Jessica Trent: Her Life On A Ranch Part 33

"Reckon I wasn't, but I'm beginning to be. My! What a magnificent animal. And it solves the difficulty of finding a mount out to the ranch.

I'm not much of a horseman, though. I don't know but I'd better stick to Scruff and leave Nimrod to Lady Jess."

Samson wheeled around and eyed the stranger, curiously. Then he advanced and held out his hand again.

"Shake, Sharp. You're a man, even if you do live in a city, and the first one I ever met who hailed from such a place and didn't think he knew it all. You'll do. And you can ride. A baby could, that creatur'.

If you can't stick I'll hold you on. Now, breakfast, I say."

This was Jessica's chance, and before they sat down to the bounteous meal which Janet had been hours in preparing she managed to draw Ninian aside and whisper a request, to which he nodded prompt a.s.sent. So n.o.body but they two knew what was meant when, as the three mounted and were about to ride away, she asked Samson:

"Do you know the trail to El Desierto?"

"Do I know a pisen serpent? What in the name of reason put such a forsaken hole into your head on this joyful occasion?"

"Never mind what, and never mind speech-making, dear old fellow. I have to call at El Desierto on my way to Sobrante and would like to know the shortest road."

"Is she--has she got a little 'touched' down there in your City of Angels and Scamps, eh?"

"Samson, am I still the captain, or am I not?"

"Captain, I salute. Ride on! You, Aleck, hitch up a board and take that trunk of Miss Trent's to her country seat, and be quick about it. Hurray! I'm so happy I'm looney! Here's for El Desierto and no questions asked. Hurray!"

CHAPTER XXI

BACK AT SOBRANTE

For an hour and a half they rode swiftly along a comparatively level trail, though to Ninian Sharp's untrained eyes there was no road visible. How Samson managed to pick his way so undeviatingly over the dried herbage and sandy soil was a mystery; but neither the guide nor Jessica found anything strange in this. Those who live in wide solitudes grow keen of sight and hearing, and there were tiny roughnesses here and there which clearly marked to these experienced ranch people where other feet had pa.s.sed that way.

Presently the roughness increased, and the trail climbed steadily toward a mesa, which seemed to the reporter but ten rods distant, yet was, in reality, as many miles.

"We turn here, captain. Shall I ride ahead?"

"Yes, Samson, but slowly. Scruff's been so idle all these weeks and grown so lazy he'll hardly move."

"He'll get over that as soon as he meets up with the tackers. My, but they've led Aunt Sally a life! And taken more medicine than was due 'em during the natural course of their lives. Say, Sharp, do you enjoy picra?"

"Never tasted the stuff."

"And 'never too late to mend.' Here, take this vial, I present it to you with my compliments. With the captain's respect. With the good will of the whole outfit."

"But, beg pardon, I have no use for--picra."

"Don't delude yourself. You'll have to have it, outside or in. I'm a friend. I give you this bottle. Then, when Aunt Sally appears with her little dish and spoon, produce this from your pistol pocket and knock her plumb speechless. It's your only salvation. Now or never."

"All right. Thanks. A case of forearmed, I suppose."

"Exactly. Now--there she is!"

Samson rose in his stirrups and pointed forward with his crop. Upon a barren, wide-stretching tableland stood a cl.u.s.ter of adobe huts. Behind them a clump of live oaks, beside them a sandy, curving streak, an arroyo, lighter in hue than the surrounding soil, but parched and dry as if part of the desert itself; behind them, three mighty, jagged, upward-pointing rocks.

"There she is. The weirdest, lonesomest, G.o.d-for-sakenest habitation that fools ever made or lived in, quoted the joker, giving Samson's hand a cordial grasp. h.e.l.lo! What's up captain?"

For Jessica had also caught sight of the desolate homestead and, having too low stirrups for standing, had sprung to Scruff's back and poised thus on his saddle, was straining her eager, excited gaze toward the distant El Desierto.

"My dream! The spot! For once he told the truth! Follow, follow me, quick!"

"Land of love! She has gone queer, and that's a fact. Does the mite think that there little donkey can outrun your horse or mine? After her, stranger, lest she do some harm to herself."

Ninian smiled softly and touched Nimrod lightly, and in a moment all three were again racing over the mesa, side by side, the girl foremost, and the men reining in their horses lest they should forestall her of the goal to which she aspired. The reporter, as eager and almost as wise as she, but good Samson completely in the dark and growing a trifle angry over the fact.

When they came up to it the place seemed utterly deserted. The doors opened to the touch and in all but one of the three small buildings the windows were broken. The third was in better repair and was evidently sometimes still used by somebody. There was a bed, or cot, spread with blankets, a coal-oil stove, some canned meats and biscuits, and a well-wrapped gun.

But Jessica's attention pa.s.sed these details over.

"The rocks! They are the very same as in my dream and he told me of them when he drew the map. Is that in your pocket, Mr. Sharp? Oh! is it?"

"Sure." He drew it forth and held it so that Samson, too, could see.

"Come! In the dream there was a little cave beneath the rocks and in the cave a box. You know it, Samson, the black tin box in which the valuable papers were kept. We could find it nowhere, mother nor I, but I shall find it here and in it--oh! in it--there will be that t.i.tle deed! You look, 'boys,' I can't, I tremble so."

Samson forced his great length downward and inward under the bowlders and found, as Jessica had felt sure, a small but perfectly dry and well-protected cave. The rocks and live oaks screened it from the sight of those who did not know it existed, and it would never have been suspected that there was aught but solid ground beneath those jagged stones.

The horses and Scruff were willing to stand without tying, and Ninian was, in any case, too excited now to have remembered them. He saw that Lady Jess was trembling, indeed, and trembled himself. If this should prove a disappointment, how would she bear it?

But it was not to be that. From the little cave there presently issued a mighty shout. That is it would have been mighty had the s.p.a.ce been large enough to give it vent. As it was, it came like the subdued roar of a wild animal, and it was almost surprising to see the soles of Samson's boots emerge from the opening instead of furry feet.

When he had crawled outward so far that he could lift himself upright, the sailor leaped so high that Ninian felt as if he were the one who had gone "queer" instead of Jessica, suspected. But this reason was obvious; for there in his hand was the veritable black tin box familiar to the girl from her earliest memory, and seen often enough by the herder to be instantly recognized.

When, at last, the box was in her own hands Jessica became very quiet, though her voice still trembled as she said:

"This belongs to my mother. It is for her to open it."

"No, captain."

"Not so, Jessica. If the deed for which she looked were not there it would be but a fresh distress to her. You look. It is your interest as well as hers, and if it is not there you can save her, at least, one disappointment on this day of your return."

The opinions of her two friends prevailed; and, since they had no key, Samson's great knife forced the lock, and stored within were papers and vouchers of great value to Sobrante, which the faithless manager had carried away for his own purposes.

The deed? Ah, yes. There it lay at the very bottom of the pile, and Jessica knew it at once for the queer paper which her father had shown her on the night before his death.

For a time she could only weep over it and caress it, remembering the dear hands which had held it before her, and the unforgotten voice which had explained its value and all about the necessary "recording" which must be made. Then she rallied, remembering, also, that other precious parent, alive and waiting for her and it.

"Keep you the box, Samson. I, myself, must keep and carry this."

She fastened it within her blouse and kept one hand upon it all the rest of the way. A brief and happy way, which ended in a mother's arms and in the wild welcome of every dweller at Sobrante. And when the mother's arms set their recovered treasure free for a moment there were all the "boys" ready and waiting to seize and carry her from point to point, telling how careful had been each one's stewardship and how they would never let her go again. Never.