The Heritage of the Hills

His brows came together as he recalled the episode on the hill, when either the fiery raw liquor or the poison from the diamond-back's fangs – or both – had deprived him of his senses.

He remembered perfectly what he had said – what he had done. He had heard sometime that a man always tells the truth when he is drunk. But had he been drunk, or rabid from the hypodermic injections of Showut Poche-daka? Or, again – both? One thing he knew – that he thrilled yet at remembrance of those satin lips which he had pressed again and again.

Had he told the truth? Had he said that day what he would not have revealed for anything – at that time?

His brows contracted more and more, and a grim smile twitched his lips. His teeth gripped the amber stem of his pipe. Had he told the truth?

He rose suddenly and went through a boyish practice that had clung to him to the years of his young manhood. He stalked to the cheap rectangular mirror on the wall and gazed at his wavy reflection in the flawed glass. Blue eye into blue eye he gazed, and once more asked the question:

"Did I tell the truth when I said I loved her?"

His eyes answered him. He knew that he had told the truth.

Then if this was true – and he knew it to be true – what of the halfbreed, Digger Foss? He remembered a gaunt man, stricken to his death, reeling against the legs of a snorting white mare and clutching at them blindly for support – remembered the gloating grin of the mounted man, the muzzle of whose gun followed the movements of his wounded enemy as a cobra's head sways back and forth to the charmer's music – remembered the cruel insolence of the Mongolic eyes, mere slits.

He swung about suddenly from the mirror and caught sight of a knothole in the cabin wall, which so far he had neglected to patch with tin. He noted it as he swung about and dived at the pillow on his bed. He hurled the pillow one side, swept up the ivory-handled '45 that lay there, wheeled, and fired at the knothole. There had been no appreciable pause between his grasping of the weapon and the trigger pull, yet he saw no bullet hole in the cabin boards when the smoke had cleared away.

He chuckled grimly. "I might get out my army medals for marksmanship and pin 'em on my breast for a target," he said.

Then to his vast confusion there came a voice from the front of the house.

"Ain't committed soothin' syrup, have ye?" it boomed.

There was no mistaking the deep-lunged tones. It was Old Man Selden who had called to him.

Oliver tossed the gun on the bed and walked through to the front door, which always stood open these days, inviting the countless little lizards that his invasion of the place had not disturbed to enter and make themselves at home.

The gaunt old boss of the Clinker Creek Country stood, with chap-protected legs wide apart, on Oliver's little porch. His broad-brimmed black hat was set at an angle on his iron-grey hair, and his cold blue eyes were piercing and direct, as always. In his hands he held the reins of his horse's bridle. Back of the grey seven men lounged in their saddles, grinning at the old man's sally. Digger Foss was not among the number.

"How d'ye do, Mr. Selden," said Oliver in cordial tones, thrusting forth a strong brown hand.

Selden did not accept the hand, and made no effort to pretend that he had not noticed it. Oliver quickly withdrew it, and two little lumps showed over the hinges of his jaws.

He changed his tone immediately. "Well, what can I do for you gentlemen?" he inquired brusquely.

"We was ridin' through an' thought we heard a shot," said Selden. "So I dropped off to see if ye wasn't hurt."

"I beg your pardon," Oliver returned, "but you must have been dismounted when I fired. This being the case, you already had decided to call on me. So, once more, how can I be of service to you?"

The grins of the men who rode with Adam Selden disappeared. There was no mistaking the businesslike hostility of Oliver's attitude.

"Peeved about somethin' this mornin'," one of them drawled to the rider whose knee pressed his.

Oliver looked straight at Old Man Selden, and to him he spoke.

"I am not peeved about anything," he said. "But when a man comes to my door, and I come and offer him my hand, and he ignores it, my inference is that the call isn't a friendly one. So if you have any business to transact with me, let's get it off our chests."

Oliver noted with a certain amount of satisfaction the quick, surprised looks that were flashed among the Poison Oakers. Apparently they had met a tougher customer than they had expected.

All this time the cold blue eyes of Adam Selden had been looking over the pitted Bourbon nose at Oliver. Selden's tones were unruffled as he said:

"Thought maybe the poison oak had got too many for ye, an' ye'd shot yerself."

"I don't care to listen to subtle threats," Oliver returned promptly. "Poison oak does not trouble me at all – neither the vegetable variety nor the other variety. I'm never in favour of bandying words. If I have anything to say I try to say it in the best American-English at my command. So I'll make no pretence, Mr. Selden, that I have not heard you don't want me here in the cañon. And I'll add that I am here, on my own land, and intend to do my best to remain till I see fit to leave."

Selden's craggy brows came down, and the scrutiny that he gave the young man was not without an element of admiration. No anger showed in his voice as he said:

"Just so! Just so! I wanted to tell ye that I been down to the recorder's office and up to see Nancy Fleet, my wife's sister. Seems that you're right about this prop'ty standin' in your name an' all; but I thought, so long's we was ridin' along this way, I'd drop off an' have a word with ye."

"I'm waiting to hear it."

"No use gettin' riled, now, because – "

"If you had accepted my hand you'd not find me adopting the tone that I have."

"Just so!" Selden drawled. "Well, then, I'll accept her now – if I ain't too bold."

"You will not," clicked Oliver. "Will you please state your business and ride on?"

"Friendly cuss, ain't he, Dad?" remarked one of the Selden boys – which one Oliver did not know.

"You close yer face!" admonished Selden smoothly, in his deep bass. "Well, Mr. Drew, if ye want to stay here an' starve to death, that's none o' my concern. And if ye got money to live on comin' from somewheres else, that's none o' my concern either. But when ye stop the run o' water from a spring that I'm dependin' on to water my critters in dry months, it is my concern – an' that's why I dropped off for a word with ye."

"How do you know I have done that?" Oliver asked.

"Well, 'tain't likely that a spring like Sulphur Spring would go dry the last o' May. Most o' these springs along here are fed from the same vein. You move in, and Sulphur Spring goes dry. So that's what I dropped off to talk to ye about. Just so!"

"I suppose," said Oliver, "that the work I did on my spring has in reality stopped the flow of Sulphur Spring. But – "

"Ye do? What makes ye suppose so? – if I ain't too bold in askin'."

Oliver's lips straightened. Plainly Selden suspected that Jessamy had told him of the peculiarity of the cañon springs, and was trying to make him implicate her. But the old man was not the crafty intriguer he seemed to fancy himself to be. He already had said too much if he wished to make Oliver drag the girl's name into the quarrel.

"Why, what you have just told me, added to my knowledge of what I did to clean out my spring, leads to that supposition," he replied. "But, as I was about to remark when you interrupted me, I can't see that that is any concern of mine. That's putting it rather bluntly, perhaps; but I am entirely within my rights in developing all the water that I can on my land, regardless of how it may affect land that lies below me."

"Right there's the point," retorted Selden. "I'm a pretty good friend o' the prosecutin' attorney down at the county seat. He tells me ye can't take my water away from me like that."

"Then I should say that your legal friend is not very well posted on the laws governing the development and disposition of water in this state," Oliver promptly told him.

"I wrote him," said Selden, "an' I'll show ye the letter if ye'll invite me in."

For the first time Oliver hesitated. Why did Selden wish to enter the cabin? Could not the letter be produced and read on the porch? It flashed through his mind that the old fox wished to get him inside so that some of his gang might investigate the spring and find out the volume of the water that was flowing, and what had been done to increase it. This only added to his belief that the Poison Oakers were responsible for the wall of stones that had choked the stream. Well, why not let them find out all that they wished to know in this regard?

"Certainly," he invited. "Come in." And he stood back from the door.

Selden clanked his spur rowels across the threshold. At the same time he was reaching into his shirtfront for the letter.

Then an odd thing occurred. He was about to take the chair that Oliver had pushed forward when his blue eyes fell upon the saddle and bridle which had come to stand for so much in Oliver's life, hanging from a thong in one corner of the room.

The old Poison Oaker's eyes grew wide, and, as was their way when he was moved out of his customary brooding mood, his thick nostrils began dilating. But almost instantly he was his cold, insolent self again.

"I heard some of 'em gassin' about that rig o' yours," he remarked. "Said she was a hummer all 'round. That it there? Mind if I look her over?"

"Not at all." Oliver was quick to grasp at any chance that might lead to the big question and its answer.

Old Man Selden's leather chaps whistled his legs to the corner, where he stood, long arms at his sides, gazing at the saddle, the bridle, and the martingales. His deep breathing was the only sound in the room. Outside, Oliver heard foot-steps, and suspected that the investigation of his spring was on.

At last Adam Selden made a move. He changed his position so that his spacious back was turned toward Oliver. Quietly Oliver leaned to one side in his chair, and he saw the cowman's big hand outstretched toward the gem-mounted concha on the left-hand side of the bridle – saw thumb and fingers turn that part of the bridle inside-out.

Again the room was soundless. Then Selden turned from the exhibit, and Oliver grew tense as he noted the strange pallor that had come on the old man's face.

"That's a han'some rig," was all he said, as he sank to his chair and laid a letter on the oilcloth-covered table.

The letter contained the information that its recipient had claimed, and was signed Elmer Standard. Oliver quickly passed it back, remarking:

"He's entirely wrong, and ought to know it. I have had occasion to look into the legal aspect of water rights in California quite thoroughly, and fortunately am better posted than most laymen are on the subject."

But the chief of the Poison Oakers was scarce listening. In his blue eyes was a faraway look, and that weird grey pallor had not left his face.

Suddenly he jerked himself from reverie, and, to Oliver's surprise, a smile crossed his bearded lips.

"Just so! Just so! I judge ye're right, Mr. Drew – I judge ye're right," he said almost genially. "Anyway you an' me'd be out-an'-out fools to fuss over a matter like that. There's plenty water fer the cows, an' I oughtn't to butted in. But us ol'-timers, ye know, we – Well, I guess we oughta be shot an' drug out fer the cy-otes to gnaw on. I won't trouble ye again, Mr. Drew. An' I'll be ridin' now with the boys, I reckon. Ye might ride up and get acquainted with my wife an' step-daughter – but I guess ye've already met Jess'my. I've heard her mention ye. Ride up some day – they'll be glad to see ye."

And Oliver Drew was more at a loss how to act in showing him out than when he had first faced him on the porch.

The Poison Oakers, with Old Man Selden at their head, rode away up the cañon. Oliver Drew was throwing the saddle on Poche's back two minutes after they had vanished in the trees. He mounted and galloped in the opposite direction, opening the wire "Indian" gate when he reached the south line of his property.

An hour later he was searching the obscure hills and cañons for Sulphur Spring, but two hours had elapsed before he found it.

It was hidden away in a little wooded cañon, with high hills all about, and wild grapevines, buckeyes, and bays almost completely screened it. While cattle might drink from the overflow that ran down beyond the heavy growth, they could not have reached the basin which had been designed to hold the water as it flowed directly from the spring. Moreover, it was doubtful if, during the hot summer months, the rapid evaporating would leave any water for cattle in the tiny course below the bushes.

Oliver parted the foliage and crawled in to the clay basin. Cold water remained in the bottom of it, but the inflow had ceased entirely.

He bent down and submerged his hand, feeling along the sides of the basin. Almost at once his fingers closed over the end of a piece of three-quarter-inch iron pipe.

Then in the pool before his face there came a sudden chug, and a little geyser of water spurted up into his eyes. Oliver drew back instinctively. His face blanched, and his muscles tightened.

Then from somewhere up in the timbered hills came the crash of a heavy-calibre rifle.

CHAPTER XIII

SHINPLASTER AND CREEDS

White Ann and Poche bore their riders slowly along the backbone of the ridge that upreared itself between Clinker Creek Cañon and the American. Occasionally they came upon groups of red and roan and spotted longhorn steers, each branded with the insignia of the Poison Oakers. Once a deer crashed away through thick chaparral. Young jackrabbits went leaping over the grassy knolls at their approach. Down the timbered hillsides grey squirrels scolded in lofty pines and spruces. Next day would mark the beginning of the full-moon period for the month of June.

Jessamy Selden was in a thoughtful mood this morning. Her hat lay over her saddle horn. Her black hair now was parted from forehead to the nape of her neck, and twisted into two huge rosettes, one over each ear, after the constant fashion of the Indian girls. So far Oliver Drew had not discovered that he disliked any of the many ways in which she did her hair.

"What are your views on religion?" was her sudden and unexpected question.

"So we're going to be heavy this morning, eh?"

"Oh, no – not particularly. There's usually a smattering of method in my madness. You haven't answered."

"Seems to me you've given me a pretty big contract all in one question. If you could narrow down a bit – be more specific – "

"Well, then, do you believe in that?" She raised her arm sharply and pointed down the precipitous slopes to the green American rushing pell-mell down its rugged cañon.

They had just come in sight of the gold dredger, whose great shovels were tearing down the banks, leaving a long serpentine line of débris behind the craft in the middle of the river.

"That dredge?" he asked. "What's it to do with religion?"

"To me it personifies the greed of all mankind," she replied. "It makes me wild to think that a great, lumbering, manmade toy should come up that river and destroy its natural beauty for the sake of the tiny particles of gold in the earth and rocks. Ugh! I detest the sight of the thing. The gold they get will buy diamond necklaces for fat, foolish old women, and not a stone among them can compare with the dewdrop flashing there in that filaree blossom! It will buy silk gowns, and any spider can weave a fabric with which they can't begin to compete. It will build tall skyscrapers, and which of them will be as imposing as one of these majestic oaks which that machine may uproot? Bah, I hate the sight of the thing!"

"Gold also buys food and simple clothing," he reminded her.

"I suppose so," she sighed. "We've gotten to a point where gold is necessary. But, oh, how unnecessary it is, after all, if we were only as God intended us to be! I detest anything utilitarian. 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."

"But they also take cramped-up city folks out into the country," he said. "And all of them are not irreverent."

"Oh, yes – I know. I'm selfish there. And I'm not at all practical. But I do hate 'em!"

"And what do you like in life?" he asked amusedly.

"Well, I have no particular objection to horned toads, for one thing," she laughed. "But I'm only halfway approaching my subject. Do you like missionaries?"

"I think I've never eaten any," he told her gravely.

But she would not laugh. "I don't like 'em," she claimed. "I don't believe in the practice of sending apostles into other countries to force – if necessary – the believers in other religions to trample under foot their ancient teachings, and espouse ours. All peoples, it seems to me, believe in a creator. That's enough. Let 'em alone in their various creeds and doctrines and methods of expressing their faith and devotion. Are you with me there?"

"I think so. Only extreme bigotry and egotism can be responsible for the zeal that sends a believer in one faith to the believers in another to try and bend them to his way of thinking."

"I respect all religions – all beliefs," she said. "But those who go preaching into other lands can have no respect at all for the other fellow's faith. And that's not Christlike in the first place."

He knew that she had something on her mind that she would in good time disclose, but he wondered not a little at her trend of thought this morning.

"The Showut Poche-dakas are deeply religious," she declared suddenly. "Long years ago they inhabited the coast country, but were gradually pushed back up here. Down there, though, they came under the influence of the old Spanish padres; and today their religion is a mixture of Catholicism and ancient tribal teachings. They are sincere and devout. I have as much reverence for a bareheaded Indian girl on her knees to the Sun God as I have for a hooded nun counting her beads. They believe in a supreme being; that's enough for me. You'll be interested at the fiesta tomorrow night. I rode up there the other day. Everything is in readiness. The ramadas are all built, and the dance floor is up, and Indians are drifting in from other reservations a hundred miles away."

"Will you ride up with me tomorrow afternoon?" he asked.

"Yes, I think so – that is, since I heard what Old Man Selden had to say about you the day after he called. I'll tell you about that later. Yes, all the whites attend the fiestas. The California Indian is crude and not very picturesque, compared with other Indians, but the fiestas are fascinating. Especially the dances. They defy interpretation; but they're interesting, even if they don't show a great deal of imagination. By the way, I bought you a present at Halfmoon Flat the other day."

She unbuttoned the flap on a pocket of her chaparejos, and handed him a small parcel wrapped in sky-blue paper.

"Am I to open it now or wait till Christmas?" he asked.

"Now," she said.

The paper contained a half-dozen small bottles of liquid courtplaster.

"Oh, I'm perfectly sane!" she laughed in her ringing tones as he turned a blank face to her.

"Tomorrow," she went on, "you are to smear yourself with that liquid courtplaster, from the soles of your feet to your knees. When one coat dries, apply another; and continue doing so until the supply is exhausted."

She threw back her head and her whole-souled laughter awoke the echoes.

"It's merely a crazy idea of mine," she explained. "I had a bottle of the stuff and was reading the printed directions that came with it. It seems to be good for anything, from gluing the straps of a décolletté ballgown to a woman's shoulders to the protection of stenographer's fingers and harvesters' hands at husking time. It's almost invisible when it has dried on one's skin; and I thought it might be of benefit to you in the fire dance."

"Say," he said, "you're in up to your neck, while I've barely got my feet wet. Come across!"

"Well, I'm not positive," she told him, "but I'm strongly of the opinion that you're going to dance the fire dance at the Fiesta de Santa Maria de Refugio tomorrow night."

"I? I dance the fire dance? Oh, no, Miss – you have the wrong number. I don't dance the fire dance at all."

"I think you will tomorrow night, and I thought that liquid courtplaster might help protect your feet and legs. I put some on my second finger and let it dry, then put my finger on the cookstove."

"Yes?"

"Well, I took it off again. But, honestly, the finger that had none on at all felt a little hotter, I imagined. I'm sure it did, and I only had two coats on. I know you'll be glad you tried it, and the Indians will never know it's there."

"I'm getting just a bit interested," he remarked.

"Well," she said, "after what passed between you and Chupurosa Hatchinguish that day, I'm almost positive that tomorrow night you are to be extended the honour of becoming a member of the tribe. And I know the fire dance is a ceremony connected with admitting an outsider to membership. White men who have married Indian women are about the only ones that are ever made tribal brothers by the Showut Poche-dakas; so in your case it is a distinct honour.

"I have seen this fire dance. While a white person cannot accurately interpret its significance, it seems that the fire is emblematical of all the forces which naturally would be pitted against you in your endeavour to ally yourself with the Showut Poche-dakas.

"For instance, there's your white skin and your love for your own people, the difference in the life you have led as compared with theirs, what you have been taught – and, oh, everything that might be against the alliance. All this, I say, is represented by the fire. And in the fire dance, my dear friend, you must stamp out these objections with your bare feet if you would become brother to the Showut Poche-dakas."

"With my bare feet? Stamp out these objections?"

"Yes – as represented by the fire."

"You mean I must stamp out a fire with my bare feet? Actually?"

"Actually – literally – honest-to-goodnessly!"

"Good night!" cried Oliver. "I'll cleave to my kith and kin."

"And never learn the question that puzzled your idealistic father for thirty years? Nor whether the correct answer is Yes or No?"

"But, heavens, I don't put out a fire that way!"

"It's not so dreadful as it sounds," she consoled. "You join the tribe, and you all go marching and stamping about a big bonfire for hours and hours and hours, till the fire is conveniently low. Then the one who is to be admitted to brotherhood and a chosen member of the tribe – the champion fire-dancer, in short – jump on what is left of the fire and stamp it out. Of course there are objections to you from the view-point of the Showut Poche-dakas, and they must be overcome by a representative of them. If the fire proves too much for your bare feet the objections are too strong to be overcome, and you never will be an honourary Showut Poche-daka. But if the two of you conquer the fire with your bare feet the ceremony is over, and you're It. And when the other Indians see that you two Indians" – her eyes twinkled – "are getting the better of the fire, they'll jump in and help you."

"A very entertaining ceremony – for the grandstand," was Oliver's dry opinion.

"Of course the Indian's feet are tough as leather, and they have it on you there. Hence this liquid courtplaster. It's worth a trial. Honestly, I held my finger on the stove – oh, ever so long! A full second, I'd say."

Back went her glorious head, and her teeth flashed in the sunlight as, drunk with the wine of youth and health, she sent her rollicking laughter out over the hills and cañons.