it was seven o’clock in the morning when andy jerome set off on charmian reemy’s gray saddler for his camp. a trail led direct from el trono de tolerancia to the county road, and once upon it andy could not possibly miss the way. he was to leave the horse at lovejoy’s, a wilderness resort, and continue on afoot to camp. there he would get his big touring car and drive back to a point in the county road opposite charmian’s home. she and the doctor were to travel after him afoot and meet him there. and mary temple had flatly refused to allow charmian to “go traipsin’ off with a couple o’ strange men the lord knew where,” so she had truculently constituted herself one of the party.
andy met the trio about noon. dr. shonto took the seat in the tonneau with the stern-faced mary temple, and charmian rode in front with andy. the handsome big car purred along through the solemn redwoods, following the level valley which paralleled the coast, with a range of wooded mountains between. gray squirrels scurried across the narrow road, to scamper up lofty trees and bark at them mockingly. the streams that they crossed were riotous and roared about the huge boulders in their courses. the sun[34] scarcely penetrated the dark avenues of the forest. huckleberry bushes lined the road, the berries ripe and coloured like grapes.
they estimated that the prospectors would not make over twenty miles a day with their slow-moving burros, and maybe less. it was about fifty miles from the north fork of the lizard to the outskirts of the catfish country; so, as they were virtually two days and a half behind the men, andy pushed the big car at every opportunity. but the road was so narrow, and there were so many abrupt turns in it, made necessary by gigantic trees, that the driver averaged little better than fifteen miles an hour.
but they reached jorny springs, at the gateway to the catfish country, before four o’clock that afternoon. and there, to their great satisfaction, they found the prospectors in camp. one of the burros had gone lame on them, and they were resting the little animal before beginning the rough journey into the wilds that lay before them.
jorny springs was a backwoods resort conducted by an old man and his wife. they bottled the effervescent water that bubbled up in a dozen places from the ground, and shipped it to san francisco, where it was known in cafes and soft-drink establishments as jorny water. every house in that country was, on occasion, a hotel and summer resort, and such places were known as stations.
smith morley and omar leach were camped under the big trees by one of the springs. shonto went over and talked with them a little, while charmian and[35] andy ordered lunch at the house. the doctor returned to them before lunch was ready and made his report of the preliminary conference.
“they are willing enough to drop their present prospecting project right now,” he began. “they have gold claims up in the catfish country, but their importance is more or less problematical. however, they had enough capital to make this trip, they say, but could not rake up enough for the shinbone expedition. so they will be only too glad to deal with us.”
“what do they want?” asked charmian.
“i didn’t go into that with them,” replied shonto. “but i imagine they prefer to sell the claims outright rather than to take in partners. if you’ll accept my advice, mrs. reemy, you’ll be mighty careful what kind of a deal you make with these boys. they may be all right, and their claims may be all that they say, but, somehow or other, i don’t just fancy their looks.”
“the one you pointed out to me as morley,” said charmian, “is a delightful looking villain. i like to deal with villains. that is, i think i should. i’ve never had an opportunity. i do hope they try to put something over on us.”
shonto and andy laughed heartily at this, but the austere mary temple tightened her thin lips and glared at the young widow.
“mary temple refuses to let me have any fun in life,” said charmian. “she doesn’t understand my romantic and adventuresome nature in the least. she wants everything to move along smoothly. well, everything has always moved entirely too smoothly to[36] suit me. i want a few obstacles set in my path. i want to have things happen to me. i want to live!”
after lunch the quartette approached the prospectors. dr. shonto introduced charmian and mary temple, and all found seats on stones or logs or filled pack-bags.
charmian was eying the two men closely.
smith morley was dark and tall, and his features were fine except for the black eyes, which were set too close together. omar leach was older and heavier, with a sprinkling of grey in his hair. his face was full and inclined to be red. he looked to be a powerful man.
when they spoke charmian was surprised. both used good, everyday english, and morley’s account of his opal seeking in australia was intensely interesting and fired her imagination. they talked for half an hour before morley spoke of the matter that had brought them together. and when he did so he made the plain statement that the opal claims in the shinbone country were for sale, on a cash basis, and that he and leach would take the others to them, prove their value, and do anything in reason to establish them.
“and how much do you ask for the claims?” asked the girl.
“fifty thousand dollars,” was morley’s prompt reply.
before she could express surprise at the amount, or make any comment whatever, smith morley reached into an inner pocket of his canvas coat and took out[37] a wad of tissue paper. he deliberately unfolded it, and dropped seven large opals into the girl’s hand.
“look ’em over,” he invited. “they all came from our claims. and there are plenty more like them to be found.”
“they’re beautiful,” admitted charmian, turning a stone this way and that so that it might catch the light filtering down through the treetops. “but i can’t understand why, if you can find gems like these, it doesn’t pay you to work the claims and make them defray their own expenses.”
“we could do it if we were there,” put in omar leach. “but we’re practically broke, and it’s a long, expensive trip to the shinbone country.”
“then why don’t you sell these?” she asked, rattling the opals in her hand.
“we’ve kept them to show prospective buyers,” explained morley. “we tried all summer to interest somebody, and that’s one reason why we’re so short of funds. showing the gems and trying to induce somebody to take hold caused us to lose lots of time, when we ought to have been working for our winter’s grubstake. when we saw that our efforts were a failure, we worked a little and got together a small grubstake for this trip into the catfish country. our placer claims up in there are pretty good, and we can sometimes pan out as high as twenty-five dollars a day. it’s seldom that we run less than ten dollars. so we thought we could get up there and pan enough to get us down into the shinbone country before winter set in. then we could rush things and finish our assessment[38] work before the end of the year. but if a person had money, mrs. reemy, he could get down there at once and hire half a dozen men to finish the work in short order. then he could sit pretty until spring, provided he didn’t care to winter it in the shinbone country and dig for opals.”
“you’ll pardon me for what may seem to be an insolent question,” said the girl, “but how do i know that you did not bring these opals from australia?”
smith morley laughed and shrugged. “you have every right to look into the matter from every angle,” he exonerated her. “we want you to be cautious and investigate thoroughly. that’s business, mrs. reemy. of course we can’t prove to you now that those stones didn’t come from australia, or that they did come from our claims. but we can show you when you reach the shinbone country.”
“when can you start?”
“just as soon as we can make arrangements with somebody to take care of our outfit, mrs. reemy. we can put the burros on pasture here at jorny springs, i guess, and cache the outfit. unless it would be more advisable to take the outfit along. i have an idea we’ll be ready to hit the trail to-morrow.”
“and how do we go?”
“well, by train, if you prefer. or if we had a couple of machines like the one you drove here in—”
“we have two,” put in dr. shonto briefly.
both charmian and andy jerome glanced at him curiously.
[39]“why, you’re not going along, are you, doctor?” asked the girl.
“if i’m welcome, i am,” he stated.
“why, of course you’re welcome!” cried andy. “but—but i’m surprised, doctor.”
“don’t let it affect you too seriously, andy,” said shonto, with his quiet smile. “don’t you suppose that i am interested in a project like this one?”
“but you weren’t the other day,” his friend pointed out.
“the other day is not to-day,” said the doctor. “in other words, i’ve changed my mind. i’ll be frank. i wouldn’t consider going at all if mrs. reemy weren’t taking the matter up. i think she’ll need my mature judgment in many things; and i mean to go along—if she wants me to—and give her the benefit of it.”
“nothing would delight me more than to have you go, doctor,” charmian said quickly. “but can you spare the time?”
“i can,” he replied. “i haven’t had a real vacation in the past ten years. and it strikes me that a fellow might run across some new medicinal herbs up in your valley of arcana. for all we know, there may be valuable scientific phenomena in that valley that only await discovery. your valley, mrs. reemy, tempts me more than the opal mines. but to find the location of the valley, it seems, we must tackle the mines. so if everything turns out satisfactorily when we get to the shinbone country, i’ll go partners with you on the opal project.”
[40]“let’s make it a triple partnership,” andy suggested.
“that suits me,” said charmian. “to be frank, i hardly wanted to go into the thing alone. this is going to be my life’s big adventure—the adventure that i have been planning for and longing for and waiting for for several years. this looks like the big opportunity at last—and i’m going to take a chance.”
and here a new voice piped up.
“charmian reemy,” said mary temple, “you are not going down into that hideous country with the hideous name in the company of four strange men.”
“why, old dear,” laughed charmian, “two of them are not strangers at all.”
“what two are not, please?”
“doctor inman shonto is known all over the united states and europe,” charmian pointed out. “and mr. jerome is his friend. what better recommendation could one ask for, mary temple?”
“there will be four men, and only two women,” mary told her. “and it’s—it’s all but downright indecent.”
“two women?”
“certainly. you are one, and i am one.”
“oh, you mean to go, too, then? i thought you would return to san francisco and wait there for me.”
“if you persist in going into that boneyard country, charmian, i am going with you. and that ends that.”
“well, goodness knows you’re welcome, mary temple,”[41] laughed charmian. “but i didn’t for a minute imagine that you would care to go.”
“i don’t,” snapped mary temple. “but that’s not saying i’m not going. and there must be two more women in the party.”
“oh, mary temple! what a prig you are! do you want to pair us off?”
“common decency demands that there be as many women as there are men,” declared mary.
“we might take my wife along,” smith morley put in. “she’s in los angeles now. she could meet us at ——. well, i’ll arrange that. but leach hasn’t a wife—yet. wouldn’t three women do, miss temple? another person would make the two machines pretty full, you know. we’ll have a world of baggage to pile in the tonneaus and lash on the running-boards.”
“what is your wife like?” demanded mary temple unfeelingly.
“why, mary temple! what an impertinent question!” cried charmian.
“impertinent or not,” barked mary, “i want to know what his wife is like before i give my consent.”
morley only laughed and showed no resentment. “why, she’s a pretty good old girl,” he told her. “she’s a good housewife, not bad looking, a good dresser when i’m in luck, and pretty rough and ready when it comes to camp life in the wilderness. you’ll like her, i think.”
“have you any children?” demanded mary.
“no.”
[42]mary sighed and clasped her veiny hands. “well,” she declared, “i’d feel safer if you had a child to take along—preferably a little girl of seven or eight. the child, perhaps, would restrain you if you had anything evil in your mind.”
“mary temple, i’m ashamed of you!” charmian half laughed, and the colour flooded her face.
“i’m only looking out for your interests, my dear,” said mary. “if i didn’t, who would? i distrust men on general principles, as you know very well. but if you’re determined to go, charmian, we can at least travel to where we are to meet mrs. morley. then if she suits me, we’ll go on. if not, we’ll come back.”
“you’re a regular tyrant, mary temple!” pouted charmian.
“i know it,” mary retorted. “but i get results.”
