a red-headed, red-breasted male linnet sat on the topmost branch of the old, gnarled liveoak near oliver's window and tried to burst his throat to the accompaniment of oliver's typewriter. when the keys ceased their clicking the singer finished a bar and waited, till once more the dicelike rattle encouraged him to another ecstatic burst of melody.
"well, i like to be accommodating," remarked oliver, leaning back from his machine, "but i can't accompany you all day; and it happens that i'm through right now."
he surveyed the last typewritten sheet of his manuscript on the cleaning of springs for the enlarging of their flow; but, the article completed, his mind was no longer engrossed by it.
other and bigger matters claimed his thoughts, and he sat in the soft spring air wondering about old chupurosa hatchinguish and his strange behaviour on seeing the gem-mounted conchas stamped with the letter b.
when oliver had stripped off his shirt in the hut that day the scar that a german bayonet had left in his side had carefully been examined by the ancient chief. oliver fancied there had been a strange new look in his inscrutable eyes as he silently motioned for him to put on his shirt again. he had made no comment whatever, though, and said nothing at all until the young man had finished dressing. then he had stepped to the door and opened it, rather impolitely suggesting that his guest's presence in the hut was no longer necessary. as oliver passed out he had spoken:
"when next the moon is full," he said, "the showut poche-dakas will observe the fiesta de santa maria de refugio, as taught them years ago by the padres who came from spain. then will the showut poche-dakas dance the fire dance, which is according to the laws laid down by the wise men of their ancestors. ride here to the fiesta de santa maria de refugio on the first night that the moon is full. adios, amigo!"
that was all; and oliver had passed out into the bright sunlight and found jessamy selden.
the two had talked over the circumstances often since that day, but neither could throw any light on the matter. but the first night of the full moon was not far distant now, and oliver and the girl were awaiting it impatiently. oliver felt that at the fiesta he would in some way gain an inkling of the mysterious question that had puzzled his father for thirty years, and which eventually had brought his son into this country to find out whether its answer was yes or no.
oliver tilted back his chair and lighted his briar pipe. out in the liveoak tree the linnet waited, head on one side, chirping plaintively occasionally, for the renewed clicking of the typewriter keys. but oliver's thoughts were far from his work.
that burning, colourless liquor that had so fiercely fired his brain was undoubtedly moonshine—and redistilled at that, no doubt. jessamy had told him further that she had not so much as unscrewed the cap since old adam had given her the flask, at her request, and had had no idea that the flask had not contained amber-coloured whisky. was this in reality the reason why the poison oakers wished him to be gone? had they been distilling moonshine whisky down at sulphur spring to supply the blind pigs controlled by the prosecuting attorney at the county seat? and had his inadvertent shutting off of sulphur spring's supply of water stopped their illicit activities? they had known, perhaps, that eventually he would discover that his own spring had been choked by some one and would rectify the condition. whereupon sulphur spring would cease to flow and automatically cut off one of their sources of revenue. oliver decided to look for sulphur spring at his earliest opportunity.
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.
