Part 38 (1/2)

After they had left Lime Rock, Jessamy had given him a little more information on the subject which now loomed so big in his life.

She thought, she had said, that for years the Showut Poche-dakas had suspected Old Man Selden of knowing something of their secret. They could not have missed seeing the gophering that the old man had done on the hillside above The Four Pools. She knew positively that the Indians had kept a watchful eye on him, and it could be for no other reason.

The episode concerning Oliver's bayonet wound had come as a complete surprise to her. It seemed now, she said, that Peter Drew had communicated with Chupurosa not long before his death, and after Oliver's return from France, and had told him to be prepared for the coming of his son and how to make sure that he was genuine. She had not known that Peter Drew had been in the Poison Oak Country again, since he left after entrusting her with a hand in guiding Oliver's future.

She told of having overheard Adam Selden and Oliver's conversation that night at Poison Oak Ranch, and of the other eavesdropper who had stolen down from the spring. She was almost sure, she told him, that this man was Digger Foss; but whether or not Foss knew of the treasure she could not determine. Apparently, though, he suspected something of the kind, and had been looking out for his own interests that night.

Yes, it was the bridle and saddle and the gem-mounted _conchas_ that had changed Selden's att.i.tude toward Oliver. The underlying reason for his wis.h.i.+ng Oliver off the Old Ivison Place had been the fear that the search for the gems, which he had carried on intermittently for so long, would be interrupted. But to his gang he had pretended that it was sheer deviltry that caused him to contemplate driving the newcomer out.

Then a sight of the gem-mounted _conchas_ of his old partner, and the fact that Oliver was at once taken into brotherhood by the Showut Poche-dakas changed his plans. Oliver knew of the gems and had come to seek them. He either was Dan Smeed's son, or had been taken into Dan Smeed's confidence. Oliver would become Watchman of the Dead. If he did not already know the location of the stones, he soon might learn it from the Indians. His friends.h.i.+p must be cultivated by all means, so that Selden might have the better chance of obtaining what he considered his rightful share of the treasure.

Oliver had then told Jessamy of the prospect holes on the hillside, of Digger Foss's spying on the cabin, of Tommy My-Ma's strange actions, and of the lithia he had found.

”Yes, lithia is an indication of gems,” she had told him. ”And it would appear that Digger knows of the treasure, after all. Perhaps sometime Selden confided in him in a careless moment, to enlist his aid in the search. They're pretty confidential. Digger was watching your movements, to see if you had any definite idea of the location of the stones or were searching for them blindly. That's it! He knows! But still he's suspicious of Old Man Selden. All of the Poison Oakers are now. They think he's double-crossing them some way, since he made friends with you.

”As for Tommy My-Ma trailing Digger, I'm not surprised. No doubt the Showut Poche-dakas are watching Old Man Selden and his gang as respects their att.i.tude toward the new Watchman of the Dead. If the Poison Oakers had tried actually to molest you, I have an idea they'd have found they'd bitten off a chunk. I think they would have had fifty Showut Poche-dakas on their backs before they had gone very far.”

All this pa.s.sed through Oliver's mind again and again this morning, as he sat there with pipe gone out and idle pencil in his fingers.

What a romance that old father had woven about the life of his son! How skilfully and craftily he had planned so that Oliver would be thrown on his own resources for an answer when he came face to face with the question! How cleverly Jessamy had carried out the part entrusted to her, despite her aversion to intrigues and plottings! Step by step she had led him on till at last the question confronted him, just as it had confronted his father before him.

To gain possession of the gems would be a simple matter. They were on his land somewhere--were his by every right in law. He had but to invoke the protection of the keepers of the peace against the Indians, break the seals of the long envelope, and dig in the place indicated by the map this envelope contained.

But there was one thing which doubtless Peter Drew had not foreseen in his careful planning. He could not have known that his son was to fall desperately in love with the guiding star that he had appointed for him.

And Oliver Drew knew in his heart that if he robbed the Indians of these gems, which were to them only a symbol and had no meaning connected with worldly wealth, he would lose the girl. The only thing that stood between Jessamy and him, he now believed, was her uncertainty of what his answer to the question would be. In her staunch heart she respected the belief of the Showut Poche-dakas, and to her the gems as a symbol were as worthy of her reverence as the Sacred Book of the Christians. ”I have as much reverence for a bareheaded Indian girl on her knees to the Sun G.o.d as for a hooded nun counting her beads,” she had said.

Oliver stared at the inside of the cabin door, scarred and carved and full of bullet holes--at JESSAMY, MY SWEETHEART.

Peter Drew could not have foreseen this phase of the situation. In securing the gems Oliver Drew not only would lose his self-respect and make his father's thirty years of sacrifice a mockery, but he would lose the girl he loved.

So Oliver took small credit to himself when he rose from his desk at eleven o'clock, his mind made up.

He placed the letter unopened in his s.h.i.+rt front, and went out and saddled Poche. Then he rode to the backbone and wormed his way along it toward Lime Rock.

Jessamy was there ahead of him, sitting erect on White Ann's back, gazing upon the rugged objects of her daily adoration.

”Well,” she said, ”you've come,” and her level eyes searched him through and through.

”Yes,” he replied, riding to her side, ”I've come; and my mind's made up.”

She raised her dark brows in an attempt to betoken a mild struggle between politeness and indifference; but the hand on her saddle horn trembled, and the red had gone out of her cheeks.

”I must get out of here tomorrow,” he said, ”and go to Los Angeles. I've just about enough money to take me there and back; but I have the unbounded faith of an amateur in several farm articles now in editors'

hands.”

She lowered black lashes over her eyes and nodded slowly up and down.

”Exactly,” she said. ”You must carry out Peter Drew's instructions to the letter.”

”But I can tell _you_ what my answer to Dad's lawyers is going to be.