The Heritage of the Hills Part 18

His eyes answered him. He knew that he had told the truth.

Then if this was true--and he knew it to be true--what of the halfbreed, Digger Foss? He remembered a gaunt man, stricken to his death, reeling against the legs of a snorting white mare and clutching at them blindly for support--remembered the gloating grin of the mounted man, the muzzle of whose gun followed the movements of his wounded enemy as a cobra's head sways back and forth to the charmer's music--remembered the cruel insolence of the Mongolic eyes, mere slits.

He swung about suddenly from the mirror and caught sight of a knothole in the cabin wall, which so far he had neglected to patch with tin. He noted it as he swung about and dived at the pillow on his bed. He hurled the pillow one side, swept up the ivory-handled '45 that lay there, wheeled, and fired at the knothole. There had been no appreciable pause between his grasping of the weapon and the trigger pull, yet he saw no bullet hole in the cabin boards when the smoke had cleared away.

He chuckled grimly. "I might get out my army medals for marksmanship and pin 'em on my breast for a target," he said.

Then to his vast confusion there came a voice from the front of the house.

"Ain't committed soothin' syrup, have ye?" it boomed.

There was no mistaking the deep-lunged tones. It was Old Man Selden who had called to him.

Oliver tossed the gun on the bed and walked through to the front door, which always stood open these days, inviting the countless little lizards that his invasion of the place had not disturbed to enter and make themselves at home.

The gaunt old boss of the Clinker Creek Country stood, with chap-protected legs wide apart, on Oliver's little porch. His broad-brimmed black hat was set at an angle on his iron-grey hair, and his cold blue eyes were piercing and direct, as always. In his hands he held the reins of his horse's bridle. Back of the grey seven men lounged in their saddles, grinning at the old man's sally. Digger Foss was not among the number.

"How d'ye do, Mr. Selden," said Oliver in cordial tones, thrusting forth a strong brown hand.

Selden did not accept the hand, and made no effort to pretend that he had not noticed it. Oliver quickly withdrew it, and two little lumps showed over the hinges of his jaws.

He changed his tone immediately. "Well, what can I do for you gentlemen?" he inquired brusquely.

"We was ridin' through an' thought we heard a shot," said Selden. "So I dropped off to see if ye wasn't hurt."

"I beg your pardon," Oliver returned, "but you must have been dismounted when I fired. This being the case, you already had decided to call on me. So, once more, how can I be of service to you?"

The grins of the men who rode with Adam Selden disappeared. There was no mistaking the businesslike hostility of Oliver's att.i.tude.

"Peeved about somethin' this mornin'," one of them drawled to the rider whose knee pressed his.

Oliver looked straight at Old Man Selden, and to him he spoke.

"I am not peeved about anything," he said. "But when a man comes to my door, and I come and offer him my hand, and he ignores it, my inference is that the call isn't a friendly one. So if you have any business to transact with me, let's get it off our chests."

Oliver noted with a certain amount of satisfaction the quick, surprised looks that were flashed among the Poison Oakers. Apparently they had met a tougher customer than they had expected.

All this time the cold blue eyes of Adam Selden had been looking over the pitted Bourbon nose at Oliver. Selden's tones were unruffled as he said:

"Thought maybe the poison oak had got too many for ye, an' ye'd shot yerself."

"I don't care to listen to subtle threats," Oliver returned promptly.

"Poison oak does not trouble me at all--neither the vegetable variety nor the other variety. I'm never in favour of bandying words. If I have anything to say I try to say it in the best American-English at my command. So I'll make no pretence, Mr. Selden, that I have not heard you don't want me here in the canon. And I'll add that I am here, on my own land, and intend to do my best to remain till I see fit to leave."

Selden's craggy brows came down, and the scrutiny that he gave the young man was not without an element of admiration. No anger showed in his voice as he said:

"Just so! Just so! I wanted to tell ye that I been down to the recorder's office and up to see Nancy Fleet, my wife's sister. Seems that you're right about this prop'ty standin' in your name an' all; but I thought, so long's we was ridin' along this way, I'd drop off an' have a word with ye."

"I'm waiting to hear it."

"No use gettin' riled, now, because--"

"If you had accepted my hand you'd not find me adopting the tone that I have."

"Just so!" Selden drawled. "Well, then, I'll accept her now--if I ain't too bold."

"You will not," clicked Oliver. "Will you please state your business and ride on?"

"Friendly cuss, ain't he, Dad?" remarked one of the Selden boys--which one Oliver did not know.

"You close yer face!" admonished Selden smoothly, in his deep ba.s.s.

"Well, Mr. Drew, if ye want to stay here an' starve to death, that's none o' my concern. And if ye got money to live on comin' from somewheres else, that's none o' my concern either. But when ye stop the run o' water from a spring that I'm dependin' on to water my critters in dry months, it _is_ my concern--an' that's why I dropped off for a word with ye."

"How do you know I have done that?" Oliver asked.

"Well, 'tain't likely that a spring like Sulphur Spring would go dry the last o' May. Most o' these springs along here are fed from the same vein. You move in, and Sulphur Spring goes dry. So that's what I dropped off to talk to ye about. Just so!"

"I suppose," said Oliver, "that the work I did on my spring has in reality stopped the flow of Sulphur Spring. But--"

"Ye do? What _makes_ ye suppose so?--if I ain't too bold in askin'."

Oliver's lips straightened. Plainly Selden suspected that Jessamy had told him of the peculiarity of the canon springs, and was trying to make him implicate her. But the old man was not the crafty intriguer he seemed to fancy himself to be. He already had said too much if he wished to make Oliver drag the girl's name into the quarrel.

"Why, what you have just told me, added to my knowledge of what I did to clean out my spring, leads to that supposition," he replied. "But, as I was about to remark when you interrupted me, I can't see that that is any concern of mine. That's putting it rather bluntly, perhaps; but I am entirely within my rights in developing all the water that I can on my land, regardless of how it may affect land that lies below me."

"Right there's the point," retorted Selden. "I'm a pretty good friend o'

the prosecutin' attorney down at the county seat. He tells me ye can't take my water away from me like that."

"Then I should say that your legal friend is not very well posted on the laws governing the development and disposition of water in this state,"

Oliver promptly told him.

"I wrote him," said Selden, "an' I'll show ye the letter if ye'll invite me in."

For the first time Oliver hesitated. Why did Selden wish to enter the cabin? Could not the letter be produced and read on the porch? It flashed through his mind that the old fox wished to get him inside so that some of his gang might investigate the spring and find out the volume of the water that was flowing, and what had been done to increase it. This only added to his belief that the Poison Oakers were responsible for the wall of stones that had choked the stream. Well, why not let them find out all that they wished to know in this regard?

"Certainly," he invited. "Come in." And he stood back from the door.

Selden clanked his spur rowels across the threshold. At the same time he was reaching into his shirtfront for the letter.

Then an odd thing occurred. He was about to take the chair that Oliver had pushed forward when his blue eyes fell upon the saddle and bridle which had come to stand for so much in Oliver's life, hanging from a thong in one corner of the room.

The old Poison Oaker's eyes grew wide, and, as was their way when he was moved out of his customary brooding mood, his thick nostrils began dilating. But almost instantly he was his cold, insolent self again.

"I heard some of 'em ga.s.sin' about that rig o' yours," he remarked.

"Said she was a hummer all 'round. That it there? Mind if I look her over?"

"Not at all." Oliver was quick to grasp at any chance that might lead to the big question and its answer.

Old Man Selden's leather chaps whistled his legs to the corner, where he stood, long arms at his sides, gazing at the saddle, the bridle, and the martingales. His deep breathing was the only sound in the room. Outside, Oliver heard foot-steps, and suspected that the investigation of his spring was on.