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CHAPTER III THE PROSPECTOR’S STORY

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“well,” began dr. shonto reflectively, “andy and i were in our camp on the north fork of the lizard, about two and a half miles from lovejoy’s place. two men came along with pack burros, bound up into the catfish country—if you know where that is.”

charmian nodded eagerly.

“they stopped, and as lunch was about ready we invited them to eat with us.

“they called themselves smith morley and omar leach. they are both middle-aged men and seem to have had a great deal of experience at prospecting.

“well, andy and i are old-time ramblers ourselves. we spend a great deal of time together in the outlands, mostly just loafing around and enjoying camp life and the scenery. we were able to talk with the pair about many things of interest to both factions. one thing led to another, and finally smith morley mentioned that he had hunted for opals with a camel train in australia. we at once became interested and asked him all about the life. it is vastly entertaining, from his account.

“then he told us of the california opals, but when andy asked if he ever found any in this state he grew reticent. finally, however, when he learned that both[19] of us were men of some means, he told us about certain opal claims that he and his partner had filed on this year, and which they would be obliged to lose because they were financially unable to get into the country and do their assessment work.

“they offered to sell the claims to us, and to take us to them and establish us if we would defray the expenses. morley showed us one of the handsomest opals i have ever seen. its fire was simply wonderful—i’d never before seen anything to equal it.

“we weren’t greatly interested, however, until they mentioned the undiscovered valley. while andy has nothing much to occupy his time, i have my investigations to carry on and a great deal of laboratory work, though i am not practising medicine regularly. anyway, we didn’t want to go into the opal-mining game. but, as i said, the undiscovered valley enticed us, and we wanted to know all about it.

“the opal claims are on the desert in what is called the shinbone country. it is very difficult to get to them, and the soft, deep sand makes automobiles a failure. one must use horses and pack burros, and at best the water supply is dangerously short. however, the undiscovered valley is something like thirty miles beyond the desert, in the mountains, at an elevation of perhaps eight thousand feet.

“from the description they gave us, those who know of its existence say that it is about thirteen miles long by seven or eight miles in width. it is surrounded by high peaks upon which the snow lies for almost the entire year. these peaks are said to be straight up[20] and down, to use morley’s phrase, and heavily timbered up to the snow-line. the valley is therefore like the crater of an extinct volcano, and many claim that it is just that. to reach the timbered section, one must cross miles and miles of country covered with the densest chaparral. he must either cut his way through it with a knife and an ax or crawl on all fours. this stretch is waterless, and exposed to the sunny side of steep mountains, where the heat beats down unmercifully.

“but assuming that a fellow gets through this chaparral country, he has yet to scale those grim peaks which morley calls straight up and down. and if he reaches the summit, he then will be obliged to get down into the valley, perhaps several thousand feet in depth.

“the valley was discovered some years ago by a forest ranger. he had climbed to a high peak about sixteen miles distant from it, and assumed that, even then, he was on ground where no man of to-day, at least, had ever stood before. he suffered a great deal on that trip, but determination kept up his courage and he finally reached the goal for which he had set out. and from the summit of that peak he glimpsed the unexplored valley.

“it seems strange that, in this day and age, such a valley could remain unknown. but such seems to be the case. andy and i have found in our travels over the state that there are vast stretches of forest land where a white man has probably never set his foot. but in almost every case, there was nothing to draw him. this instance is different.

[21]“fortunately the ranger had a telescope with him, and was able to see a portion of the valley between two of the peaks that surround it. he circulated the report that the valley is wooded, and that a fair-sized river flows down the centre of it. he saw great quantities of meadow land, and on it animals were grazing, but he could not determine what they were. altogether the valley presented a pleasing outlook, and he made up his mind to explore it.

“he made many trips, alone and with friends, which occupied months. they strove to get at that valley from every angle, and one man lost his life in the attempt. finally they were obliged to give it up, though they estimated that they had approached to within three miles of their goal. so throughout the shinbone country the undiscovered valley is well known to be in existence, but that’s the end of it. the country is thinly populated, of course, and the people who live there mind their own business pretty well and are completely out of touch with the outside world. and thus it transpires that the unexplored valley is not generally known to be in existence.

“one of the most remarkable features concerning it is the river that flows through it. all rivers in this country flow in a general westerly direction, of course, toward the pacific ocean. not so the river that flows through the undiscovered valley. it runs due east, according to the ranger, though that may mean much or nothing at all, for it may change to a westward course farther on.

“but the question is, where does it come out of the[22] valley? all of the rivers and streams in that section are known and named. no one can account for a river without a name, flowing toward the coast on the west side of the range. but farther back in the mountains, estimated at about ten miles from the peaks that surround the undiscovered valley, there is what is known as a lost river. in fact, it is called lost river.

“the source of lost river is known. it rises from springs high up in the range, and is fed by other springs as it flows westward and gathers width. then, about ten miles from the high peaks, it vanishes—is swallowed up by the earth in a mountain meadow. it is not just soaked up by the ground, but plunges into a cave in the side of a hill. and, so far as anybody knows, that is the end of it.

“of course, it is assumed that this river runs underground from that point and eventually reaches the undiscovered valley, where it rises again and flows serenely across the valley—quite a large stream, it seems—and then vanishes once more. and for the remainder of its course to the sea, it may be any one of the known rivers in the shinbone country. it probably would not pop up out of the ground in the lowlands so abruptly as it plunges into the cave in the high altitudes. it may rise again as springs—seep up from the soil in a natural way. or its waters may separate during their underground journey after leaving the unexplored valley, and they may form two or more streams in the lowlands.

“so that’s about all there is to be said about the undiscovered valley—or perhaps the unexplored valley[23] would be more proper—and the river that loses itself in the ground. andy and i grew quite excited over it, but when we tried to pump morley and leach to find out the location of the shinbone country they refused to come across. shinbone is a local name, it seems, and few besides the people who live there know it as such. we don’t even know what county it is in. leach and morley, however, promised to tell us all about it and to take us to it, provided we would interest ourselves in their opal claims. so, as we didn’t care to do that, we let the matter slide.”

charmian reemy had forgotten her dinner and was resting her bare elbows on the table, nesting her chin in her hands. her dark eyes were fixed on inman shonto. and andy’s eyes were fixed on her.

“where,” she asked in a low voice, “are morley and leach now?”

“still on their way to the catfish country, i suppose,” shonto replied.

“when was it that they were in your camp?”

“day before yesterday, about noon—wasn’t it, andy?”

andy jerome nodded absently.

“then they can’t have reached the catfish country yet,” said charmian. “i’m going after them to-morrow morning. now, for the first time in my life, i wish i had a car. i could travel in it as far as jorny springs, and there i could get a saddle horse and run them down before they get into the wilderness.”

“do you really want to go after opals and the unexplored valley?” asked andy suddenly.

[24]she turned her dark eyes on him. “i want to more than anything else i’ve ever wanted to do,” she told him.

“then you can have my car to-morrow morning. and, if you’ll let me, i’ll go with you after leach and morley. and if we find them, and can come to terms with them, i’ll—i’ll— well, if we can arrange matters to suit you, i’d like to go with you to the shinbone country.”

for a short time they gazed into each other’s eyes. andy jerome’s lips were parted, and shonto noted the quick rise and fall of his breast. then a slight flush covered charmian reemy’s cheeks, and her long, dark lashes hid her eyes.

“if we can arrange matters,” she said, “i’d—i’d be glad to have you, mr. jerome.”

then, with another pang, dr. inman shonto interpreted the strange silence that had existed between these two. it was the result of an odd embarrassment that both had felt since they first clasped hands. it was love at first sight between them, and they were backward and afraid of each other.

the eyes of both now were lowered. shonto glanced quickly at mary temple. her gaunt face was set in hard lines. she knew, and she disapproved—at least until she knew more about this handsome young man who had invaded their quiet retreat.

and shonto— well, shonto disapproved, too. shonto was far older than andy—too old, perhaps, to think of loving a woman of charmian reemy’s age. but he put all this behind him. if andy and charmian[25] were going in search of the unexplored valley, he meant to go along. several years her senior though he knew himself to be, shonto believed that he was the man for a woman like charmian reemy rather than andy jerome. anyway, he meant to know more about her. it would not do for andy to win her away from him if she was what he believed her to be. yes, shonto would go along, and his life’s work could go hang, for all he cared. until he knew the truth about charmian reemy, at any rate.

“we could find it easily, i guess, in an airplane,” andy suggested.

“an airplane!” scoffed the girl. “not i! i hate airplanes—i hate anything mechanical. i’ll find that valley as my forefathers would have found it, or i’ll stay away. and i must think up an appropriate name for it. doctor shonto seems undecided between ‘the undiscovered valley’ and ‘the unexplored valley.’ neither is romantic enough. i’ll think up a name before morning. i like to name things. and i’m going, really—if we can overtake leach and morley. do you approve, mary temple?”

“no!” snapped mary temple, and passed the venison to andy with jerky hospitality.

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