Arthur Preston Hankins

“ As Poche picked his way out of the cañon Oliver espied Jessamy Selden on her white mare, standing still in the county road.
"Good morning," said the girl. "You're late. I've been waiting for you ten minutes."
Oliver's lips parted in surprise, and she laughed good-naturedly.
"I thought you'd be riding out early this morning," she explained, "so I rode down to meet you. I feel as if a long ride in the saddle would benefit me today. Do you mind if I travel with you to the county seat?"
He had ridden close to her by this time, and offered his hand.
"You like to surprise people, don't you?" ”

“ You are the Watchman of the Dead. You own the land on which the treasure lies. You are brother of the Showut Poche-dakas. The treasure is yours almost for the lifting of a hand. You are almost penniless.
"There's your question, Oliver Drew. Say Yes and the gems are yours. Say No, and you have forty acres of almost worthless land, a saddle horse and outfit, and youth and health, and the lifetime office of Watchman of the Dead!" ”

“ Abruptly Chupurosa came to a full stop, backed from the fire, and squatted on the ground inside the circle. No applause, not a word, no sign of any nature followed the cessation of his harangue.
Now two young Indians led forth an old, old man. Each of them held one of his arms. He was stooped and trembly, and his feet dragged pitiably; and as he neared the fire Oliver saw that he was totally blind.
Never before in his life had the white man seen age so plainly stamped on human countenance. ”

“ Occasionally some fanatic would spring from the line and rush upon the fire, striking at it with his feet, slapping at it with his hands, growling at it and threatening it in his guttural tongue. Then the dance would grow fiercer, and the chanting would break out anew, while always the cherry stones rattled dismally and urged the zealots on.
When would it end? There was fresh, clean pitch in the great logs that blazed; and it seemed to Oliver that the exorcism must continue to the end of time. ”

“ Clinker Creek Cañon dipped so steadily below Sulphur Spring that it had been possible to lay the pipe to this hidden spot in the heart of the chaparral, far up on the hillside, and still maintain a goodly fall for the flow of water.
Only by crawling flat on his face could one reach this secluded rendezvous; and in all the years that they had made molasses rum here the Poison Oakers had not been disturbed. Not even a hunter would find it necessary to penetrate this fastness. Men would have laughed if told that water was flowing up here on the dry, rocky eminence. ”

“ Oliver dragged his feet now; he thought he could not lift them. His brain was a dull, dead thing except for that passionate hatred of the fire that the weird chanting and the strangeness of it all had brought about. And now the fire grew lower, lower. Back of the ragged hills the moon slipped down and left the wilderness in blackness. Only the fire gleamed.
Then suddenly the rattling of the cherry stones was quieted. Now the only sounds were the weary thud-thud of tough bare heels and the stentorian breathing of the zealous worshippers, an occasional heartrending grunt. ”

“ Only fifteen of the Showut Poche-dakas plodded now about the failing fire, by this time smouldering at their very feet. Fifteen Showut Poche-dakas—and Oliver Drew! All were men, young men in life's full vigour. Yet they swayed and reeled and staggered drunkenly as the dizzying ordeal went on through the grey silence of dawn.
Now dawn came fast and spread its inchoate light over the silent assemblage in the hills. Then like a burst of sound disturbing a weary sleeper, the cherry stones resumed their rattling. ”

“ Oliver led the way when they reached the beginning of the trail. Both Poche and White Ann were mountain bred animals, sure-footed and unconcerned over Nature's threatening eccentricities. For a quarter of a mile the bay and the white threaded the narrow path, their riders silent. Then they came to Lime Rock and the security of the level land about it.
Here Oliver and Jessamy sat their horses and gazed down the dizzy precipice at the rushing river, and up the steep, rocky wall on the other side.
"Do you know who owns the land on which our horses are standing?" Jessamy finally asked. ”

“ Now Oliver realized that his fingers were locked with those of the nude Indian who had danced opposite him; that they two were over the waning fire, fighting it with their feet.
How long it lasted he never knew. Life came back to his mistreated muscles, and with his feet he fought this thing that stung him and seared him and filled his heart with burning wrath. Then came a long, concerted shout. In rushed the Showut Poche-dakas to the fighters' aid. Bare feet by twenty-fives and fifties slapped at the fire, and a herd of dark forms trampled over it and beat it to extinction. ”

“ After eating he fell asleep once more, and slept all night, his head in the silver-mounted saddle that Bolivio had made.
He dragged himself from the shakedown and went and sat at an opening in the booth. The ramada of the California Indian is merely an arbourlike structure built of newly cut limbs of trees, their still unwithered leaves serving to screen the occupants from outside eyes.
The birds were singing. Up the steep mountainside back of the reservation the goats and burros of the Showut Poche-dakas browsed contentedly on buckthorn and manzanita bushes. ”

“ Oliver started.
"Two years ago," she went on softly, "I met the second Watchman of the Dead. You are the third. The first was murdered in this forest. His name was Bolivio, and he made silver-mounted saddles and hair-tasseled bridles."
Oliver scarce dared to breathe for fear of breaking the spell that seemed to have come over her. She did not look at him. She continued to gaze into her beloved cañon and at her beloved hills beyond.
"Oh, where shall I begin!" she cried at last. "Where is the beginning? A man would begin at the first, I suppose, but a woman just can't! ”

“ Never were religious zealots more devout. Strange thoughts filled the white man's mind.
He was roused from his dreaming with a start. Maquaquish had ceased speaking, and a low chanting sounded about the fire. It grew in volume as the blind man's escort led him back to his place in the circle. It grew louder, weirder still, as the two who had aided the seer stepped to the drygoods box and carried it between them past the fire. As they walked with it beyond the circle every Indian rose to his feet and followed slowly. Oliver did likewise, not knowing what else to do. ”

“ Dan Smeed, outlaw, highwayman, had owned a saddle and bridle like Oliver's. The old man had mysteriously mentioned the lost mine of Bolivio, and had said the settings in Oliver's conchas were gems. If only the old man could be made to talk!
The muffled thud of a horse's hoofs came between the strokes of Oliver's pick. With an odd and unfamiliar sensation he glimpsed a white horse and rider approaching through the pines.
It was she—Jessamy Selden—the black-haired, black-eyed girl of whom he reluctantly had thought so often since his first day in the Clinker Creek Country. ”

“ The only thing that stood between Jessamy and him, he now believed, was her uncertainty of what his answer to the question would be. In her staunch heart she respected the belief of the Showut Poche-dakas, and to her the gems as a symbol were as worthy of her reverence as the Sacred Book of the Christians. "I have as much reverence for a bareheaded Indian girl on her knees to the Sun God as for a hooded nun counting her beads," she had said. ”

“ She was riding straight down the cañon, the white mare gingerly picking her way between boulders and snarls of driftwood. The girl looked up. Oliver felt that she saw him. Her ears could not have been insensible to the ring of his pick on the flinty stones. She did not leave the trail, however, but continued on in his direction. ”

“ Tall pines and spruce stood black and bar-like against the silver radiance. Away in the distance coyotes lifted their yodel, half jocular, half mournful, as a maudlin drunkard sings dolefully a merry tune.
In a cup of the hills, surrounded by acres and acres of almost impenetrable chaparral and timber, a hundred or more human beings were clustered about a blazing fire. Horses stamped in the corrals. Now and then an Indian dog cast back a vicious challenge at the wild dogs on the hill. ”

“ An old man dropped, face down, on the earth, completely overcome. From beyond the circle of dancers a pair of arms reached through and dragged him out by the heels. The dance went on, and the dancers now were closer to the fire by the breadth of one human body.
Weirdly rose the chant to the moonlit night. Coyotes answered with doleful ribaldry. A woman pitched forward on her face—a young woman. She lay quite still, breathing heavily. Oliver stepped over her body as they dragged her out to resuscitate her, and it seemed as he did so that he scarce could lift his feet so high. ”

“ He believed nothing of the sort, but his arms were growing desperately weary and he must goad the drunken gunman into immediate action.
"There's just one thing that's the matter with you," he gibed on, ready to descend to any speech that would cut the killer and break his deadly calm. "That's my getting your girl away from you! It's not the gems; it's that that hurts you. Why, say, do you think she'd wipe her feet on you!"
Into the eyes of the halfbreed came a viperish light that almost stilled Oliver's heartbeats. ”

“ A man instinctively felt that, if he could win this woman, he would 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 of their load.
Still, Oliver knew nothing at all about her. What he had heard of her was not exactly of the best. Yet he felt that she was gloriously all right, and did not try to argue otherwise.
"Well, I suppose I must introduce myself first," she was saying in her full, ringing tones. "I'm Jessamy Selden. My name is not Selden, though, but Lomax. ”

“ I hate orchards because they supplant the trees and chaparral that Nature has planted. I hate the irrigating systems, because the dams and reservoirs that they demand ruin rugged cañons and valleys. I hate railroads, because their hideous old trains go screeching through God's peaceful solitudes. I hate automobiles, because they bring irreverent unbelievers into God's chapels. ”

“ When the last bolt of calico had been thrown and had been captured and claimed by some delighted squaw, the assemblage, talking and laughing in an everyday manner, left the Four Pools and started back to their horses.
The Mona Fiesta was over. Symbolically the clothes of the dead had been washed. The Showut Poche-dakas had drunk of the water that had cleansed them. And this was about all that Oliver Drew ever learned of the significance of the ceremony.
At the cabin Chupurosa waited on his horse until his tribesmen had all ridden through the gate. Then he leaned over and spoke to Oliver. ”

“ Grace and strength, rather than purely feminine beauty, predominated in the impression she created in Oliver. She wore a man's Stetson hat over her lavish crown of coal-black hair, a man's flannel 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 fifty pounds. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Now and then a break in the timber revealed wooded hills beyond green pasture lands, and other hills covered with dense growths of buckhorn and manzanita. Poison oak grew everywhere, and, at this time of year—early spring—was most prolific, most beautiful in its dark rich green, most poisonous.
Occasionally the lone horseman crossed a riotous stream, plunging down from the snow-topped Sierras in the far distance. ”

“ I've had a short interview with Old Man Selden. Corrupt he may be, but he struck me as an old sinner who would be corrupt on a big scale. I couldn't think of the masterful old reprobate I talked with as a piker."
Jessamy locked a leg about her saddle horn. "You've got him about right," she informed her companion. "One simply is obliged to think of him as big in many ways."
Oliver's leg now crooked itself toward her, and he slouched down comfortably. "Say," he said, "I don't get you at all." ”

“ It was evident to Oliver Drew that Clinker Creek was lowering fast, as Damon Tamroy had predicted that it would do. He feared that it would go entirely dry just when certain vegetables would need it most. Again, also following Tamroy's prophecy, the flow from his spring proved insufficient to keep all of his plantings alive, even though he had impounded the surplus in a small clay-lined reservoir.
He stood with hands on hips today, frowning at the tinkling stream of water running from the rusty length of pipe into the reservoir. ”