered it all to the land level again, and viewed with satisfaction the increased supply of water for the dry summer months to come. And it was not until a week later that Jessamy Selden unconsciously gave him an answer to the question.

He was scrambling up the hill to the west of the cabin that day to another bee tree that he had discovered, when he heard her shrill shouting down below. He turned and saw her and the white mare before the cabin, and the girl was looking about for him.

He returned her shout, and stood on a blackened stump in the chaparral, waving his hat above the foliage.

”I get you!” she shrilled at last. ”Stay there! I'm coming up!”

Fifteen minutes later, panting, now on hands and knees, now crawling flat, she drew near to him. A bird can go through California ”locked”

chaparral if it will be content to hop from twig to twig, but the ponderous human animal must emulate Nebuchadnezzar if he or she would penetrate its mysteries.

”What a delightful route you chose for your morning crawl,” she puffed, as at last she lay gasping at the foot of the stump on which he sat and laughed at her.

Oliver lighted a cigarette and inhaled indolently as he watched her lying there with heaving breast, her arms thrown wide. She did everything as naturally as does a child. She wore fringed leather chaps today, and remarked, when she sat up and dusted the trash from her hair, that she was glad she had done so since he had made her come crawling to his feet.

”And that reminds me of something that I've decided to ask you,” she added. ”Has it occurred to you that I am throwing myself at you?” She looked straight into his face as she put the nave question to him.

”Why do you ask that?” he countered, eyes on the tip of his cigarette.

”I'll tell you why when you've answered.”

”Then of course not.”

”I suppose I _am_ a bit crude,” she mused. ”At least it must look that way to the natives here-about. I was fairly confident, though, that you wouldn't think me unmaidenly. I sought you out deliberately. I was lonely and wanted a friend. I had heard that you were a University man.

You told Mr. Tamroy, you know. It's perfectly proper deliberately to try and make a friend of a person, isn't it?--if you think both of you may be benefited. And does it make a great deal of difference if the subject chances to be of the other s.e.x?”

”I'm more than satisfied, so far as I come in on the deal,” Oliver a.s.sured her.

”I thank you, sir. And now I've been accused to my face of throwing myself at you--which expression means a lot and which you doubtless fully understand.”

”Who is your accuser?”

”The author of 'Jessamy, My Sweetheart.'”

”Digger Foss, eh?”