BACK AT SOBRANTE
For an hour and a half they rode swiftly along a comparatively level
trail, though to Ninian Sharp's untrained eyes there was no road
visible. How Samson managed to pick his way so undeviatingly over the
dried herbage and sandy soil was a mystery; but neither the guide nor
Jessica found anything strange in this. Those who live in wide solitudes
grow keen of sight and hearing, and there were tiny roughnesses here and
there which clearly marked to these experienced ranch people where
other feet had passed that way.
Presently the roughness increased, and the trail climbed steadily toward
a mesa, which seemed to the reporter but ten rods distant, yet was, in
reality, as many miles.
"We turn here, captain. Shall I ride ahead?"
"Yes, Samson, but slowly. Scruff's been so idle all these weeks and
grown so lazy he'll hardly move."
"He'll get over that as soon as he meets up with the tackers. My, but
they've led Aunt Sally a life! And taken more medicine than was due
'em during the natural course of their lives. Say, Sharp, do you enjoy
picra?"
"Never tasted the stuff."
"And 'never too late to mend.' Here, take this vial, I present it to
you with my compliments. With the captain's respect. With the good will
of the whole outfit."
"But, beg pardon, I have no use for--picra."
"Don't delude yourself. You'll have to have it, outside or in. I'm a
friend. I give you this bottle. Then, when Aunt Sally appears with her
little dish and spoon, produce this from your pistol pocket and knock
her plumb speechless. It's your only salvation. Now or never."
"All right. Thanks. A case of forearmed, I suppose."
"Exactly. Now--there she is!"
Samson rose in his stirrups and pointed forward with his crop. Upon
a barren, wide-stretching tableland stood a cluster of adobe huts. Behind
them a clump of live oaks, beside them a sandy, curving streak, an
arroyo, lighter in hue than the surrounding soil, but parched and dry
as if part of the desert itself; behind them, three mighty, jagged,
upward-pointing rocks.
"There she is. The weirdest, lonesomest, God-for-sakenest habitation
that fools ever made or lived in, quoted the joker, giving Samson's hand
a cordial grasp. Hello! What's up captain?"
For Jessica had also caught sight of the desolate homestead and, having
too low stirrups for standing, had sprung to Scruff's back and poised
thus on his saddle, was straining her eager, excited gaze toward the
distant El Desierto.
"My dream! The spot! For once he told the truth! Follow, follow me,
quick!"
"Land of love! She has gone queer, and that's a fact. Does the mite
think that there little donkey can outrun your horse or mine? After her,
stranger, lest she do some harm to herself."
Ninian smiled softly and touched Nimrod lightly, and in a moment all
three were again racing over the mesa, side by side, the girl foremost,
and the men reining in their horses lest they should forestall her of the
goal to which she aspired. The reporter, as eager and almost as wise
as she, but good Samson completely in the dark and growing a trifle angry
over the fact.
When they came up to it the place seemed utterly deserted. The doors
opened to the touch and in all but one of the three small buildings the
windows were broken. The third was in better repair and was evidently
sometimes still used by somebody. There was a bed, or cot, spread with
blankets, a coal-oil stove, some canned meats and biscuits, and a
well-wrapped gun.
But Jessica's attention passed these details over.
"The rocks! They are the very same as in my dream and he told me of them
when he drew the map. Is that in your pocket, Mr. Sharp? Oh! is it?"
"Sure." He drew it forth and held it so that Samson, too, could see.
"Come! In the dream there was a little cave beneath the rocks and in the
cave a box. You know it, Samson, the black tin box in which the valuable
papers were kept. We could find it nowhere, mother nor I, but I shall
find it here and in it--oh! in it--there will be that title deed! You
look, 'boys,' I can't, I tremble so."
Samson forced his great length downward and inward under the bowlders
and found, as Jessica had felt sure, a small but perfectly dry and
well-protected cave. The rocks and live oaks screened it from the sight
of those who did not know it existed, and it would never have been
suspected that there was aught but solid ground beneath those jagged
stones.
The horses and Scruff were willing to stand without tying, and Ninian
was, in any case, too excited now to have remembered them. He saw that
Lady Jess was trembling, indeed, and trembled himself. If this should
prove a disappointment, how would she bear it?
But it was not to be that. From the little cave there presently issued a
mighty shout. That is it would have been mighty had the space been large
enough to give it vent. As it was, it came like the subdued roar of a
wild animal, and it was almost surprising to see the soles of Samson's
boots emerge from the opening instead of furry feet.
When he had crawled outward so far that he could lift himself upright,
the sailor leaped so high that Ninian felt as if he were the one who
had gone "queer" instead of Jessica, suspected. But this reason was
obvious; for there in his hand was the veritable black tin box familiar
to the girl from her earliest memory, and seen often enough by the herder
to be instantly recognized.
When, at last, the box was in her own hands Jessica became very quiet,
though her voice still trembled as she said:
"This belongs to my mother. It is for her to open it."
"No, captain."
"Not so, Jessica. If the deed for which she looked were not there it
would be but a fresh distress to her. You look. It is your interest as
well as hers, and if it is not there you can save her, at least, one
disappointment on this day of your return."
The opinions of her two friends prevailed; and, since they had no key,
Samson's great knife forced the lock, and stored within were papers and
vouchers of great value to Sobrante, which the faithless manager had
carried away for his own purposes.
The deed? Ah, yes. There it lay at the very bottom of the pile, and
Jessica knew it at once for the queer paper which her father had shown
her on the night before his death.
For a time she could only weep over it and caress it, remembering the
dear hands which had held it before her, and the unforgotten voice which
had explained its value and all about the necessary "recording" which
must be made. Then she rallied, remembering, also, that other precious
parent, alive and waiting for her and it.
"Keep you the box, Samson. I, myself, must keep and carry this."
She fastened it within her blouse and kept one hand upon it all the rest
of the way. A brief and happy way, which ended in a mother's arms and in
the wild welcome of every dweller at Sobrante. And when the mother's
arms set their recovered treasure free for a moment there were all the
"boys" ready and waiting to seize and carry her from point to point,
telling how careful had been each one's stewardship and how they would
never let her go again. Never.
As for Ninian Sharp he did not recognize himself in the hero they all
made of him, nor did even Aunt Sally presume to offer him, so wonderful
a man, a nauseous dose. But she was overheard to remark to Wun Lung, who
had also joined the company unforbidden by his arch enemy:
"I do believe, Wun Lungy, that if ever that there handsome young man
should go and get married I'd set him up in my fifty-five thousand five
hundred and fifty-five piece bedquilt. I did lay out to bequeath it to
Jessica, but, la! I can piece her another, just as willin' as not. What
you say, Wun Lungy?"
"I slay, fool woman!"
For a time joy and surprise turned Ned and Luis speechless; yet they
were sent to bed late that night, each hugging a sharp-edged train of
tin cars and breathing, "Choo! choo!" as if a railway were a common
sight instead of an unknown one.
But there came at last a quiet hour for mother and child, when they sat
in close embrace, telling all that had befallen each during the days of
separation.
"Oh! if dear Ephraim were only here, mother! I said it should not be
a month before that title deed was found, and the month will not be up
until to-morrow. Poor Ephraim! It was bitter hard to leave him alone in
that hospital, well-liked and cared for though he is. If it hadn't been
for him I could never have gone. And the 'boys' would have made such a
hero of him. Even as they did of Mr. Sharp. Can't you guess how proud
they'd have been of him, mother?"
When Mrs. Trent did not reply, Jessica looked up quickly and saw that
dear face so near her own still clouded by a shadow of trouble.
"Why, mother! What is it? You look as if you were not perfectly,
absolutely happy, and yet how can you be else--to-night?"
"Yes, darling, I am happy. So glad and thankful that I cannot put it
into words. But Ephraim? My darling, at present, not for some days,
if I were you I would not talk about Ephraim. You will be happier so.
No. He is alive and getting well, so far as I know. There has been no
later news than yours. Don't look so alarmed. Only this: the 'boys'
have taken some queer notion about our 'Forty-niner,' and so I say he
is probably happier just where he is to-night than if he were back at
Sobrante."
"Oh! mother! Another mystery? and about such a simple, honest, splendid
old fellow as my Ephraim? Well, never mind. I seem to be sent into the
world to solve other people's 'mysteries,' and I'll solve his."
Eventually she did. But how and when cannot be told here. This is a story
which must be related another time. But for the time Jessica was happy
and all went well.
THE END