The Heritage of the Hills Part 5

The brown finger was pointing straight at JESSAMY, MY SWEETHEART.

She turned and levelled her frank, unabashed eyes straight at his.

"So that's why you hesitated about inviting me in," she stated, her lips twitching and dimples appearing and disappearing in her cheeks.

"Frankly, yes," he told her gravely.

Her glance did not leave him. "Mr. Tamroy told me he had mentioned me to you," she said. "So of course you knew, when you saw this carving, that I was the subject of the raving. And when you saw me you wished to spare me embarra.s.sment. Thank you. But you see I'm not at all embarra.s.sed. I have never before seen this masterpiece in wood, and imagine it has been done since I was in the cabin last. Let's see--I doubt if I've been inside for a year or more. I think perhaps Mr. Digger Foss is the one who tried to make his emotions deathless by this work of art. 'Jessamy, My Sweetheart,' eh?" She threw back her glorious head and laughed till two tears streamed down her tanned cheeks. "Poor Digger!" she said soberly at last. "I suppose he does love me."

"Who wouldn't," thought Oliver, but bit his lips instead of speaking.

"You may leave that, Mr. Drew," she told him, "until you get ready to replace the old door with a new one. I would not have the irrefutable evidence of at least one conquest blotted out for worlds. Now let's go out in that glorious sunlight, and I'll tell you about Old Man Selden and the Poison Oakers."

CHAPTER V

"AND I'LL HELP YOU!"

What Jessamy Selden told Oliver Drew of the Poison Oakers was about the same as he had heard from Damon Tamroy.

She used his sawbuck for a seat, and sat with one booted ankle resting on a knee, idly spinning the rowel of her spur as she talked. Oliver listened without interruption until she finished and once more levelled that straightforward glance at him.

"The cows have been down below on winter pasture," she added. "Adam Selden and the boys rode out yesterday to start the spring drive into the foothills. You'll awake some morning soon to find red cattle all about you, and they'll be here till August."

"Well," he said, "I don't know that I shall mind them. My fence is pretty fair, and with a little more repairing will turn them, I think."

She twirled her rowel in silence for a time, her eyes fixed on it. Then she said:

"It isn't that, Mr. Drew. I may as well tell you right now what I came down here purposely to tell you. You're not wanted here. All of this land has been abandoned so long that Adam Selden and the gang have come to consider it their property--or at least free range."

"But they'll respect my right of ownership."

"I don't know--I don't know. I'm afraid they won't. They're a law unto themselves down in here. They'll try to run you out."

"How?"

"Any way--every way. If nothing else occurs to them, they'll begin a studied system of persecution with the idea of making you so sick of your bargain that you'll pull stakes and hit the trail. That poor man Dodd! Mr. Tamroy told me you happened into the saloon in time to see the shooting. Wasn't it terrible! And how they persecuted him--fairly drove him into the rash act that cost him his life!"

She lifted her glance again. "Mr. Tamroy tells me that you were shocked at me that day."

"I guess I didn't fully understand the circ.u.mstances."

"I did," she firmly declared, her lips setting in what would have been a grim smile but for the dimples that came with it. "I understood the situation," she went on. "Digger Foss had been waiting for just that chance. There's just enough Indian and Chinese blood in him to make him a fatalist. He's therefore deadly. Has no fear of death. He's cruel, merciless. I knew when I saw Henry Dodd covering him with that gun that, if he didn't finish what he'd started, he was a dead man. He couldn't even have backed off gracefully, keeping Digger covered, and got away alive. Digger is so quick on the draw, and his aim is so deadly. He's a master gunman. Even had Dodd succeeded in getting away then, he would have been a marked man. He had thrown down on Digger Foss. Digger would have got the drop on him next time they met and killed him as you would a coyote. So in my excitement I rushed in with my well meant warning, and--Oh, it was horrible!"

"And you meant actually for Dodd to kill Foss?"

Her black eyes dilated, and an angry flush blended with the tan on her cheeks.

"It was one or the other of them," she told him coldly. "Mr. Dodd was an honest, plodding man--a good citizen. Foss is a renegade. Was I so very bloodthirsty in trying to make the best of a bad situation by choosing, on the spur of the moment, which man ought to live on? I'm not the fainting kind of woman, Mr. Drew. One must be practical, if he can, even over matters like that."

"I'm not condemning," he said. "I'm only wondering that a woman could be so practical in such a situation."

"Digger Foss hasn't seen me since then," she observed. "He's in jail, awaiting trial, at the county seat. He'll be acquitted, of course. I'm wondering what he'll have to say to me when he is free again."

Oliver said nothing to this.

"I must be going," she declared, rising suddenly. "As I said, I came down to warn you to be on your guard against the Poison Oakers."

He caught her pony and led it to her. She swung into the saddle, then slued toward him, leaned an elbow on the horn and rested her chin in the palm of her hand. Once more that direct gaze of her frank black eyes looked him through and through.

"Well," she asked, "will the Poison Oakers run you off?"

"Oh, I think not," he laughed lightly.

"They'll be ten against one, Mr. Drew."

"There's law in the land."

"Yes, there's law," she mused. "But it's so easy for unscrupulous people to get around the law. They can subject you to no end of persecution, and you won't even be able to prove that one of them is behind it."

She looked him over deliberately.

"I'm glad you've come," she said. "You're an educated man, and blessed with a higher order of character than has been anybody else who stood to cross the Poison Oakers. Somehow, I feel that you are destined to be their undoing. They must be corralled and their atrocities brought to an end. You must be the one to put the quietus on that gang. And I'll help you. Good-bye!"

She lifted the white mare into a lope, opened the gate, rode through and closed it without leaving the saddle, then, waving back at him, disappeared in the chaparral.

CHAPTER VI

ACCORDING TO THE RECORDS

Oliver Drew had found a bee tree on the backbone of the ridge between the Old Ivison Place and the American River. He stood contemplating it, watching the busy little workers winging their way to and from the hole in the hollow trunk, planning to change their quarters and put them to work for him.

Far below him, down a precipitous pine-studded slope, the green American River raced toward the ocean. There had been a week of late rains, and good gra.s.s for the summer was a.s.sured.

Away through the tall trees below him he saw red cows filtering along, cropping eagerly at the lush growth after a long dusty trip from the drying lowlands. Now and then he saw a horseman galloping along a mile distant. He heard an occasional faint shout, borne upward on the soft spring wind. The Seldens were ending the drive of their cattle to summer pastures.

He turned suddenly as he heard the tramp of hoofs. Six hors.e.m.e.n were approaching, along the backbone of the ridge, winding in and out between clumps of the spa.r.s.e chaparral.

In the lead, straight and st.u.r.dy as some ancient oak, rode a tall man with grey hair that hung below his ears and a flowing grey beard. He wore the conventional cowpuncher garb, from black-silk neckerchief, held in place by a poker chip with holes bored in it, to high-heeled boots and chaps. He rode a gaunt grey horse. His tapaderos flapped loosely against the undergrowth, and, so long were the man's legs, they seemed almost to sc.r.a.pe the ground. A holstered Colt hung at the rider's side.

Silent, stern of face, this old man rode like the wraith of some ancient chieftain at the head of his hard-riding warriors.