CHAPTER IV
THE FIRST CALLER
Toward noon Poche was carefully feeling his way down the rocky canyon ofClinker Creek, over a forgotten road. Oliver walked, for Poche needsmust scramble over huge boulders, fallen pines, and tangles ofdriftwood. The road followed the course of the creek for the most part,and in many places the creek had broken through and washed great gaps.
But the country was delightful. Wild grapevines grew in profusion at thecreekside, gracefully festooned from overhanging buckeye limbs. Odorousalders, several varieties of willow, and white oak also followed thewatercourse; and up on the hills on either side were black oaks and liveoaks, together with yellow and sugar and digger pines, and spruce.Everywhere grew the now significant poison oak.
Finally Poche scraped through chaparral that almost hid the road andcame out in a clearing. Oliver at last stood looking at his future home.
A quaint old cabin, with a high peaked roof, apparently in better repairthan he had expected, stood on a little rise above the creek. The canyonwidened here, and narrowed again farther down. The creek bowed andfollowed the base of the steep hills to the west. A level strip of landcomprising about an acre paralleled the creek, and invited tillage. Allabout the clearing, perhaps fifteen acres in area, stood tall pines andspruce, and magnificent oaks rose above the cabin, their great limbssprawled over it protectingly. Acres and acres of heavy, impenetrablechaparral covered both steep slopes beyond the conifers.
For several minutes Oliver drank in the beauty of it, then heavedhimself into the saddle and galloped to the cabin over the unobstructedland.
He loosed Poche when the saddle and bridle were off, and the horseeagerly buried his muzzle in the tall green grass. Up in the branchespaired California linnets, red breasted for their love season, went overplans and specifications for nest-building with much conversation andflit-flit of feathered wings. Wild canaries engaged in a like pursuit.Overhead in the heavens an eagle sailed. From the sunny chaparral camethe scolding quit-quit-quit of mother quail, while the pompous cocksperched themselves at the tops of manzanita bushes and whistled, "Cutthat out! Cut that out!" All Nature was home-building; and Oliver forgotthe loss of the fortune he had expected at his father's death and caughtthe spirit.
He collected oak limbs and built a fire. He carried water from the creekand set it on to boil. While waiting for this he strolled about,revelling in the soft spring air, fragrant with the smell of wildflowers.
That the cabin had been occupied often by hunters and other wanderers inthe canyon was evidenced by the many carvings on the door and signs ofbygone campfires all about. He stepped upon the rotting porch andstudied the monograms, initials, and flippant messages of the lonely menwho had passed that way.
"All hope abandon, ye who enter here" was carved in ancient letters justunder the lintel of the door. Next he was informed that "Fools names,like their faces, are always seen in public places." "Only a suckerwould live here" was the parting decision of some disgruntled guest."Home, Sweet Home" adorned the bottom of the door. One panel had provedan excellent target, and no less than twenty bullet holes had made asieve of it. "Welcome, Wanderer!" and "Dew Drop Inn" and "Though lost tosight to memory dear" occupied conspicuous places. Then on theright-hand frame he noticed this:
Beware]
The carving was neatly executed. The leaves represented wereindisputably those of the poison oak.
Had some one carved this in a jocular effort to warn chance visitors tothe place of the danger of the poison weed? Or did the carving representthe emblem of the Poison Oakers?
Oliver smiled grimly and opened the door.
He passed through the three small rooms of the house and investigatedthe loft. The structure seemed solid. A new roof would be necessary, andnew windows and frames and a new porch; and as Oliver was no meancarpenter, he thought he could make the cabin snug and tight forseventy-five dollars.
The front door had closed of itself, he found, when he started back tohis campfire. He stopped in the main room, and a smile, slightly bitter,flickered across his lips. As neatly carved as was the symbol of thePoison Oakers outside--if that was what it was--and evidently executedby the same hand, was this, on the inside of the door:
JESSAMY, MY SWEETHEART
Oliver went on out and squatted over his fire, peeling potatoes. Hisblue eyes grew studious. In the flickering blaze he saw the picture of ablack-eyed, black-haired girl on a white horse crouched on its haunches.
"Great Scott!" he muttered. "I'll have to forget that!"
* * * * *
In the month that followed, Oliver Drew, spurred by feverish enthusiasm,worked miracles on the Old Tabor Ivison Place. He repaired the linefences and rehabilitated the cabin; bought a burro and pack-saddle andpacked in lumber and tools and household necessities; fenced off hisexperimental garden on the level land with rabbit-tight netting; cleanedand boxed the spring; and early in May was following the spading up ofhis garden plot by planting vegetable seed.
With all this behind him, he went at the clearing of the road thatconnected him with his kind. Today as he laboured with pick and shoveland bar he was cheerful, though his thoughts clung to the subject of hisfather's death and the odd situation in which it had left him. He hadfully expected to inherit properties and money to the extent of ahundred thousand dollars. He was not particularly resentful because thishad not come to pass, for he never had been a pampered young man; butthe mystery of his father's last message puzzled and chagrined him.
He would always remember Peter Drew as a peculiar man. He had been akindly father, but a reticent one. There were many pages in his pastthat never had been opened to his son. Oliver was the child of PeterDrew's second wife. About the queer old Westerner's former marriage hehad been told practically nothing.
Believing his father to have been of sound mind when he penned that laststrange communication, Oliver could not hold that the situation which itimposed was not for the best. Surely old Peter Drew had had some wisereason for his act, and in the end Oliver would know what it was. He hadbeen told to seek the Clinker Creek Country to learn the question thathad puzzled his father for thirty years, to decide whether the properanswer was Yes or No, and communicate his decision to his father'slawyers. That was all. When in the wisdom which his father had supposedwould be the natural result of his son's university training he had madehis decision and placed it before these legal gentlemen, what wouldhappen? Speculation over this led nowhere.
At first it had seemed to Oliver that the mission with which he had beenintrusted was more or less a secret matter, and that he must keep stillabout it. Then as the staunch cow-pony bore him nearer and nearer to theClinker Creek Country it gradually dawned upon him that, by so doing, hemight stand a poor chance of even finding out what had puzzled his sire.To say nothing of the answer which he was to seek. It was then hedecided that he had nothing to hide and must place his situation beforethe people of the country who would likely be able to help him. Hencehis confidences to Mr. Damon Tamroy.
Tamroy had aided him not at all; but the 'Forty-niner, Old Dad Sloan,knew something. Dan Smeed, outlaw, highwayman, had owned a saddle andbridle like Oliver's. The old man had mysteriously mentioned the lostmine of Bolivio, and had said the settings in Oliver's _conchas_ weregems. If only the old man could be made to talk!
The muffled thud of a horse's hoofs came between the strokes of Oliver'spick. With an odd and unfamiliar sensation he glimpsed a white horse andrider approaching through the pines.
It was she--Jessamy Selden--the black-haired, black-eyed girl of whom hereluctantly had thought so often since his first day in the ClinkerCreek Country.
She was riding straight down the canyon, the white mare gingerly pickingher way between boulders and snarls of driftwood. The girl looked up.Oliver felt that she saw him. Her ears could not have been insensible tothe ring of his pick on the flinty stones. She did not leave the trail,however, but continued on in his direction.
> He rested on the handle of his tool and waited.
"Good morning," he ventured, sweeping off his battered hat, as the marestopped without pressure on the reins and gravely contemplated him.
The girl smiled and returned his greeting brightly.
"If you had waited a few days longer for your ride down here," saidOliver, "I'd have had a better trail for you."
"Oh, I don't know that I want it any better," she laughed. "I likethings pretty much as they are, when Old Mother Nature has built them. Iride down this way frequently."
She was no fragile reed, this girl. She was rather more substantiallybuilt than most members of her sex. Her figure was straight and tall androunded, and her strong, graceful neck upreared itself proudly betweensturdy shoulders. Grace and strength, rather than purely femininebeauty, predominated in the impression she created in Oliver. She wore aman's Stetson hat over her lavish crown of coal-black hair, a man'sflannel shirt, a whipcord divided skirt, and dark-russet riding boots.The saddle that she rode in had not been built for a woman to handle,and, with its long, pointed tapaderos, must have weighed close to fiftypounds. The steady, friendly, confident gaze of her large black eyes wasthrilling. A man instinctively felt that, if he could win this woman, hewould have acquired a wife among a thousand, a loyal friend and comrade,and a partner who could and would shoulder more than a woman's share oftheir load.
Still, Oliver knew nothing at all about her. What he had heard of herwas not exactly of the best. Yet he felt that she was gloriously allright, and did not try to argue otherwise.
"Well, I suppose I must introduce myself first," she was saying in herfull, ringing tones. "I'm Jessamy Selden. My name is not Selden, though,but Lomax. When my mother married Adam Selden I took her new name. Iheard somebody had moved onto the Old Ivison Place, and I deliberatelyrode down to get acquainted."
"You waited a month, I notice," Oliver laughingly reproached. "My nameis Oliver Drew. If you'll get off your horse I'll tell you what awonderful man I am."
She swung to the ground and held out a strong, brown, ungloved hand.
"I'll walk to your cabin with you," she said, "if you'll invite me. I'dlike to see how you've been improving your time since your arrival."
Scarce able to find words with which to meet such delightful frankness,Oliver walked beside her, the white mare following and nosing at hispockets to prove that she was a privileged character.
The girl loosed her within the inclosure, and let her drag her reins.Poche trotted up to make the white's acquaintance, followed by the newmouse-coloured burro, Smith, who long since had assumed a "where thougoest I will go" affection for the bay saddler.
Jessamy Selden came to a stop before the cabin, her black eyes dancing.
"Who would have thought," she said in low tones, "that the Clinker Creekpeople ever would see the old Ivison cabin rebuilt and inhabited oncemore! How sturdily it must have been built to stand up against wind andstorm all these years. Are you going to invite me in and show mearound?" She levelled that direct glance at him and showed her whiteteeth in a smile.
Oliver was thinking of the carving on the inside of the old door,"Jessamy, My Sweetheart." He had not replaced the door with a new one,for every penny counted. It still was serviceable; and, besides, thereseemed to be a sort of companionship about the carved observations ofthe unknowns who had been sheltered by the old cabin during the pastfifteen years.
"You've been in the house often, I suppose?" He made it a question.
"Oh, yes," she said. "I've lunched in it many a time, and have run inout of the rain during winter months. I slept in it all night once."
"You seem to be an independent sort of young woman," suggested Oliver.
"I'm a rather lonely sort of woman, if that's what you mean," shereplied. "Yes, I ride about lots alone. I like it. Don't you want me togo in?"
"Er--why, certainly," he stammered. "Please don't think me inhospitable.Come on."
He led the way, and stood back for her at the door. He would leave thedoor open, swung back into the corner, he thought, so that she would notsee the carving. She had been in the cabin many times. Did she know thecarving to be there? Of course it might have been executed since herlast visit, though it did not seem very fresh. Who had carved the words?Oliver could imagine any of the young Clinker Creek swains as beingsecretly in love with this marvellous girl, and pouring out his torturedsoul through the blade of his jack-knife when securely hidden fromprofane eyes in this vast wilderness.
She passed complimentary remarks about his practically built home-madefurniture, and the neatness and necessary simplicity of everything.
"What an old maid you are for one so young!" she laughed. "And, please,what's the typewriter for--if I'm not too bold?"
"Well," said Oliver, "it occurred to me that I must make a living downhere. I'm a graduate of the State College of Agriculture, and I like tofarm and write about it. I've sold several articles to agriculturalpapers. I'm going to experiment here, and try to make a living bywriting up the results!"
"Why, how perfectly fine!" she cried enthusiastically. "I couldn'timagine anything more engrossing. I'm a State University girl."
"You don't say!"
And this furnished a topic for ten minutes' conversation.
"If you're as good a writer and farmer as you are tinker and carpenter,"she observed, passing into the front room again, "you'll do splendidly."She was standing, straight as a young spruce, hands on hips, lookingwith twinkling eyes at the open door. "The old door still hangs, I see,"she murmured. "Now just why didn't you replace it, Mr. Drew?"
Oliver looked apprehensive. "Well," he replied hesitatingly, "forseveral reasons. First, a new door costs money, and so would the lumberwith which to make one--and I haven't much of that article. Second, Iget some amusement from looking at those old carvings and speculating onthe possible personalities of the carvers. For all I know, some greatcelebrities' ideas may be among those expressed there--some future greatman, at any rate. The boy one meets in the street may one day bepresident, you know. Then there's a sort of companionship about thosenames and monograms and quotations. The fellow that informs me that onlysuckers live here I'd like to meet. He was so blunt about it, so sure.He--er--"
Smiling, she had stepped to the door and, arms still akimbo, allowed herglance to travel from one design to another. She raised an arm andlevelled a finger.
"What do you think of that one?" she asked.
"Well," said Oliver, "that's a rather well executed poison oak leaf. Thehills are covered with the plant. I imagine that some wanderer notimmune from the poison came into contact with it, and, though his eyeswere swelled half shut and his fingers itched and tingled, his righthand had not lost its cunning. So he took out his trusty blade andcarved a warning for all future pilgrims who chanced this way to bewareof this tree that is in the midst of the garden, and to not touch itlest they--"
"Itch," Jessamy gravely put in. "Quite pretty and poetic," shesupplemented. "But you are entirely wrong, Mr. Drew. That carving is,first of all, a copy of the brand of Old Man Selden, and you'll find iton all his cows. All but the word 'Beware,' of course, you understand.Second, it represents the silly symbol of a gang that infests thiscountry known as the Poison Oakers. Oh, you've heard of them!" she hadturned suddenly and surprised the look on his face.
"It sounds very bloodthirsty," he laughed confusedly.
"I'll tell you more, then, when I know you better," she said. "No, I'lltell you today," she added quickly.
Then before he could make a move she had closed the door to examine whatmight be carved on the inner side.
"Tell me now," said Oliver quickly. "Try this chair here by the window.I'm rather proud of this one. It's my first attempt at a morris ch--"
"Come here, please," she commanded, standing with her back to him.
"Don't act so like a boy," she reproved as he dutifully stepped upbehind her. "Anybody would know you are clumsily trying to detract myattention from--that."
> 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 lipstwitching 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 toyou," she said. "So of course you knew, when you saw this carving, thatI was the subject of the raving. And when you saw me you wished to spareme embarrassment. Thank you. But you see I'm not at all embarrassed. Ihave never before seen this masterpiece in wood, and imagine it has beendone since I was in the cabin last. Let's see--I doubt if I've beeninside for a year or more. I think perhaps Mr. Digger Foss is the onewho tried to make his emotions deathless by this work of art. 'Jessamy,My Sweetheart,' eh?" She threw back her glorious head and laughed tilltwo tears streamed down her tanned cheeks. "Poor Digger!" she saidsoberly 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 toreplace the old door with a new one. I would not have the irrefutableevidence of at least one conquest blotted out for worlds. Now let's goout in that glorious sunlight, and I'll tell you about Old Man Seldenand the Poison Oakers."
The Heritage of the Hills Page 4