LILAC SPODUMENE
Once more Oliver Drew rode out of Clinker Creek Canyon to find Jessamy
Selden, straight and strong and dependable looking, waiting for him in
her saddle. On this occasion he joined her by appointment.
She looked especially fresh and contrasty today. Her black hair and eyes
and her red lips and olive skin, with the red of perfect health so
subtly blended into the tan, always made her beauty rather startling.
This morning she had plaited her hair in two long, heavy braids that
hung to the bottom of her saddle skirts on either side.
Oliver's gaze at her was one of frank admiration.
"How do you do it?" he laughed.
"Do what?"
"Make yourself so spectacular and--er--outstanding, without leaving any
traces of art?"
"Am I spectacular?"
"Rather. Different, anyway--to use a badly overworked expression. But
what puzzles me is what makes you look like that. You seem perfectly
normal, and nothing could be plainer than the clothes you wear. You're
not beautiful, and you're too big both physically and mentally to be
pretty. But I'll bet my hat you're the most popular young woman in this
section!"
She regarded him soberly. "Are you through?" she asked.
"I've exhausted my stock of descriptive words, anyway," he told her.
"Then we'd better be riding," she said.
He swung Poche to the side of White Ann, and they moved off along the
road, knee and knee.
"You're not offended?" he asked.
She threw back her head and laughed till Oliver thought of meadow larks,
and robins calling before a shower.
"Offended! You must think me some sort of freak. Who ever heard of a
woman being offended when a man admires her? I like it immensely, Mr.
Oliver Drew. And if you can beat that for square shooting, there's no
truth in me. But if you'll analyse my 'difference' you'll find it's only
because I'm big and strong and healthy, and try always to shoot straight
from the shoulder and look folks straight in the eye. That's all. Let's
let 'em out!"
They broke into a smart gallop, and continued it up and down
pine-toothed hills till they clattered into Halfmoon Flat.
Curious eyes met them, old men stopped in their tracks and leaned on
their canes to watch, and folks came to windows and doors as they loped
through the village.
"'Whispering tongues can poison truth,'" Jessamy quoted as they turned a
corner and cantered up a hill toward a grove of pines on the outskirts
of the town. "It seems odd that Adam Selden has not mentioned you to me.
Surely some one has seen us together who would tell some one else who
would tell Old Man Selden all about it. But not a cheep from him as
yet."
"Have you any bosom friends in the Clinker Creek district?" he asked,
not altogether irrelevantly.
"No, none at all. But I'm friends with everybody, though I have nothing
in common with any one. I don't consider myself superior to the natives
here about, but, just the same, they don't interest me. I'm speaking of
the women. I like most of the men. I guess I'm what they call a man's
woman. I can't sit and talk about clothes and dances, and gossip, and
what one did on one's vacation last summer. It all bores me stiff, so I
don't pretend it doesn't. Men, now--they can talk about horses and
saddles and cows and cutting wood and prizefights and poker games and
election--"
"And women and Fords," he interrupted.
She laughed and led the way into a little trail that snaked on up the
hill between lilacs and buckeye trees to a little cabin half-hidden in
the foliage.
They dismounted at the door and loosed their horses. Jessamy tapped
vigorously on the panels. Again and again--and then there was heard a
shuffling, unsteady step inside, and a cane thumped hollowly. Presently
the door opened, and Old Dad Sloan bleared out at them from behind his
flaring, mattress-stuffing hair and whiskers.
"How do you do, Mr. Sloan!" cried Jessamy almost at the top of her
voice.
A veined hand shook its way to form a cup behind the ancient's ear.
"Hey?" he squealed.
Jessamy filled her sturdy lungs with air and tried again.
"I say--How do you do!" The effort left her neck red but for a blue
outstanding artery.
"Oh!" exclaimed Dad Sloan, with a look of relief. "Why, howdy?"
Jessamy ascended a step to the door, took him by both shoulders, and
placed her satin lips close to the ear that he inclined her way.
"We've come to make you a call," she announced. "I want you to meet a
friend of mine; and we want to ask you some questions."
The grey head nodded slowly up and down, more to indicate that its owner
heard and understood than to signify acquiescence. But he tottered back
and held the door wide open; and Jessamy and Oliver went into the cabin.
Dad Sloan managed to live all alone in this sequestered little nook by
reason of the county's generosity. He was old and feeble, and at times
irritatingly childish and petulant. Jessamy Selden often brought him
cakes, fried chicken, and the like; and, provided he was in the right
mood, he would be more likely to be confidential with her than with
anybody else in the country.
But the girl's task was difficult. The old man shook hands listlessly
with Oliver at her bidding, but seemed entirely to have forgotten their
previous meeting. They sat in the uncomfortable straight-backed,
thong-bottom chairs while Jessamy shrieked the conversation into the
desired channel. The old eyes gathered a more intelligent look as she
spoke of the lost mine of Bolivio.
Pieced together, the fragments that fell from the bearded lips of Old
Dad Sloan made some such narrative as follows:
Bolivio had been a Portuguese or a Spaniard, or some "black furriner,"
who had been in the country in the memorable days of '49 and afterward.
His knowledge of some tongue based on the Latin had made it easy for him
to communicate with the Pauba Indians that inhabited the country, as
some of them had learned Spanish from the Franciscan Fathers down at the
coast. Bolivio mingled with the tribe, and finally became a squawman.
One day he appeared at the Clinker Creek bar and exhibited a beautiful
stone. A gold miner who was present had once followed mining in South
Africa, and knew something of diamonds. He examined Bolivio's stone, and
gave it such simple tests as were at his command, then advised the owner
to send it to New York to find out if it was possessed of value.
It required months in those days to communicate with the Atlantic
seaboard. Bolivio's stone was started on its long journey around the
Horn. He hinted that there were more of the stones where he had found
this one, and created the impression that his Indian brethren had showed
them to him.
More they could not get out of him. Nor did anybody try very hard to
learn his secret, for no one imagined the find of much intrinsic value.
Bolivio was a saddler, and was skilled in the art of the silversmith.
Gold dust was plentiful in the country in that day, and the foreigner
found ready buyers for his masterpieces in leather and precious metals.
The finest equestrian outfit that he made was finally acquired from the
Indians by Dan Smeed, a miner who afterward turned highwayman, married
an Indian girl, became an outlaw, and finally disappeared altogether. In
the _conchas_ with which the plaited bridle was adorned Bolivio had set
two large stones from his secret store, which he himself had crudely
polished.
One day, a month or more before word came from New York regarding the
stone, Bolivio was found dead in the forest. A knife had been plunged
into his heart. The secret of the brilliant stones had died with him.
Then came the answer. The stone was said to be spodumene, of a very high
class, and had a a lilac tint theretofore unknown. It was the finest of
its kind ever to have been reported as found in the United States. The
finder was offered a thousand dollars for the sample sent; one hundred
dollars a pound was offered for all stones that would grade up to the
sample.
But Bolivio was dead, and no one knew from whence the stone had come.
Efforts were made, of course, to find the source of this wealth. The
Indians were tried time and again, but not one word would they speak
regarding the matter. The new quest was finally dropped; for those were
the days of gold, gold, gold, and so frenzied were men and women to find
it that other precious minerals were cast aside as worthless. None had
time to seek for stones worth a hundred dollars a pound, with gold worth
more than twice as much. So the lost mine of Bolivio became only a
memory.
Years later this same stone was discovered six hundred miles farther
south. It is now on the market as kunzite, and a cut stone of one karat
in weight sells for fifty dollars and more. The San Diego County
discovery was supposed to mark the introduction of the stone in the
United States, for the lost mine of Bolivio was all but forgotten.
Old Dad Sloan thumped out at Jessamy's request and once again critically
examined Oliver's saddle and bridle and the brilliants in the _conchas_.
"It's the same fine outfit Bolivio made, and that afterwards belonged to
Dan Smeed, outlaw, highwayman, and squawman," he pronounced. "They never
was another outfit like it in this country."
"Tell us more about Dan Smeed!" screamed the girl.
The patriarch shook his head. "Bad egg; bad egg!" he said sonorously.
"He married a squaw, and that's how come it he got the grandest saddle
and bridle Bolivio ever made. Bolivio's squaw kep' it after Bolivio was
knifed. And by and by along come this Dan Smeed and his partner to this
country. And when Dan Smeed married into the tribe he got the saddle and
bridle and martingales somehow. That was later--years later. Bolivio's
been dead over seventy year."
"Have you ever heard the name Peter Drew?" Oliver asked him.
But the old eyes remained blank, and the grey head shook slowly from
side to side. "I recollect clear as day what happened sixty to seventy
year ago, but I can't recollect what I did last week or where I went,"
Dad Sloan said pathetically. "If I'd ever heard o' Peter Drew in the
days o' forty-nine to seventy, I'd recollect it."
"You mentioned Dan Smeed's partner," prompted Jessamy. "Can you recall
his name?"
"Yes, Dan Smeed had a partner," mused Dad Sloan. "Bad egg, Dan Smeed.
Squawman, highwayman, outlaw. Disappeared with his fine saddle and
bridle and martingales and the stones from the lost mine o' Bolivio."
"But his partner's name?" the girl persisted.
The old mind seemed to be wandering once more. "Bad eggs--both of 'em.
Bad eggs," was the only answer she could get.
"Well, we're progressing slowly," Jessamy observed as they rode away.
"Our next step must be to visit the Indians. I know a number of them.
Filipe Maquaquish, for instance, and Chupurosa are as old or older than
Old Dad Sloan. Chupurosa's face is a pattern in crinkled leather. When
we go to see Aunt Nancy Fleet we'll visit the Indian village. And that
will be--when?"
"Tomorrow, if you say so," Oliver replied. "I meant to irrigate my
garden tomorrow, but it can wait a day."
"By the way," she asked, "have you written that letter to Mr. Selden,
telling him what we found out down at the county seat?"
"I have it in my pocket," he told her.
"Give it to me," she ordered. "I'll hand it in at the post office, get
them to stamp the postmark on it, and take it home with me when I go."
"Will you dare do that? Won't the post-master scent a conspiracy against
Old Man Selden?"
"Let him scent!" said Jessamy. "I'm dying to see Selden's face when he
reads that letter."
They parted at the headwaters of Clinker Creek, with the understanding
that she would meet him in the county road next morning for the ride to
her aunt's and the Indian reservation.