the trail that meandered down clinker creek cañon extended at right angles to the one that led to the selden ranch. the latter climbed a baldpate hill; then, winding its narrow way through dense locked chaparral higher than horse and rider, dipped down precipitously into the deep cañon of the american river.
jessamy waved good-bye to her new friend at the parting of the ways and lifted white ann into her long lope to the summit of the denuded hill. for a little, as they crossed the topmost part of it, the deep, rugged scar that marked the course of the river was visible. ragged and rocky and covered with trees and chaparral, the cañonside slanted down dizzily for over fifteen hundred feet. at the bottom the deep green river rushed pell-mell to the lower levels. a moment and the view was lost to the girl, as white ann entered the thick chaparral and started the swift descent.
at last they reached the bottom, forded the swirling stream, and began clambering up a trail as steep as the first on the other side. soon the river was lost to view again, for once more the trail had been cut through a seemingly impenetrable chaparral of buckthorn, manzanita and scrub oak. around and about tributary cañons they wound their way, and at last reached the end of the steep climb. for a quarter of a mile now the trail followed the backbone of a ridge, then entered a cañon that eventually spread out into a pine-bordered plateau on the mountainside. just ahead lay poison oak ranch. beyond, the deep, dark forest extended in miles numbered by hundreds to the snow-mantled peaks of the sierra nevada range.
while it was possible to reach poison oak ranch from this side of the river, the journey on shank's mare would have taken on something of the nature of an exploring expedition into unmapped lands. occasionally hunters wandered to or past the ranch on this side; but for the most part any one who fancied that he had business at poison oak ranch came over the narrow trail that connected the spot with outside civilization. few entertained such a fancy, however, for poison oak ranch, secluded, hidden from sight, tucked away in the hills of nowhere, and difficult of access, was owned and controlled by a clannish family that had little in common with the world.
there was a large log house that adam selden's father had built in the days of '49, in which the old man selden of today had first opened his eyes on life. there were several lesser cabins in the mountainside cup, two of which were occupied by hurlock selden and winthrop selden and their families. the remaining two boys, moffat and bolar, lived in the big house with jessamy, her mother, and the wicked old man of the hills.
there was an extensive garden, watered by a generous spring that gushed picturesquely from under a gigantic boulder set in the hillside. there were perhaps ten acres of pasture, and a small deciduous orchard. little more in the way of agricultural land. the seldens merely made this place their home and headquarters—their cattle ranged the hills outside, and most of their activities toward a livelihood were carried on away from home. selden owned a thousand acres over in the clinker creek country and a winter range a trifle larger fifty miles below the foothills. he moved his herds three times in a year—from the winter pastures to the clinker creek country for the spring grass, keeping them there till august, when they were driven to government mountain ranges at an altitude of six thousand feet; and from thence, in october, to winter range once more. the clinker creek range, however, was comprised of several thousand acres beside the thousand owned by selden. this represented lands long since deserted by their owners as useless for agricultural purposes, and upon which selden kept up the taxes, or appropriated without negotiations, as conditions demanded. oliver drew's forty had been a part of this until oliver's inopportune arrival.
jessamy rode into the rail corral and unsaddled her mare. then she hurried to the house to help her mother, a tired looking, once comely woman of fifty-eight.
mrs. selden had been an ivison—a sister of old tabor ivison, who had homesteaded oliver's forty acres thirty years before. as a girl she had married herman lomax, a country youth with ambitions for the city. he had done fairly well in the mercantile business in san francisco, and jessamy, the only child, was born to them. the girl had been raised to young womanhood and attended the state university. then her father had died, leaving his business in an involved condition; and in the end the widow and her daughter found there was little left for them.
they returned to the scene of mrs. lomax's girlhood, where they tried without success to farm the old home place, to which, in the interim, the widow had fallen heir. then to the surprise of every one—jessamy most of all—mrs. lomax consented to marry old adam selden, the father of four strapping sons and "the meanest man in the country." at the time jessamy had not known this last, but she knew it now.
however, such an independent young woman as jessamy would not consent to suffer a great deal at the hands of a step-father. she stayed on with the family for her mother's sake, but she had her own neat living room and bedroom and went her own way entirely. it must end someday. old adam selden, though hard and tough as a time-battered oak, could not live for ever. her mother would not divorce him. so jessamy stayed and waited, and rode over the hills alone, unafraid and independent.
she was helping her mother to get supper in the commodious kitchen, with its black log walls and immense stone fireplace, which room served as dining room and living room as well, when adam selden, bolar, and moffat rode in from the trail and corraled their horses. supper was ready as the three clanked to the house in spurs and chaps, and washed noisily in basins under a gigantic liveoak at the cabin door. then jessamy took oliver drew's letter from her bosom and propped it against old adam's coffee cup.
selden's bushy brows came down as he scraped his chair to the table. mail for any selden was an unusual occurrence.
"what's this here?" adam's thick fingers held the envelope before his eyes, and the beetling grey brows strained lower.
"mail," indifferently answered jessamy, setting a pan of steaming biscuits, covered with a spotless cloth, on the table.
"fer me?"
"'adam selden, esquire,'" she quoted.
"'esquire,' eh? who's she from?"
"it's generally customary to open a letter and read who it is from," said jessamy lightly. "in this instance, however, you will find a notation on the flap of the envelope that reads: 'from oliver drew, halfmoon flat, california.'"
"huh!" selden raised his shaggy head and bent a condemnatory glance on the girl.
"d'he give it to ye?"
"it is postmarked halfmoon flat," said jessamy, taking her seat beside bolar, who, indifferent to his father's difficulties, had already consumed three fluffy biscuits spread with butter and wild honey.
"ye got her out o' the office, then?" the cold blue eyes were challenging.
"oh, certainly, certainly!" jessamy chirruped impatiently. "one might imagine you'd never received a letter before."
adam fingered it thoughtfully. "yes," he said deliberatingly at last, reverting to his customary drawl, "i got letters before now. but i was just wonderin' if this drew fella give thisun to you to give to me."
jessamy's round left shoulder gave a little shrug of indifference. "coffee, moffat?" she asked.
"sure mike," said moffat.
"did he?" selden's tones descended to the deep bass boom which marked certain moods.
"oh, dear!" jessamy complained good-naturedly. "what's the use? can't you see the postmark and the cancelled stamp, mr. selden?"
selden contemplated them. "yes, i see 'em," he admitted; "i see 'em. but i thought, s' long's ye was with that young drew fella today, he might 'a' saved his stamp and sent her to me by you."
"that being satisfactorily decided," chirped jessamy, "let us now open the missive and learn what mr. drew has to communicate."
"heaven's sake, pap, open it and shut up!" growled moffat, his mouth full of potato.
"i'll take a quirt to you if ye tell me to shut up ag'in!" thundered selden.
thereupon he tore the envelope and leaned out from his chair so that the light from a window flooded the single sheet which the envelope contained.
he read silently, slowly, craggy brows drawn down. his cold blue eyes widened, and the large nostrils of his pitted bourbon nose spread angrily.
"moffat, listen here!" he boomed at last. "you, too, bolar."
"yes, be sure to listen, bolar," laughed jessamy. "but if you don't wish to, go down into the cañon of the american."
"'adam selden, esquire,'" selden boomed on, unheeding the girl's bantering. "'poison oak ranch, halfmoon flat, californy:'
"'my dear mr. selden.' get that, moffat! 'my dear mr. selden!' say, who's that ike think he's writin' to? his gal? huh! 'my dear mr. selden:'
"'i rode to the county seat on wednesday, this week, and looked over the records in the office of the recorder of deeds. i found that you are entirely mistaken in the matter that you brought to my attention on tuesday. the forty acres known as the old ivison place are recorded in my name, the date of the recording being january fifth, this year. it appears that nancy fleet sold the place years ago to my father, but that the transfer was not placed on record until the date i have mentioned.'
"'with kindest regards,'
"'yours sincerely, oliver drew.'"
selden came to an ominous pause and glared about the table. "writ with a typewriter, all but his name," he announced impressively. "and he's a liar by the clock!"
jessamy threw back her head in that whole-souled laughter that made every one who heard her laugh.
"he's crazy," complacently mumbled bolar, still at war on the biscuits.
"jess'my"—selden's eyes were fixed sternly on his step-daughter—"what're ye laughin' at?"
"at humanity's infinite variety," answered jessamy.
"does that mean me?"
"me, too, pete!" she rippled.
"looky-here"—he leaned toward her—"there's some funny business goin' on 'round here. two times ye been seen ridin' with that new fella down on the old ivison place."
"two times is right," she slangily agreed.
"and ye rode with 'im to the county seat when he went to see the records. just so!"
"your informer is accurate," taunted the girl.
"what for?"
"what for?" she levelled her disconcerting gaze at him. "well, i like that, mr. selden! because i wanted to, if you must pry into my affairs."
"ye wanted to, eh? ye wanted to! did ye see the records?"
"i did."
"is this here letter a lie?" he spanked the table with it.
"it is not."
he rose from his chair and bent over her. "d'ye mean to tell me yer maw's sister don't own that prop'ty?"
"exactly. it belongs to mr. oliver drew, according to the recorder's office. may i suggest that i am rather proud of my biscuits tonight, and that they're growing cold as lumps of clay?"
"it's a lie!" roared selden.
"now, just a moment," said jessamy coolly. "do i gather that you are calling me a liar, mr. selden? because if you are, i'll get a cattle whip and do my utmost to make you swallow it. i'll probably get the worst of it, but—"
"shut up!" bawled selden. "ye know what i mean, right enough! the whole dam' thing's a lie!"
"tell it to the county recorder, then," jessamy advised serenely. "have another piece of steak, mother."
"i'll ride right up to nancy fleet's tomorrow. i'll get to the bottom o' this business. and you keep yer young nose outa my affairs, jess'my!"
"oh, i'll do that—gladly. that's easy."
"just so! then keep her outa this fella drew's, too!"
"that's another matter entirely," she told him. "and i may as well add right here, while we're on the subject, that i wish you to keep your nose out of my affairs. there, now—we've ruined our digestions by quarrelling at meal-time. bolar hasn't, though—i'm glad somebody appreciates my biscuits."
bolar grinned, and his face grew red. bolar was deeply in love with his step-sister, four years his senior; but a day in the saddle, with a sharp spring wind in one's face, will scarce permit the tender passion to interfere with a lover's appetite.
old adam enveloped himself in his customary brooding silence. he was a holy terror when aroused, and would then spout torrents of words; but ordinarily he was morosely quiet, taciturn. he would not have hesitated to apply his quirt to his twenty-six-year-old son moffat, as he had threatened to do, had not that young man possessed the wisdom born of experience to refrain from defying him. but with his step-daughter it was different. for some inexplicable reason he "took more sass" from her than from any other person living. deep down in his scarred old heart, perhaps, there was hidden a deferential respect and fatherly admiration for this breezy, strong-minded girl with whom a strange fortune had placed him in daily contact.
"please eat your supper, mr. selden," jessamy at last sincerely pleaded, when the old man's frowning abstraction had continued for minutes.
dutifully, without a word, he scraped his chair closer to the table and fell to noisily. but he did not join in the conversation, which now became general.
it was a custom in the house of selden for each diner to leave the table when he had finished eating—a custom antedating jessamy's advent in the family, which she never had been able to correct. bolar had long since bolted the last morsel of food that his tough young stomach would permit, and had hurried to a half-completed rawhide lariat. moffat soon followed him out. then jessamy's mother arose and left the room. this left together at the table the deliberate eater, jessamy, and the old man, who had not yet caught up with the time he had given to the letter.
he too finished before the girl, having completed his supper in the same untalkative mood. now, however, he spoke to her as he pushed back his chair and rose.
"jess'my," he said in a moderate tone, "i want to tell ye one thing. ye know that i shoot straight from the shoulder, or straight from the hip, whichever's handiest—and i don't shoot to scare."
he waited.
jessamy nodded. "i'll have to admit that," she said. "i think it's the thing i like most about you."
he pondered over this, and again his brows came down above his pitted nose. "i didn't know they was anything ye liked about me," he at length said bluntly.
"oh, yes," she remarked, levelling that straightforward look of hers at him. "i like your height and the breadth of your chest, and the way you sit in your saddle when your horse is on the dead run—and the other thing i mentioned before."
again he grew thoughtful. "well, that's somethin'," he finally chuckled. "ye like my way o' sayin' what i think, then. well, get this: i'm the boss o' this country, from red mountain to the gap. i been the boss of her since my pap died and turned her over to me. so it's the boss o' the poison oak country that's talkin'. and he says this: that new fella drew that's made camp down on the old tabor ivison place can't make a livin' there, can't raise nothin', don't belong there. and if by some funny business, that i'm gonta look into right away, he's got a-holt o' that forty, he's got to hit the trail."
"why, how ridiculous!" laughed the girl. "where do you think you are, mr. selden? in russia—germany? king selden second, czar of all the poison oak provinces! mr. drew, owning that land in his own right, must hit the trail and leave it for you simply because you say so!"
"ye heard what i said, jess'my"—and he clanked out of the room.
