THE CONFERENCE AT JORNY SPRINGS
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 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 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 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 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 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.
“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.”
“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,” 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.”
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.”