charmian reemy received the news of the flight of leach and the morleys with equanimity.
“i have been afraid for some time,” she asserted at breakfast, “that there was something wrong. oh, well, it doesn’t greatly matter. i never should have considered buying the opal claims, anyway, if it hadn’t been necessary to do it in order to get the location of the valley of arcana. and shirttail henry ought to be able to at least show us how to get a peep at it.”
“charmian reemy, you’re going home,” announced mary stiffly.
“wrong again, mary temple. we’re going to find the valley of arcana and explore it.”
“then i’ll not move another foot, charmian. that’s flat.”
“so is the desert,” said charmian demurely, “and to spend the remainder of your life on it, mary temple, would be frightfully monotonous.”
“you know what i mean well enough,” snapped mary. “i’ll find a way to get home without you.”
“mary temple, your miner’s bread is simply exquisite this morning,” charmian told her placidly. “you haven’t forgotten our delightful days in alaska,[75] i see. mary temple, hereafter i intend to refer to you as my companion at arms. you’re so companionable that i couldn’t think of existing without you, and you’re always up in arms. companion at arms is right. i’m glad i thought of that one. naming things is my hobby, you know, doctor.”
“charmian,” quoth mary in a sepulchral voice, “have you forgotten what madame destrehan saw in your valley of foolishness?”
“let’s see. it was a madman bending over me, wasn’t it?—and stretching out his talonlike fingers toward my throat?”
“it was—and you know it. well, haven’t you had warning enough?”
“you are well aware, mary temple, that i put no faith whatever in the second sight of madame destrehan or any other swindler,” charmian reminded her.
“but in this case, isn’t her prophecy working out? haven’t we had the madman right here in our camp? what better evidence of her powers can you ask for, charmian?”
“in camp,” said the perverse young widow, “i always take two cups of coffee for breakfast, doctor. one with the trimmings, and one black. may i trouble you to pour me another cup? and do you really think shirttail henry is a nut, mary temple?”
“putting aside what leach and morley told us about him,” mary replied, “didn’t we see him strike off for the mountains when he saw a tiny cloud no bigger than a pancake? and think of him writing to the president when his puny little check fails to come on the dot![76] i wouldn’t call him a nut. i wouldn’t call anybody a nut, because that’s vulgar. but he’s a subject for a padded cell, and he’ll choke you to death in your old valley of tomfoolery if you persist in going up there and giving him the chance.”
“that would be a rather unique experience, don’t you think, andy?” asked the girl. “i’ve never even had a madman’s fingers at my throat, let alone being choked to death by one. i think, if i barely succeeded in escaping alive, that my life would be fuller ever afterward. and if henry wants to give me the delicious experience i mean to let him have his chance. but he mustn’t overdo it. you’ll keep close and see that henry doesn’t go too far, won’t you, doctor shonto? when my tongue lolls out and i’m beginning to get blue in the face, just yell, ‘look at that cloud drifting over your rain gauge, henry!’”
“funny, ain’t you?” sniffed mary.
“trying to be,” said charmian humbly.
the four ate in silence after this, charmian’s roguish brown eyes hidden by the long lashes. now and then she looked up and smiled mischievously at andy or the doctor, for all the world like a contrary little girl who knows she is exasperating and glories in it.
“when do we start?” asked mary suddenly.
“for where?”
“for the mountains and henry richkirk’s place.”
“why, we don’t just know how to find him,” said charmian, winking at the two men. “but he’s calling on us to-day, you’ll remember. i guess we’ll just have to stay here and wait for him. well, we’re all through[77] eating, and i suppose, as hostess, i ought to rise first. but i’m so stiff from yesterday’s ride. won’t you get up and help me on my feet, andy?”
“‘mr. jerome’ would sound better, wouldn’t it, charmian?” there was a decided corrective note in mary’s tone.
“oh, we can’t bother with mistering and missising and missing one another,” protested the girl. “i call doctor shonto ‘doctor,’ and i’ve simply got to have a brief name for mr. jerome. andy’s mighty handy. and, if you don’t mind, i’d like to have you two gentlemen, or overgrown boys, or whatever you call yourselves, address me as charmian. it takes all the kick out of camp life to go about mistering and missising one another. which would sound more practical, mary temple?—‘doctor inman shonto, i think that rattlesnake is about to bite you’ or ‘jiggers, doc! rattlesnake!’ i think our eminent physician would jiggers more promptly if he heard the latter, don’t you? why, i seem to be in pretty good spirits this morning, don’t i?”
“you’re talking a lot,” said mary, and rose to gather up the “dead and wounded” and place them in the dishwater.
the doctor had fed and watered the stock while mary was completing her breakfast-getting. this ascertained, charmian proposed a ride in search of the opal mines of their vanished dreams. they were only two miles farther in the buttes, the prospectors had revealed, and the girl wanted to visit them while they awaited the coming of the devoted weather man.[78] also, she wished to limber up again in preparation for the ride to the mountains. mary temple refused to be lured from the domestic duties of the camp, so the girl and the two men rode off without her.
as they started mary shrilled after them:
“andy jerome—if i must call you andy—did you forget to take your medicine this morning?”
andy grinned sheepishly, stopped his horse, and dismounted.
“humph!” sniffed mary. “i thought as much.”
andy went to his tent and took a tablet from a pasteboard box. as he carried it to the spring for water to wash it down, he asked:
“how did you know i am taking medicine, mary?—if i must call you mary.”
“humph! haven’t i seen you swallow one of those little tablets regularly every morning since i first met you? and i know medicine must be taken regularly in order to get the full benefit of it. i don’t know what you’re taking those tablets for, and i don’t care, but i do know that, so long as i am one of the idiots in this bonehead country, you’ll not miss a morning while the medicine lasts.”
“thanks for your thoughtfulness, mary,” andy laughed. “i don’t wonder that charmian finds you indispensable. but did you call the shinbone country the bonehead country by accident, or—”
“or,” mary interjected decisively.
there was but one direction for the trio to travel, they found, because they were in a pass between the two lines of buttes. it was not long before they saw[79] evidences of bygone mining activities—several dumps of rather large proportions, and above them tunnels in the side of a hill. they left their horses on the level land and clambered up among the rocks, to find that, in some past day, a great deal of work had been done.
they investigated for an hour or more, and then a voice hailed them from a distance, and they saw the gigantic figure of shirttail henry approaching along the floor of the pass. he came straight toward them, negotiated the hillside with ease, and made his profound bows all around when he reached them.
“no rain a-tall,” he announced morosely. “that cloud was gone before i got there. i’m glad ye left leach an’ morley behind. i wanted to talk to ye alone about these here claims here.”
a few words sufficed to apprise him of the unexpected decampment of the designing opal miners, and the recital brought forth shirttail henry’s cackling “heh-heh-heh.”
“i ain’t a-tall s’prised, ma’am,” he told charmian. “they’re ornery, them two boys. this ain’t th’ first time they tried to sell these ole abandoned opal mines to some one.”
“abandoned mines?” puzzled charmian.
“course,” said henry. “that’s what they are. twenty year ago they was a lot o’ fine stones took outa here. there’s lots o’ opal here yet, but it ain’t got any fire. ye see, ma’am, it takes time for an opal to gather its fire. the fellas that staked out these claims got rich. i know they sold one stone they found[80] for ten thousand dollars—one of the biggest prices ever paid for an opal. but the good stones run out, so they abandoned the claims. then leach an’ morley filed on ’em just to have somethin’ to sell to some sucker. in time the opals here will gather their fire, but you folks wouldn’t be here to mine ’em.”
“how long does it take an opal to get its fire?” asked charmian.
“oh, matter of a hundred thousan’ years,” said henry.
“good night!” exclaimed the widow. “if we’d bought the claims, doctor, you’d have had a good chance to prove the efficacy of rejuvenation by the gland treatment. well, that for the opals!”—and she snapped her fingers. “they’re unlucky, anyway. mary temple says so. now, mr. henry, what do you know about an undiscovered or an unexplored valley somewhere up in the mountains?”
“i know she’s there, ma’am—that’s about as much,” answered the mountaineer.
“have you ever seen it?”
“onct—from the top of a high peak. but nobody’s ever been there. they tried it—lots of ’em—an’ failed to make it. it can’t be done. who told ye about that valley—leach an’ morley?”
“yes,” said charmian. “but i don’t agree with you when you say it can’t be done. we’ll pay you well to show us the valley from the peak that you mention, and for any hints or suggestions about reaching the valley that you can give us. also, we want to find a certain mountain meadow that morley told us of,[81] where we can pasture our horses and such burros as we won’t need in the undertaking. what do you say?”
“i’ll help ye out,” shirttail henry promised. “an’ i’ll tell ye all i know. that’s more’n most of ’em in the shinbone country know, at that. but ye’ll never make it, ma’am. when i take ye to th’ top o’ the peak, where ye c’n see all over this country, ye’ll know i’m right.”
“well, we’ll do our best, anyway,” charmian told him. “and we’re ready to begin when you are.”
“poor time o’ year to tackle a job like that. better wait till may or june next year.”
“we’ll go as far as we can at any rate,” charmian decided. “then if we fail we will know better how to go about it to succeed next summer.”
“all right,” said henry. “i’m ready now.”
“then if you’ll wait here for us we’ll ride back and break camp at once. we haven’t an extra horse for you, so—”
“i never fork a hoss, ma’am,” henry interrupted. “i c’n go where a hoss can’t with these here ole legs here. you ride; i’ll hoof it. don’t worry about shirttail henry gettin’ there time yer hosses do, ma’am.”
