THE QUESTION
The morning following the Feast of the Dead, Oliver Drew rode Poche out
of Clinker Creek Canyon, driving Smith ahead of them, on the way to
Halfmoon Flat for supplies. Over the hills above the American River he
saw a white horse galloping toward him.
This was to be a chance meeting with Jessamy. He had an idea she would
not be anxious to face him, after her attempted subterfuge of the night
before; so he slipped from the saddle, captured Smith, and led the two
animals back into the woods.
Then he hurried to a tree on the outskirts and hid behind it.
On galloped White Ann, with the straight, sturdy figure in the saddle.
As they came closer Oliver knew by her face that Jessamy had not seen
him; and as they came abreast he stepped out quickly and shouted.
Jessamy turned red, reined in, and faced him, her lips twitching.
"Good morning, my Star of Destiny!" he said.
A flutter of bafflement showed in her black lashes, but the lips
continued to twitch mischievously.
"_Buenos dias_, Watchman of the Dead!" she shot back at him.
Oliver's eyes widened.
"Got under your guard with that one, eh, ol'-timer? Just so!--if you'll
permit a Seldenism. Tit for tat, as the fella says! Your move again."
And then she threw back her head and laughed to the skies above her.
"Where are you going?" he asked.
"Ridin'."
"You weren't headed for the Old Ivison Place."
"No, not this morning. I was not seeking you. But since I've met you,
and the worst is over, I'll not avoid you."
"Help me pack a load of grub down the canyon; then I'll go 'ridin' with
you."
She nodded assent.
"I thought so," she observed, as he led Poche and Smith from hiding.
"I thought you'd turn back, or turn off, if you saw me here ahead of
you," he made confession.
"I might have done that," she told him as they herded Smith into the
road and followed him.
They said nothing more about what had taken place the night before until
the bags had been filled and diamond-hitched, and Smith was rolling his
pack from side to side on the homeward trail. Then Oliver asked
abruptly:
"Who laid that fire, and put the box of cloth and the _olla_ at The Four
Pools yesterday?"
"Please, sir, I done it," she replied.
"When?"
"Just before I rode to your cabin last evening."
"Uh-huh!" he grunted, and fell silent again.
At the cabin she helped him throw off the diamond-hitch and unload the
packbags. Then the shaggy Smith was left to his own devices--much to his
loudly voiced disapproval--and Jessamy and Oliver rode off into the
hills.
"Which way?" he asked as they topped the ridge.
"Lime Rock," she replied.
Tracing cow paths single-file, they wound through and about chaparral
patches and rocky canyons till they reached the old trail that led to
Lime Rock.
Lime Rock upreared itself on the lip of a thousand-foot precipice that
overhung the river. It was three hundred feet in height, a gigantic
white pencil pointing toward the sky. At its base was a small level
space, large enough for a wagon and team to turn, but the remainder of
the land about and above it was hillside, too steep for cows to climb.
And from the edge of the level land the canyonside dropped straight
downward, a mass of craggy rocks and ill-nourished growth. The trail
that led to Lime Rock wound its way over a shelf four feet in width,
hacked in the hillside. One false step on this trail and details of what
must inevitably ensue would be hideous.
Oliver led the way when they reached the beginning of the trail. Both
Poche and White Ann were mountain bred animals, sure-footed and
unconcerned over Nature's threatening eccentricities. For a quarter of a
mile the bay and the white threaded the narrow path, their riders
silent. Then they came to Lime Rock and the security of the level land
about it.
Here Oliver and Jessamy sat their horses and gazed down the dizzy
precipice at the rushing river, and up the steep, rocky wall on the
other side.
"Do you know who owns the land on which our horses are standing?"
Jessamy finally asked.
"I've never given it a thought," said Oliver.
"It belongs to Damon Tamroy."
"That so? I didn't know he owned anything over this way."
"Yes, Damon owns it. But I have an option on it."
"You! Have an option on it!"
"Yes, a year's option. It was rather an underhanded trick that I played
on old Damon, but he's not very angry about it. It's my first business
venture.
"You see, I learned through a letter from a girl friend in San Francisco
that a big cement company was thinking of invading this country. She
wrote it merely as a bit of entertaining news, but I looked at it
differently.
"I knew where they'd begin their invasion. Right here! That magnificent
monument there is solid limestone, and the hills back of it are the
same, though covered by a thin layer of soil. So I went to the owner of
the land, Damon Tamroy, and got a year's option on it for twenty-five
dollars--a hundred and sixty acres.
"How Damon laughed at me! I told him outright why I wanted to buy the
land, if ever I could scrape enough together. He didn't consider it very
valuable, and it may become mine any day this year that I can pungle up
four hundred and seventy-five bucks more. When he quizzed me, I told him
frankly that I was doing it in an effort to preserve Lime Rock for
posterity, and he laughed louder than ever.
"But he changed his tune when a representative of the cement company
approached him with an offer of fifteen dollars an acre. He took his
loss good-naturedly enough, but accused me of putting over a slick
little business deal on him. I had done so, in a way, and admitted it;
and ever since I've been talking myself blue in the face when I meet
him, trying to convince him that it's not the money I'm after at all.
"Think of an old hog of a cement company coming in here and erecting a
rumbling old plant, with the noon whistle deriding the reverential calm
of this magnificent canyon, and their old drills and dynamite and things
ripping Lime Rock from its throne! Bah! I'm going to San Francisco soon
to get a job. I may decide to go this week. It will keep me hustling to
put away four hundred and seventy-five dollars between now and the day
my option expires."
Oliver sat looking gravely at the young idealist, suppressing his
disappointment over the possibility of her early departure.
"But we have to have cement," he pointed out.
"Do we? Maybe so. But there's lots of limestone in the west. Men don't
need to search out such spots as this in which to get it. There are less
picturesque places, which will yield enough cement material for all our
needs. Sometimes I think these big money-grabbers just love to ruin
Nature with their old picks and powder. You may agree with me or not--I
don't care. I'm not utilitarian, and don't care who knows it. The
world's against me in my big fight to keep the money hogs from robbing
life of all its poetry; but it's a fight to the last ditch! I'll save
Lime Rock, anyway, if I have to beg and borrow."
"I don't know that I disagree with you at all," he told her softly.
"Money doesn't mean a great deal to me. I've shed no idle tears over my
failure to inherit the money that I expected would be mine at Dad's
death. I hold no ill will toward Dad. There's too much wampum in the
world today. It won't buy much. The more people have the more they want.
The so-called 'standard of living' continues to rise, and with it the
ills of our civilization steadily increase. Luxuries ruin health.
Automobiles make our muscles sluggish. Moving pictures clog our thinking
apparatus. Telephones make us lazy. Phonographs and piano-players reduce
our appreciation of the technique of music, which can come only by study
and practice. What flying machines will do to us remains to be seen, but
they'll never carry us to heaven!
"No, money means little enough to me. Give me the big outdoors and a
regular horse, a keen zest in life, and true appreciation of every
creature and rock and tree and blade that God has created, and I'll
struggle along."
As he talked the colour had been mounting to her face. When he ceased
she turned starry eyes upon him, her white teeth showing between
slightly parted lips.
"Oliver Drew," she said, "you have made me very happy. I--"
A rush of blood throbbed suddenly at Oliver's temples, and once again he
swung his horse close to hers.
"I'll try to make you happy always," he said low-voiced. "Jessamy--"
Again he opened his arms for her, but as before she drew herself away
from him.
"Don't! Not--not now! Wait--Oliver!"
"Wait! Always wait! Why?"
"I--I must tell you something first. I can tell you now--after--after
last night."
"Then tell me quickly," he demanded.
She rested both hands on her saddle horn and rose in her stirrups. For a
long time her black eyes gazed down the precipice below them, while the
wind whipped wisps of hair about her forehead. Oliver waited, drunk with
the thought of his nearness to her.
"Watchman of the Dead!" she murmured at last.
Oliver started.
"Two years ago," she went on softly, "I met the second Watchman of the
Dead. You are the third. The first was murdered in this forest. His name
was Bolivio, and he made silver-mounted saddles and hair-tasseled
bridles."
Oliver scarce dared to breathe for fear of breaking the spell that
seemed to have come over her. She did not look at him. She continued to
gaze into her beloved canyon and at her beloved hills beyond.
"Oh, where shall I begin!" she cried at last. "Where is the beginning? A
man would begin at the first, I suppose, but a woman just can't! But I
won't be true to the feminine method and begin at the end. I won't be a
copy-cat. I'll begin in the middle, anyway."
A smile flickered across her red lips; but still she gazed away from
him.
"Two years ago," she said, "I met the dearest man."
Oliver straightened, and lumps shuttled at the hinges of his jaws.
"I was riding White Ann on one of my lonely wanderings through the
woods. I met him on the ridge above the Old Ivison Place and the river.
"After that I met him many times, in the forest and elsewhere; and the
more I talked with him the more I liked him. He was my idea of a man."
Oliver, too, was now gazing into the canyon, but he saw neither crags nor
trees nor rushing green river.
"And he grew to like me," her low tones continued. "We talked on many
subjects, but mostly of what we've been talking about today.
"He was an idealist, this man. He was comparatively wealthy, but there
are things in life that he placed above money and its accumulation. By
and by he grew to like me more and more, and finally he told me point
blank that I was his ideal woman; and then he grew confidential and told
me all about himself--his past, present, and what he hoped for in the
future. And in my hands he placed a trust. Please God, I have tried to
keep the faith!"
She threw back her head and followed the flight of an eagle soaring
serenely over Lime Rock. And with her eyes thus lifted she softly said:
"That man was Peter Drew--your father."
Oliver's breast heaved, but he made no sound. Once more her eyes were
sweeping the abyss.
"That's the middle," she said. "Now I'll go back to the beginning and
tell you what Peter Drew entrusted to my keeping.
"Thirty years ago Peter Drew, who then called himself Dan Smeed, was the
partner of Adam Selden. They mined and hunted and trapped together
throughout this country.
"There were other activities, too, which I shall not mention. You
understand. Your father told me all about it, kept nothing back.
Remember that I said he was my idea of a man; and if in his youth he had
been wild and--well, seemed criminally inclined--I found that easy to
forget. Certainly the manliness and sacrifice of his later years wiped
out all this a thousand times.
"Well, to proceed: Peter Drew and Adam Selden married Indian girls.
Peter Drew won out in the fire dance and became a member of the Showut
Poche-dakas. Adam Selden failed, and, according to the custom, took his
wife from the tribe and lived with her elsewhere. Six months afterward
the wife of Selden died.
"Peter Drew, however, having become a recognized member of the tribe,
was taken into their full confidence. According to their simple belief,
he had conquered all obstacles that stood between him and this
affiliation; therefore the gods had ordained that full trust should be
placed in him. And with their beautiful faith and simplicity they did
not question his honesty. So according to an old, old tradition of the
tribe the white man was appointed Watchman of the Dead.
"I know little of this story. All of the traditions of the Showut
Poche-dakas are clouded, so far as our interpretation of them goes. But
it appears, from what your father told me, that ages ago a white-skinned
chief had been Watchman of the Dead. Mercy knows where he came from,
for, so far as history goes, the whites had not then invaded the
country. But after him, whenever a white-skinned man conquered the evil
spirits of the fire and became a member, he was appointed Watchman of
the Dead. So in the natural order of things the honour came to Peter
Drew.
"Up to this time the only other Watchman of the Dead remembered by even
old Maquaquish and Chupurosa was the man called Bolivio. Holding this
simple office, it seems that Bolivio had stumbled upon the secret so
jealously guarded by the Showut Poche-dakas. He tried to turn this
secret information to his own advantage, and in so doing he broke faith
with the tribe that had adopted him as a brother. Found dead in the
forest with a knife in his heart, is the abrupt climax of his tale of
treachery. And so the tradition of the lost mine of Bolivio had its
birth.
"Centuries ago, no doubt, the Showut Poche-dakas discovered the
spodumene gems which were responsible for the fiction concerning the
lost mine of Bolivio. They polished them crudely and worshipped them.
Spodumene gems always are found in pockets in the rock, and they are
always hidden in wet clay in these pockets. Solid stone will be all
about them, with no trace of disintegrated matter, until a pocket is
struck. Therein will be found separate stones of varying sizes, always
sealed in a natural vacuum, which in some way forever retains moisture
in the clay.
"This peculiarity appealed to the superstitious natures of the Showut
Poche-dakas. It is their age-old custom to bury their dead in pockets
hacked in cliffs of solid stones, sealing them with a cement of clay and
pulverized granite. One can readily see how the discovery of these
beautiful gems, sealed in pockets as they sealed their dead, might
affect them. They determined that the glittering stones represented the
bodies of their ancestors, and from that time on the lilac-tinted gems
became something to be worshipped and guarded faithfully.
"Doubtless when Bolivio was appointed Watchman of the Dead he was told
this secret, and learned where the stones were to be found. He got some
of them, and sent them East to find out whether they were valuable. He
polished two, and placed them in bridle _conchas_. Then before word came
from New York the Indians stabbed him for his deceit.
"His elaborate equestrian outfit remained with the tribe, and your
father acquired it when he became Watchman of the Dead. For some reason
unknown to him, the stones were allowed to remain in the _conchas_; and
he told me that he always imagined them to be a symbol of his office.
Anyway, you, Oliver Drew, are the Watchman of the Dead, and your right
to own and use that gem-mounted bridle goes unchallenged by the Showut
Poche-dakas."
She paused reflectively.
"All this your father told me," she presently continued. "He told me,
too, that the secret place where the gems are to be found is on the Old
Ivison Place. It was unclaimed land then, and your father camped there
with his Indian wife, as was demanded of the Watchman of the Dead.
Before his time, Bolivio had camped there. Later, Old Man Ivison
homesteaded the place, knowing nothing of its strange history. He was a
kindly old man, liked by everybody; and each year he allowed the Indians
to hold their Mona Fiesta at The Four Pools. Though he had no idea why
they held it in this exact spot each time--that up the slope above them
was a hidden treasure that would have made the struggling homesteader
rich for life.
"Then your father told me the worst part of it all. He and Selden, it
seems, had found out more of the story of Bolivio than is to be
unravelled today, with most of the old-timers dead and gone and the
Indians always closemouthed. Anyway, they two found out about the secret
gems and the significance of the fire dance. So they had planned
deliberately to marry Indian girls to further their knowledge of this
matter.
"It was understood between them that Adam Selden would intentionally
fail to win out in the fire dance, and that Peter Drew, who was a
Hercules for endurance and strength, would win if he could, and thus
become Watchman of the Dead and learn the whereabouts of the brilliants.
This scheme they carried out, and Peter Drew took up residence with his
brown-skinned bride on what is today the Old Ivison Place.
"Then he redeemed himself by falling in love with his wife. In time he
found out where the gem pockets were situated. But when Selden came to
him to see if he'd stumbled on to the secret, he put him off and said,
'Not yet.'
"From the date of the Fiesta de Santa Maria de Refugio until the night
of the Mona Fiesta he remained undecided what to do. Somehow or other,
he told me, though he had been a highwayman and was then protected from
the flimsy law of that day only by his Indian brothers, he could not
bring himself to break faith with them.
"Then came the night of the first Mona Fiesta since he became Watchman
of the Dead; and that night temporarily decided him.
"When he squatted in the circle about the fire and saw the rapt,
tear-stained, brown faces of these people who had placed absolute faith
in him, he fell under the spell of their simplicity, and swore that so
long as he lived he would not betray their trust.
"And he lived up to it, with his partner, Adam Selden importuning him
daily to get the stones and skip the country. And finally to be rid of
Selden and the double game he was obliged to play, Peter Drew left with
his wife one night and did not return for fifteen years.
"And since then there has been no Watchman of the Dead until the night
you defeated the evil spirits in the fire dance.
"Out in the world of white men Peter Drew settled down to ranching. His
Indian wife had died two years after he left this country. With her
gone, and the new order of things all about him, he began to wonder if
he had not been a fool.
"Up here in the lonesome hills was wealth untold, so far as he knew, and
he renounced it for an ideal. To secure those gems he had only to show
ingratitude to the Showut Poche-dakas, had only to break faith with a
handful of ignorant, simple-minded Indians. What did they and their
ridiculous beliefs amount to in this great scheme of life as he now saw
it? Each day men on every hand were breaking faith to become wealthy,
were trampling traditions and ideals underfoot to gain their golden
ends. Business was business--money was money! Had he not been a fool?
Was he not still a fool--to renounce a fortune that was his for the
taking?
"He called himself an ignorant man. He told himself--and truly,
too--that countless men whom he knew, who had read a thousand books to
one merely opened by him--men of education, men of affairs--would laugh
at him, and themselves would have wrested the treasure from its hiding
place without a qualm of conscience. Civilization was stalking on in its
unconquerable march. Should a handful of uncouth Indians, a
superstitious, dwindling tribe of near-savages, be permitted to handicap
his part in this triumphal march? No--never!
"But always, when he made ready to return to the scenes of his young
manhood, there came before him the picture of brown, tear-stained faces
about a fire, and of an old blind man speaking softly as if telling a
story to eager children. Highwayman Peter Drew had been, but never in
his life had he broken faith with a friend. Loyalty was the very
backbone of my idealist, and he turned away from temptation and doggedly
followed his plough.
"For thirty years and more the question faced him. Should he get the
gems and be wealthy, and break faith with those who had entrusted him
with the greatest thing in their lives--these people who had called him
brother, whose last remnant of food or shelter was his for the asking?
Or should he remain an idealist, a poor man, but loyal to his trust? The
answer was No or Yes!
"Can't your imagination place you in his shoes? Unlettered, not sure of
himself, ashamed of what he doubtless termed his chicken-heartedness.
Don't you know that all of us are constantly ashamed of our secret
ideals--ashamed of the best that is in us? We fear the ridicule of
coarser minds, and hide what is Godlike in our hearts. And on top of
this, your father was ignorant, according to present day standards, and
knew it. But for thirty years, Oliver Drew, he prospered while his
idealism fought the battle against the lust for wealth. Idealism won,
but Peter Drew died not knowing whether he had been a wise man or a
fool. He died a conqueror. Give us more of such ignorance!
"And he educated you, left you penniless, and placed his momentous
question in your keeping.
"Fifteen years ago he bought the Old Ivison Place, though the Indians do
not know it. Adam Selden has searched for the gems without result ever
since Peter Drew left the country; and it was because of him that your
father kept his purchase a secret. Two years ago, while you were in
France, Peter Drew came here, met me and liked me, and told me all that
I have told you.
"He knew that when you rode into this country with the saddle and bridle
of Bolivio that the Showut Poche-dakas would know who you were, and
would take you in and make you Watchman of the Dead. Peter Drew wanted
you to be penniless, as he had been when he first faced the question. He
gave me money with which to help along the cause. So far I've only had
to use it for liquid courtplaster, an _olla_, and a few bolts of calico.
You were to learn nothing of the story from my lips. You were to face
the question blindly, with no other influences about you save those that
he had experienced.
"I have done my best to carry out his wishes. You are the Watchman of
the Dead. You own the land on which the treasure lies. You are brother
of the Showut Poche-dakas. The treasure is yours almost for the lifting
of a hand. You are almost penniless.
"There's your question, Oliver Drew. Say Yes and the gems are yours. Say
No, and you have forty acres of almost worthless land, a saddle horse
and outfit, and youth and health, and the lifetime office of Watchman of
the Dead!"
She ceased speaking. There were tears in her great black eyes as she
looked at him levelly.
"But--but--" Oliver floundered. "I don't know where the gems are. Selden
has hunted them for thirty years, and has failed to find them. I've seen
many evidences of his search. Will the Showut Poche-dakas tell me where
they are?"
"Your father thought that perhaps, after what has passed in connection
with former Watchmen of the Dead, you might not be told the exact
location. So he made provision for that."
She reached in her bosom and handed him an envelope sealed with wax.
On it he read in his father's hand:
"Map showing exact location of what is known as the lost mine of
Bolivio."
"If you open it," she said, "your answer probably will be No, and you
become owner of the gems. If you destroy it unopened, your answer is
Yes, and you are a poor man. Yes or No, Oliver Drew? Think over it
tonight, and I'll meet you here tomorrow at noon."
"What do _you_ want my answer to be?" he asked.
"I have no right to express my wishes in the matter," she said. "And
your answer is not to be told to me, you must remember, but to your
father's lawyers."
Then she turned White Ann into the narrow trail that led from Lime Rock.