POISON OAK RANCH
The trail that meandered down Clinker Creek Canyon extended at right
angles to the one that led to the Selden ranch. The latter climbed a
baldpate hill; then, winding its narrow way through dense locked
chaparral higher than horse and rider, dipped down precipitously into
the deep canyon of the American River.
Jessamy waved good-bye to her new friend at the parting of the ways and
lifted White Ann into her long lope to the summit of the denuded hill.
For a little, as they crossed the topmost part of it, the deep, rugged
scar that marked the course of the river was visible. Ragged and rocky
and covered with trees and chaparral, the canyonside slanted down dizzily
for over fifteen hundred feet. At the bottom the deep green river rushed
pell-mell to the lower levels. A moment and the view was lost to the
girl, as White Ann entered the thick chaparral and started the swift
descent.
At last they reached the bottom, forded the swirling stream, and began
clambering up a trail as steep as the first on the other side. Soon the
river was lost to view again, for once more the trail had been cut
through a seemingly impenetrable chaparral of buckthorn, manzanita and
scrub oak. Around and about tributary canyons they wound their way, and
at last reached the end of the steep climb. For a quarter of a mile now
the trail followed the backbone of a ridge, then entered a canyon that
eventually spread out into a pine-bordered plateau on the mountainside.
Just ahead lay Poison Oak Ranch. Beyond, the deep, dark forest extended
in miles numbered by hundreds to the snow-mantled peaks of the Sierra
Nevada range.
While it was possible to reach Poison Oak Ranch from this side of the
river, the journey on Shank's mare would have taken on something of the
nature of an exploring expedition into unmapped lands. Occasionally
hunters wandered to or past the ranch on this side; but for the most
part any one who fancied that he had business at Poison Oak Ranch came
over the narrow trail that connected the spot with outside civilization.
Few entertained such a fancy, however, for Poison Oak Ranch, secluded,
hidden from sight, tucked away in the Hills of Nowhere, and difficult of
access, was owned and controlled by a clannish family that had little in
common with the world.
There was a large log house that Adam Selden's father had built in the
days of '49, in which the Old Man Selden of today had first opened his
eyes on life. There were several lesser cabins in the mountainside cup,
two of which were occupied by Hurlock Selden and Winthrop Selden and
their families. The remaining two boys, Moffat and Bolar, lived in the
big house with Jessamy, her mother, and the wicked Old Man of the Hills.
There was an extensive garden, watered by a generous spring that gushed
picturesquely from under a gigantic boulder set in the hillside. There
were perhaps ten acres of pasture, and a small deciduous orchard. Little
more in the way of agricultural land. The Seldens merely made this place
their home and headquarters--their cattle ranged the hills outside, and
most of their activities toward a livelihood were carried on away from
home. Selden owned a thousand acres over in the Clinker Creek Country
and a winter range a trifle larger fifty miles below the foothills. He
moved his herds three times in a year--from the winter pastures to the
Clinker Creek Country for the spring grass, keeping them there till
August, when they were driven to government mountain ranges at an
altitude of six thousand feet; and from thence, in October, to winter
range once more. The Clinker Creek range, however, was comprised of
several thousand acres beside the thousand owned by Selden. This
represented lands long since deserted by their owners as useless for
agricultural purposes, and upon which Selden kept up the taxes, or
appropriated without negotiations, as conditions demanded. Oliver Drew's
forty had been a part of this until Oliver's inopportune arrival.
Jessamy rode into the rail corral and unsaddled her mare. Then she
hurried to the house to help her mother, a tired looking, once comely
woman of fifty-eight.
Mrs. Selden had been an Ivison--a sister of Old Tabor Ivison, who had
homesteaded Oliver's forty acres thirty years before. As a girl she had
married Herman Lomax, a country youth with ambitions for the city. He
had done fairly well in the mercantile business in San Francisco, and
Jessamy, the only child, was born to them. The girl had been raised to
young womanhood and attended the State University. Then her father had
died, leaving his business in an involved condition; and in the end the
widow and her daughter found there was little left for them.
They returned to the scene of Mrs. Lomax's girlhood, where they tried
without success to farm the old home place, to which, in the interim,
the widow had fallen heir. Then to the surprise of every one--Jessamy
most of all--Mrs. Lomax consented to marry Old Adam Selden, the father
of four strapping sons and "the meanest man in the country." At the time
Jessamy had not known this last, but she knew it now.
However, such an independent young woman as Jessamy would not consent to
suffer a great deal at the hands of a step-father. She stayed on with
the family for her mother's sake, but she had her own neat living room
and bedroom and went her own way entirely. It must end someday. Old Adam
Selden, though hard and tough as a time-battered oak, could not live for
ever. Her mother would not divorce him. So Jessamy stayed and waited,
and rode over the hills alone, unafraid and independent.
She was helping her mother to get supper in the commodious kitchen, with
its black log walls and immense stone fireplace, which room served as
dining room and living room as well, when Adam Selden, Bolar, and Moffat
rode in from the trail and corraled their horses. Supper was ready as
the three clanked to the house in spurs and chaps, and washed noisily in
basins under a gigantic liveoak at the cabin door. Then Jessamy took
Oliver Drew's letter from her bosom and propped it against old Adam's
coffee cup.
Selden's bushy brows came down as he scraped his chair to the table.
Mail for any Selden was an unusual occurrence.
"What's this here?" Adam's thick fingers held the envelope before his
eyes, and the beetling grey brows strained lower.
"Mail," indifferently answered Jessamy, setting a pan of steaming
biscuits, covered with a spotless cloth, on the table.
"Fer me?"
"'Adam Selden, Esquire,'" she quoted.
"'Esquire,' eh? Who's she from?"
"It's generally customary to open a letter and read who it is from,"
said Jessamy lightly. "In this instance, however, you will find a
notation on the flap of the envelope that reads: 'From Oliver Drew,
Halfmoon Flat, California.'"
"Huh!" Selden raised his shaggy head and bent a condemnatory glance on
the girl.
"D'he give it to ye?"
"It is postmarked Halfmoon Flat," said Jessamy, taking her seat beside
Bolar, who, indifferent to his father's difficulties, had already
consumed three fluffy biscuits spread with butter and wild honey.
"Ye got her out o' the office, then?" The cold blue eyes were
challenging.
"Oh, certainly, certainly!" Jessamy chirruped impatiently. "One might
imagine you'd never received a letter before."
Adam fingered it thoughtfully. "Yes," he said deliberatingly at last,
reverting to his customary drawl, "I got letters before now. But I was
just wonderin' if this Drew fella give thisun to you to give to me."
Jessamy's round left shoulder gave a little shrug of indifference.
"Coffee, Moffat?" she asked.
"Sure Mike," said Moffat.
"Did he?" Selden's tones descended to the deep bass boom which marked
certain moods.
"Oh, dear!" Jessamy complained good-naturedly. "What's the use? Can't
you see the postmark and the cancelled stamp, Mr. Selden?"
Selden contemplated them. "Yes, I see 'em," he admitted; "I see 'em. But
I thought, s' long's ye was with that young Drew fella today, he might
'a' saved his stamp and sent her to me by you."
"That being satisfactorily decided," chirped Jessamy, "let us now open
the missive and learn what Mr. Drew has to communicate."
"Heaven's sake, Pap, open it and shut up!" growled Moffat, his mouth
full of potato.
"I'll take a quirt to you if ye tell me to shut up ag'in!" thundered
Selden.
Thereupon he tore the envelope and leaned out from his chair so that the
light from a window flooded the single sheet which the envelope
contained.
He read silently, slowly, craggy brows drawn down. His cold blue eyes
widened, and the large nostrils of his pitted Bourbon nose spread
angrily.
"Moffat, listen here!" he boomed at last. "You, too, Bolar."
"Yes, be sure to listen, Bolar," laughed Jessamy. "But if you don't wish
to, go down into the canyon of the American."
"'Adam Selden, Esquire,'" Selden boomed on, unheeding the girl's
bantering. "'Poison Oak Ranch, Halfmoon Flat, Californy:'
"'My dear Mr. Selden.' Get that, Moffat! 'My dear Mr. Selden!' Say,
who's that Ike think he's writin' to? His gal? Huh! 'My _dear_ Mr.
Selden:'
"'I rode to the county seat on Wednesday, this week, and looked over the
records in the office of the recorder of deeds. I found that you are
entirely mistaken in the matter that you brought to my attention on
Tuesday. The forty acres known as the Old Ivison Place are recorded in
my name, the date of the recording being January fifth, this year. It
appears that Nancy Fleet sold the place years ago to my father, but that
the transfer was not placed on record until the date I have mentioned.'
"'With kindest regards,'
"'Yours sincerely, Oliver Drew.'"
Selden came to an ominous pause and glared about the table. "Writ with a
typewriter, all but his name," he announced impressively. "And he's a
liar by the clock!"
Jessamy threw back her head in that whole-souled laughter that made
every one who heard her laugh.
"He's crazy," complacently mumbled Bolar, still at war on the biscuits.
"Jess'my"--Selden's eyes were fixed sternly on his
step-daughter--"What're ye laughin' at?"
"At humanity's infinite variety," answered Jessamy.
"Does that mean me?"
"Me, too, Pete!" she rippled.
"Looky-here"--he leaned toward her--"there's some funny business goin'
on 'round here. Two times ye been seen ridin' with that new fella down
on the Old Ivison Place."
"Two times is right," she slangily agreed.
"And ye rode with 'im to the county seat when he went to see the
records. Just so!"
"Your informer is accurate," taunted the girl.
"What for?"
"What for?" She levelled her disconcerting gaze at him. "Well, I like
that, Mr. Selden! Because I wanted to, if you must pry into my affairs."
"Ye wanted to, eh? Ye _wanted_ to! Did ye see the records?"
"I did."
"Is this here letter a lie?" He spanked the table with it.
"It is not."
He rose from his chair and bent over her. "D'ye mean to tell me yer
maw's sister don't own that prop'ty?"
"Exactly. It belongs to Mr. Oliver Drew, according to the recorder's
office. May I suggest that I am rather proud of my biscuits tonight, and
that they're growing cold as lumps of clay?"
"It's a lie!" roared Selden.
"Now, just a moment," said Jessamy coolly. "Do I gather that you are
calling me a liar, Mr. Selden? Because if you are, I'll get a cattle
whip and do my utmost to make you swallow it. I'll probably get the
worst of it, but--"
"Shut up!" bawled Selden. "Ye know what I mean, right enough! The whole
dam' thing's a lie!"
"Tell it to the county recorder, then," Jessamy advised serenely. "Have
another piece of steak, Mother."
"I'll ride right up to Nancy Fleet's tomorrow. I'll get to the bottom o'
this business. And you keep yer young nose outa my affairs, Jess'my!"
"Oh, I'll do that--gladly. That's easy."
"Just so! Then keep her outa this fella Drew's, too!"
"That's another matter entirely," she told him. "And I may as well add
right here, while we're on the subject, that I wish you to keep your
nose out of _my_ affairs. There, now--we've ruined our digestions by
quarrelling at meal-time. Bolar hasn't, though--I'm glad somebody
appreciates my biscuits."
Bolar grinned, and his face grew red. Bolar was deeply in love with his
step-sister, four years his senior; but a day in the saddle, with a
sharp spring wind in one's face, will scarce permit the tender passion
to interfere with a lover's appetite.
Old Adam enveloped himself in his customary brooding silence. He was a
holy terror when aroused, and would then spout torrents of words; but
ordinarily he was morosely quiet, taciturn. He would not have hesitated
to apply his quirt to his twenty-six-year-old son Moffat, as he had
threatened to do, had not that young man possessed the wisdom born of
experience to refrain from defying him. But with his step-daughter it
was different. For some inexplicable reason he "took more sass" from her
than from any other person living. Deep down in his scarred old heart,
perhaps, there was hidden a deferential respect and fatherly admiration
for this breezy, strong-minded girl with whom a strange fortune had
placed him in daily contact.
"Please eat your supper, Mr. Selden," Jessamy at last sincerely pleaded,
when the old man's frowning abstraction had continued for minutes.
Dutifully, without a word, he scraped his chair closer to the table and
fell to noisily. But he did not join in the conversation, which now
became general.
It was a custom in the House of Selden for each diner to leave the table
when he had finished eating--a custom antedating Jessamy's advent in the
family, which she never had been able to correct. Bolar had long since
bolted the last morsel of food that his tough young stomach would
permit, and had hurried to a half-completed rawhide lariat. Moffat soon
followed him out. Then Jessamy's mother arose and left the room. This
left together at the table the deliberate eater, Jessamy, and the old
man, who had not yet caught up with the time he had given to the letter.
He too finished before the girl, having completed his supper in the same
untalkative mood. Now, however, he spoke to her as he pushed back his
chair and rose.
"Jess'my," he said in a moderate tone, "I want to tell ye one thing. Ye
know that I shoot straight from the shoulder, or straight from the hip,
whichever's handiest--and I don't shoot to scare."
He waited.
Jessamy nodded. "I'll have to admit that," she said. "I think it's the
thing I like most about you."
He pondered over this, and again his brows came down above his pitted
nose. "I didn't know they was anything ye liked about me," he at length
said bluntly.
"Oh, yes," she remarked, levelling that straightforward look of hers at
him. "I like your height and the breadth of your chest, and the way you
sit in your saddle when your horse is on the dead run--and the other
thing I mentioned before."
Again he grew thoughtful. "Well, that's _somethin'_," he finally
chuckled. "Ye like my way o' sayin' what I think, then. Well, get this:
I'm the boss o' this country, from Red Mountain to the Gap. I been the
boss of her since my pap died and turned her over to me. So it's the
boss o' the Poison Oak Country that's talkin'. And he says this: That
new fella Drew that's made camp down on the Old Tabor Ivison Place can't
make a livin' there, can't raise nothin', don't belong there. And if by
some funny business, that I'm gonta look into right away, he's got
a-holt o' that forty, he's got to hit the trail."
"Why, how ridiculous!" laughed the girl. "Where do you think you are,
Mr. Selden? In Russia--Germany? King Selden Second, Czar of all the
Poison Oak Provinces! Mr. Drew, owning that land in his own right, must
hit the trail and leave it for you simply because you say so!"
"Ye heard what I said, Jess'my"--and he clanked out of the room.