The Heritage of the Hills Part 15

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?"

She closed both eyes tightly and bobbed her head up and down several times, then opened her eyes. "He's a free man again--tried and acquitted."

"No!"

"Didn't I tell you how it would be?"

He puffed his cigarette meditatively. "Doesn't it strike you as strange that you and I were not subpoenaed as witnesses?"

"I've been expecting that from you. No, sir--it doesn't. Digger's counsel didn't want you and me as witnesses."

"But the prosecuting attorney."

"_He_ didn't want us either."

"Then there's corruption."

"If I could think of a worse word than corruption I'd correct you, so I'll let that stand. Digger Foss is Old Man Selden's right hand; and Old Man Selden is Pythias to the prosecuting attorney of this man's county."

Oliver's eyes widened.

"Elmer Standard is the gentleman in question. What connection there can be between him and Adam Selden is too many for me; but Selden goes to see him whenever he rides to the county seat. Only the right witnesses were allowed to take the stand, you may be confident. I knew the halfbreed's acquittal was a foregone conclusion before the smoke from his gat had cleared."

Both were silent for a time, then she said: "Elmer Standard runs things down at the county seat. I've heard that he allows open gambling, and that he personally finances three saloons and several gaming places."

"But there are no saloons now."

"Indeed!" she said with mock innocence. "I didn't know. I never have frequented them, so you'll overlook my ignorance. Anyway, Digger Foss is as free as the day he was born; and Henry Dodd, the man he murdered, lies in the little cemetery in the pines near Halfmoon Flat. But there's another piece of news: Adam Selden has--"

"Pardon my interrupting you," he put in, "but you haven't finished with Digger Foss."

"Oh, that! Well, I met him on the trail between Clinker Creek and the American yesterday. He accused me of being untrue to him while he was in jail."

"Yes?"

"I admitted my guilt. Never having had the slightest inclination to be true to him, I told him, it naturally followed that I was untrue to him--and wasn't it a glorious day? How on earth the boy ever got the idea that he has the right to consider me in the light that he does is beyond me. I don't scold him, and I don't send him packing--nor do I give him the least encouragement. I simply treat him civilly when he approaches me on a commonplace matter, and ignore him when he tries to get funny. And he's probably so dense that all this encourages him. How can he be so stupid! I haven't been superior enough with him--but I hate to be superior, even to a halfbreed. And he's quarter Chinaman. Heavens, what am I coming to!"

"How did the meeting end?" queried Oliver.

"Well, we both went a little further this time than ever before. He attempted to kiss me, and I attempted to cut his face open with my quirt. Both of us missed by about six inches, I'm thankful to say. And the grand climax took the form of a dire threat against you. By the way, I've never seen you pack a gun, Mr. Drew."

He shrugged. "I used to down on the cow ranch in San Bernardino County, but I think I grew up over in France."

"You have one, of course."

"Yes--a 'forty-five."

"Can you handle a gun fairly well?"

"I know which end to look into to see if it's loaded."