The Heritage of the Hills Part 8

This morning she had plaited her hair in two long, heavy braids that hung to the bottom of her saddle skirts on either side.

Oliver's gaze at her was one of frank admiration.

"How do you do it?" he laughed.

"Do what?"

"Make yourself so spectacular and--er--outstanding, without leaving any traces of art?"

"Am I spectacular?"

"Rather. Different, anyway--to use a badly overworked expression. But what puzzles me is what makes you look like that. You seem perfectly normal, and nothing could be plainer than the clothes you wear. You're not beautiful, and you're too big both physically and mentally to be pretty. But I'll bet my hat you're the most popular young woman in this section!"

She regarded him soberly. "Are you through?" she asked.

"I've exhausted my stock of descriptive words, anyway," he told her.

"Then we'd better be riding," she said.

He swung Poche to the side of White Ann, and they moved off along the road, knee and knee.

"You're not offended?" he asked.

She threw back her head and laughed till Oliver thought of meadow larks, and robins calling before a shower.

"Offended! You must think me some sort of freak. Who ever heard of a woman being offended when a man admires her? I like it immensely, Mr.

Oliver Drew. And if you can beat that for square shooting, there's no truth in me. But if you'll a.n.a.lyse my 'difference' you'll find it's only because I'm big and strong and healthy, and try always to shoot straight from the shoulder and look folks straight in the eye. That's all. Let's let 'em out!"

They broke into a smart gallop, and continued it up and down pine-toothed hills till they clattered into Halfmoon Flat.

Curious eyes met them, old men stopped in their tracks and leaned on their canes to watch, and folks came to windows and doors as they loped through the village.

"'Whispering tongues can poison truth,'" Jessamy quoted as they turned a corner and cantered up a hill toward a grove of pines on the outskirts of the town. "It seems odd that Adam Selden has not mentioned you to me.

Surely some one has seen us together who would tell some one else who would tell Old Man Selden all about it. But not a cheep from him as yet."

"Have you any bosom friends in the Clinker Creek district?" he asked, not altogether irrelevantly.

"No, none at all. But I'm friends with everybody, though I have nothing in common with any one. I don't consider myself superior to the natives here about, but, just the same, they don't interest me. I'm speaking of the women. I like most of the men. I guess I'm what they call a man's woman. I can't sit and talk about clothes and dances, and gossip, and what one did on one's vacation last summer. It all bores me stiff, so I don't pretend it doesn't. Men, now--they can talk about horses and saddles and cows and cutting wood and prizefights and poker games and election--"

"And women and Fords," he interrupted.

She laughed and led the way into a little trail that snaked on up the hill between lilacs and buckeye trees to a little cabin half-hidden in the foliage.

They dismounted at the door and loosed their horses. Jessamy tapped vigorously on the panels. Again and again--and then there was heard a shuffling, unsteady step inside, and a cane thumped hollowly. Presently the door opened, and Old Dad Sloan bleared out at them from behind his flaring, mattress-stuffing hair and whiskers.

"How do you do, Mr. Sloan!" cried Jessamy almost at the top of her voice.

A veined hand shook its way to form a cup behind the ancient's ear.

"Hey?" he squealed.

Jessamy filled her st.u.r.dy lungs with air and tried again.

"I say--How do you do!" The effort left her neck red but for a blue outstanding artery.

"Oh!" exclaimed Dad Sloan, with a look of relief. "Why, howdy?"

Jessamy ascended a step to the door, took him by both shoulders, and placed her satin lips close to the ear that he inclined her way.

"We've come to make you a call," she announced. "I want you to meet a friend of mine; and we want to ask you some questions."

The grey head nodded slowly up and down, more to indicate that its owner heard and understood than to signify acquiescence. But he tottered back and held the door wide open; and Jessamy and Oliver went into the cabin.

Dad Sloan managed to live all alone in this sequestered little nook by reason of the county's generosity. He was old and feeble, and at times irritatingly childish and petulant. Jessamy Selden often brought him cakes, fried chicken, and the like; and, provided he was in the right mood, he would be more likely to be confidential with her than with anybody else in the country.

But the girl's task was difficult. The old man shook hands listlessly with Oliver at her bidding, but seemed entirely to have forgotten their previous meeting. They sat in the uncomfortable straight-backed, thong-bottom chairs while Jessamy shrieked the conversation into the desired channel. The old eyes gathered a more intelligent look as she spoke of the lost mine of Bolivio.

Pieced together, the fragments that fell from the bearded lips of Old Dad Sloan made some such narrative as follows:

Bolivio had been a Portuguese or a Spaniard, or some "black furriner,"

who had been in the country in the memorable days of '49 and afterward.

His knowledge of some tongue based on the Latin had made it easy for him to communicate with the Pauba Indians that inhabited the country, as some of them had learned Spanish from the Franciscan Fathers down at the coast. Bolivio mingled with the tribe, and finally became a squawman.

One day he appeared at the Clinker Creek bar and exhibited a beautiful stone. A gold miner who was present had once followed mining in South Africa, and knew something of diamonds. He examined Bolivio's stone, and gave it such simple tests as were at his command, then advised the owner to send it to New York to find out if it was possessed of value.

It required months in those days to communicate with the Atlantic seaboard. Bolivio's stone was started on its long journey around the Horn. He hinted that there were more of the stones where he had found this one, and created the impression that his Indian brethren had showed them to him.

More they could not get out of him. Nor did anybody try very hard to learn his secret, for no one imagined the find of much intrinsic value.

Bolivio was a saddler, and was skilled in the art of the silversmith.

Gold dust was plentiful in the country in that day, and the foreigner found ready buyers for his masterpieces in leather and precious metals.

The finest equestrian outfit that he made was finally acquired from the Indians by Dan Smeed, a miner who afterward turned highwayman, married an Indian girl, became an outlaw, and finally disappeared altogether. In the _conchas_ with which the plaited bridle was adorned Bolivio had set two large stones from his secret store, which he himself had crudely polished.

One day, a month or more before word came from New York regarding the stone, Bolivio was found dead in the forest. A knife had been plunged into his heart. The secret of the brilliant stones had died with him.

Then came the answer. The stone was said to be spodumene, of a very high cla.s.s, and had a a lilac tint theretofore unknown. It was the finest of its kind ever to have been reported as found in the United States. The finder was offered a thousand dollars for the sample sent; one hundred dollars a pound was offered for all stones that would grade up to the sample.

But Bolivio was dead, and no one knew from whence the stone had come.

Efforts were made, of course, to find the source of this wealth. The Indians were tried time and again, but not one word would they speak regarding the matter. The new quest was finally dropped; for those were the days of gold, gold, gold, and so frenzied were men and women to find it that other precious minerals were cast aside as worthless. None had time to seek for stones worth a hundred dollars a pound, with gold worth more than twice as much. So the lost mine of Bolivio became only a memory.

Years later this same stone was discovered six hundred miles farther south. It is now on the market as kunzite, and a cut stone of one karat in weight sells for fifty dollars and more. The San Diego County discovery was supposed to mark the introduction of the stone in the United States, for the lost mine of Bolivio was all but forgotten.

Old Dad Sloan thumped out at Jessamy's request and once again critically examined Oliver's saddle and bridle and the brilliants in the _conchas_.

"It's the same fine outfit Bolivio made, and that afterwards belonged to Dan Smeed, outlaw, highwayman, and squawman," he p.r.o.nounced. "They never was another outfit like it in this country."

"Tell us more about Dan Smeed!" screamed the girl.