The Heritage of the Hills. Hankins Arthur Preston

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СКАЧАТЬ you know. Then there's a sort of companionship about those names and monograms and quotations. The fellow that informs me that only suckers 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 her glance to travel from one design to another. She raised an arm and levelled a finger.

      "What do you think of that one?" she asked.

      "Well," said Oliver, "that's a rather well executed poison oak leaf. The hills are covered with the plant. I imagine that some wanderer not immune from the poison came into contact with it, and, though his eyes were swelled half shut and his fingers itched and tingled, his right hand had not lost its cunning. So he took out his trusty blade and carved a warning for all future pilgrims who chanced this way to beware of this tree that is in the midst of the garden, and to not touch it lest they – "

      "Itch," Jessamy gravely put in. "Quite pretty and poetic," she supplemented. "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 it on all his cows. All but the word 'Beware,' of course, you understand. Second, it represents the silly symbol of a gang that infests this country known as the Poison Oakers. Oh, you've heard of them!" she had turned 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'll tell you today," she added quickly.

      Then before he could make a move she had closed the door to examine what might 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 up behind her. "Anybody would know you are clumsily trying to detract my attention 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 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 embarrassment. Thank you. But you see I'm not at all embarrassed. 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 circumstances."

      "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 СКАЧАТЬ