THE VALLEY
OF ARCANA
BY
ARTHUR PRESTON HANKINS
AUTHOR OF
“THE JUBILEE GIRL,” “THE HERITAGE OF THE HILLS,” ETC.
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
1923
COPYRIGHT, 1923,
BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, INC.
PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. BY
The Quinn & Boden Company
BOOK MANUFACTURERS
RAHWAY NEW JERSEY
TO
THE MEMORY OF
MY FATHER
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I AN EXTRA BED 1
II EL TRONO DE TOLERANCIA 9
III THE PROSPECTOR’S STORY 18
IV A MEMBER OF THE CLAN 26
V THE CONFERENCE AT JORNY SPRINGS 33
VI SECOND SIGHT 43
VII LOT’S WIFE AND SHIRTTAIL HENRY 54
VIII MISSING 65
IX A CASE FOR REJUVENATION 74
X SHIRTTAIL BEND 82
XI THE TRAIL TO MOSQUITO 93
XII THE LAND OF QUEER DELIGHTS 101
XIII AT TWO IN THE CAÑON 113
XIV THE LONG STRAW 128
XV VAGRANCY CAÑON 136
XVI THE CAMP IN VAGRANCY CAÑON 145
XVII BEAR PASS 156
XVIII IN THE PALM OF THE MOUNTAINS 169
XIX RIDDLES 180
XX THE INTERIM OF DOUBTS 190
XXI THE CAVE OF HYPOCRITICAL FROGS 201
XXII DR. SHONTO RIDES ALONE 211
XXIII OLD ACQUAINTANCES 221
XXIV MARY CHOOSES A SEAT 228
XXV THE DEADLY BULL AND THE SILVER FOX 238
XXVI THE LAST TABLET 248
XXVII ADRIFT ON LOST RIVER 260
XXVIII THE MESSAGE 270
THE VALLEY OF ARCANA
CHAPTER I
AN EXTRA BED
TRIED outlanders though they were, Dr. Inman Shonto and Andy Jerome
were hopelessly lost. Afoot, horseback, and by motor car the pair had
covered thousands of square miles of desert and forest land in Southern
California. But it was different up here in the mountainous region of
the northern part of the state, where they found themselves surrounded
by heavy timber vaster than they had dreamed could have been left
standing by the ensanguined hand of the lumberman. And, besides, thin
fingers of fog were reaching in from the sea, about eighteen miles to
the west of them.
For hours they had been following wooded ridges, which here and there
offered a view of the seemingly illimitable sweep of redwood forests
below them. Spruce, fir, several varieties of oak, and madrones crowned
these ridges--trees of a height and girth that they could understand.
But down below them towered the monarchs of the vegetable kingdom,
straight as the path of righteousness, solemn, aloof--impossible
trees--whose height would bring their tops on a level with the clock of
the Metropolitan Building, whose boles occupied a space greater than a
good-sized living room.
They awed the southerners immeasurably, for this was their first trip
into the northern part of their state. They were silent as they hurried
on, sliding down steep slopes, clambering up rocky, timbered inclines,
always hoping for some familiar object that would show them they were
on the campward trail.
Each carried a .25-.35 rifle, for they had left camp early that morning
to hunt deer--and both had entertained fond hopes that a wandering
bear or a panther might cross their path. The doctor had wounded a big
six-pointer close to noon, and following the bloody trail which the
cripple left had led the pair astray.
Now night was close at hand, and, for all they knew, they were still
many miles from camp. The trail had inveigled them down into the
mysteries of the dark forest below them, and there they had lost all
sense of direction. With the approach of night they had abandoned
the bloody trail and climbed to the ridges once more, in the hope of
relocating themselves. But an hour had passed, and they still were lost.
“This is a little serious, Andy,” remarked the doctor. “I’m afraid we
haven’t much of an idea as to the vast scope of this forest. Of course
we’ll make it back sometime, and I guess we’re old enough hands at the
game to take care of ourselves until we do; but meanwhile we’re going
to be up against a little inconvenience, to put it mildly.”
“It’s going to be mighty cold to-night,” was the only answer that the
younger man vouchsafed.
He was about twenty-four, this companion of the doctor--a good-looking
youth with light curly hair and a friendly blue eye. He was of medium
height, well knit, wiry. His step was light and his muscles sure, and
more than once the older man eyed him admiringly as they hurried on
into the coming dusk.
Dr. Inman Shonto was one of those men who command attention wherever
they go. He was tall and lean and broad-shouldered, and his outing
clothes had been fitted to his remarkable body with precision. He was
an ugly man as masculine comeliness goes, but, for all that, women
found him intensely interesting. His nose was monstrous, and lightly
pitted from bridge to tip. His mouth was big, and the lips were thick,
puckered, and firm. His hair was thin and neutral in colour--somewhere
between a dark brown and a light. His ears were rather large and a
trifle outstanding. His eyes were grey and very intense in their manner
of observing others.
It was the strong face of a strong man. One knew instinctively that
great will power was this man’s heritage. One believed, after a glance
into that homely face, that this man took what he wanted from life, and
that his wants were by no means puny. Even in hunting clothes Dr. Inman
Shonto was fastidious. And his walk was fastidious, even here in the
wilderness. The realization that he and his young companion were lost
in the wilds did not serve to ruffle the doctor’s calm exterior. He was
nothing if not self-controlled on all occasions.
Despite his homeliness, his smile was engaging as he turned and looked
back at Andy after topping a little bald rise toward which the two had
been travelling, hoping on its summit to gain a better view of the
surrounding country.
“Andy,” he said, “I smell smoke. Sound encouraging?”
The young man reached his side, and the two stood looking in every
direction and sniffing speculatively.
“I get it, too, Doctor,” Andy told the other finally. “It seems to be
over in that direction.”
Andy pointed west, and the doctor nodded silently.
“There’s a ranch or a camp pretty close,” he decided. “Now let’s locate
that smoke definitely and make a bee-line for it. I don’t just fancy a
night in this cold, unfriendly forest.”
“Do you know, Dr. Shonto,” said Andy, “that I don’t exactly
think of the forest as unfriendly. Time and again, when you and
I have been together in the outlands, you’ve thought nature
unkind--bleak--unfriendly. Nature never strikes me that way.”
“That’s your inheritance from your Alps-climbing Swiss ancestors, I
imagine,” replied the doctor. “But, if you’ll pardon me, Andrew, I’m
more interested right now in locating a welcoming curl of blue smoke
over the treetops than I am in a discussion of the attitude of Mother
Nature toward two of her misplaced atoms. Look over there to the west.
(I suppose that’s west.) Don’t you imagine you see a thin stream of
smoke going up over there--just above that massive bull pine on the
brow of that hill? Confound this infernal fog!”
“Yes, I believe you’re right,” Andy agreed after looking a long time in
the direction the doctor had indicated. And after another pause--“Yes,
smoke, all right. And if it weren’t for the fog it would spread, and
we’d never have seen it. Now what, Doctor?”
Dr. Shonto gave the surrounding country careful study.
“It seems to me,” he decided, “that, if we head straight for that tall
fir on the brow of the hill beyond the next one, we ought to see what’s
causing the smoke. But we’ve got to go down and up, down and up; and
we’ll pass through heavy timber between here and there. We must keep
our wits about us and not swerve from a straight line. And that’s hard
to do, with the fog rolling in on us. Anyway, it’s up to us to try it.
Let’s go!”
With each of them picking his own way, they rattled down steep slopes
and came upon tiny creeks, cold, brown from the dye of fallen autumn
leaves. They clambered up slopes that seemed far steeper because of
the extra strain they put upon their hearts and muscles. Dense growths
of chaparral occasionally confronted them and made them make detours,
despite their firm resolve to keep to the straight and narrow way. But
in half an hour after sighting the thin stream of smoke they came out
in an open space on a hillside and saw the tall fir which was their
goal.
They crossed to it on level land, to look down a more precipitous slope
than they had before encountered. And down there far below them they
saw the misty gleam of cabin lights as they struggled with the night
and the increasing obstinacy of the fog that marched in from the sea.
“Here’s a sort of trail, Doctor,” announced Andrew Jerome. “And it
looks to be leading straight toward those lights. Shall we try it?”
“Sure,” replied the doctor. “By all means. You’re the better
mountaineer, Andy--take the lead. We can get a shakedown on the floor
of the man who made those lights, I guess, and get set on the right
trail to-morrow morning.”
It was dark now, and the insweeping fog added to the density of the
surrounding gloom. Far to their left coyotes lifted their mocking,
plaintive yodel to the Goddess of Darkness, their patron saint, who
shielded their stealthy deviltry from the eyes of men. But the blurred
lights beckoned the wanderers downward, and they obeyed the signal,
slipping over rounded stones, staggering into prickly bushes, sliding
over abrupt ledges.
Andrew Jerome followed the trail by instinct, and Dr. Shonto was glad
to follow Andy. The youth’s aptitude in the mountains was ever a
source of wonder for the doctor, and often he had told the boy that
he attributed it to heredity. For on his mother’s side of the family
Andy’s ancestors had been of Alpine Swiss stock, by name Zanini. Dr.
Inman Shonto was a firm believer in heredity, anyway, and his young
friend’s dexterous mountaineering presented a sound basis for his
theorizing.
They came out eventually on level land, heavily timbered with pines.
Straight through the pines the trail led them, and soon they were
confronted by a set of bars. Beyond the bars the fog-screened lights
still invited them, so the doctor lifted his voice and called.
There came no answer from the gloom. No dog rushed around an invisible
cabin to challenge them.
“Let’s take a chance, Andy,” said the doctor. “If a pack of hounds
leaps out at us, we can retreat as gracefully as possible. We’ve got to
get closer to make ourselves heard.”
They crawled between the bars and struck out along a beaten path.
Still no outraged canine came catapulting toward them. Still the house
remained invisible. Only the smeared lights stared at them through the
fog.
Dr. Shonto came to a halt, and Andy stopped beside him.
“In the cabin there!” called Shonto. “Cabin ahoy!”
Several silent moments followed, and then, between the window lights
that had lured them there, a new streak of muddy brilliancy grew to a
rectangle, and a woman’s figure stood framed by a door.
“Hello!” shouted the doctor. “We’re lost in the woods and hunting
shelter for the night. Our camp is far from here, and we can’t find it.
Can you help us out? There are two of us--two men! We’ll gladly pay you
for your inconvenience.”
They saw the figure of the woman turn. She was speaking with somebody
within the cabin, and her profile was toward them. It vanished as she
once more turned her face their way.
“Come on in!” came her invitation. “She says she’ll do the best she can
for you.”
“She,” muttered the doctor. “I once knew a man that never called his
wife anything but ‘she.’ Come on--I smell baking-powder biscuits, or my
name’s not Shonto. Here’s the backwoods for you.”
And then, as if to give the lie to his words, he stepped upon a broad
stone doorstep and was faced by a radiant girl in a sky-blue evening
gown, with precious stones in her dark hair, and gilded, high-heeled
slippers on her feet.
“Good evening,” she greeted them easily. “Welcome to El Trono de
Tolerancia. There are baking powder biscuits, venison, and chocolate
for supper, and we’ve an extra bed.”