The Heritage of the Hills. Hankins Arthur Preston
above!" muttered Mr. Tamroy. "But how you goin' to live? What're you goin' to do down in there? Gonta get a job? It's too far away from everything for you to go and come to a job, Mr. Drew."
"I'll tell you," said Oliver. "At the University I took an agricultural course. Since my graduation I have written not a few articles and sold them to leading farm journals. If the Old Tabor Ivison Place is of any value at all, I want to experiment in raising all sorts of things on a small scale, and write articles about my results. I'll have a few stands of bees, and maybe a cow. I'll try all sorts of things, get a second-hand typewriter, and go to it. I think I can live while I'm waiting for my father's big question to crop up."
"You can raise a garden all right, I reckon," Oliver's new friend told him, following him as he rose to continue his journey. "But you got to irrigate, and there ain't the water in Clinker Creek there used to be. Folks up near the headwaters use nearly all of it, and in the hot months what they turn back will all go up in evaporation before it gets down to you. There's a good spring, though, but it strikes me it don't flow anything like it did when Old Tabor Ivison lived on the land."
"Is there a house on the place?"
"Only an old cabin. At least there was last time I chased a buck down in there. And something of a fence, if I remember right. But fifteen years is a long time – I reckon everything left is next to worthless."
They came to a pause at the edge of the sidewalk beside an aged villager, who stood leaning on his crooked manzanita cane as he gazed at Poche and his silver-mounted trappings.
"That's Old Dad Sloan," whispered Damon Tamroy. "He's one o' the last of the 'Forty-niners. Just hobbles about on his cane, livin' off the county, and waitin' to die. Never saw him take much interest in anything before, but that outfit o' yours has caught his eye. Little wonder, by golly!"
Oliver stepped into the street and lifted the hair-tassled reins of the famous bridle. He turned to find the watery blue eyes of the patriarch fixed on him intently. With a trembling left hand the old man brushed back his long grey hair, then the fingers shakily caressed a grizzled beard, flaring and wiry as excelsior. A long finger at length pointed to the horse.
"Where'd you get that outfit, young feller?" came the quavering tones.
Mr. Tamroy winked knowingly at Oliver.
"It was my father's," said Oliver in eager tones.
The 'Forty-niner cupped a hand back of his ear. "Hey?" he shrilled.
Oliver lifted his voice and repeated.
"Yer papy's hey?" He tottered into the street and fingered the heavily silvered Spanish halfbreed bit, which, Oliver had been told, was very valuable intrinsically and as a relic. Then the knotty fingers travelled up an intricately plaited cheekstrap to one of the glittering silver-bordered conchas. The old fellow fumbled for his glasses, placed them on his nose, and studied the last named conceit with careful, lengthy scrutiny. "Is that there glass, young feller?" he croaked at last, pointing to the setting of the concha, a lilac-hued crystal about two inches in diameter.
"I think it is," Oliver shouted.
The old man shook his head. "I can't see well any more," he quavered. "But this don't look like glass to me."
"I've never had it examined," Oliver told him. "I supposed the settings of the conchas to be glass or some sort of quartz."
"Quartz?"
"Yes, sir."
The grey head slowly shook back and forth. "Young man," came the piping tones, "is they a 'B' cut in the metal that holds them stones in place?"
Oliver's eyes widened. "There is," he said. "On the inside of each one."
The old man stared at him, and his bearded lips trembled. "Bolivio!" he croaked weirdly.
"I don't understand," said Oliver.
"Bolivio made them conchas, young feller. Bolivio made that bit. Bolivio plaited that bridle. Bolivio made them martingales."
"And who is Bolivio?" puzzled the stranger.
"Dead and gone – dead and gone!" crooned the ancient. "That outfit's maybe a hundred years old, young feller – part of it, 'tleast. And that ain't glass in there – and it ain't quartz in in there – and there's only one man ever in this country ever had a bridle like that."
"And who was he?" asked Oliver almost breathlessly.
"Dan Smeed – that's who! Dan Smeed – outlaw, highwayman, squawman! Dan Smeed – gone these thirty years and more. That's his bridle – that's his saddle – all made by Bolivio, maybe a hundred years ago. And them stones in them conchas are gems from the lost mine o' Bolivio. The lost gems o' Bolivio, young feller!"
Oliver and Tamroy stared into each other's eyes as the old man tottered back to the sidewalk.
"Tell me more!" cried Oliver, as the ancient began tapping his crooked cane along the street.
There was no answer.
"He didn't hear," said Tamroy. "We'll get at him again sometime. Maybe he'll tell what he knows and maybe he won't. He's awful childish – awful headstrong. For days at a time he won't speak to a soul."
Oliver stood in deep thought, mystified beyond measure, yet thrilled with the thought that he was nearing the beginning of the trail to the mysterious question. He roused himself at length.
"Well, I must be getting along," he said. "I'll go right down to Clinker Creek now, if you'll point the way. I've enough grub behind my saddle for tonight and tomorrow morning. There's grass for the horse at present?"
"Oh, yes – horse'll get along all right."
"Then I'll go down and give my property the once-over, and be up tomorrow to get what I need."
Damon Tamroy showed him the road and shook hands with him. "Ride up and get acquainted regular someday," he invited. "I got a little ranch up the line – pears and apples and things. Give you some cherries a little later on. Well, so-long. Remember the Poison Oakers!"
Oliver galloped away, his flashing equipment the target of all eyes, on the road that led to the Old Tabor Ivison Place, his brain in a whirl of excitement.
CHAPTER IV
THE FIRST CALLER
Toward noon Poche was carefully feeling his way down the rocky cañon of Clinker Creek, over a forgotten road. Oliver walked, for Poche needs must scramble over huge boulders, fallen pines, and tangles of driftwood. The road followed the course of the creek for the most part, and in many places the creek had broken through and washed great gaps.
But the country was delightful. Wild grapevines grew in profusion at the creekside, gracefully festooned from overhanging buckeye limbs. Odorous alders, several varieties of willow, and white oak also followed the watercourse; and up on the hills on either side were black oaks and live oaks, together with yellow and sugar and digger pines, and spruce. Everywhere grew the now significant poison oak.
Finally Poche scraped through chaparral that almost hid the road and came out in a clearing. Oliver at last stood looking at his future home.
A quaint old cabin, with a high peaked roof, apparently in better repair than he had expected, stood on a little rise above the creek. The cañon widened here, and narrowed again farther down. The creek bowed and followed the base of the steep hills to the west. A level strip of land comprising about an acre paralleled the creek, and invited tillage. All about the clearing, perhaps fifteen acres in area, stood tall pines and spruce, and magnificent oaks rose above the cabin, their great limbs sprawled over it protectingly. Acres and acres of heavy, impenetrable chaparral covered both steep slopes beyond the conifers.
For several minutes Oliver drank in the beauty of it, then heaved himself into the saddle and galloped to the cabin over the unobstructed land.
He loosed Poche when the saddle and bridle were off, and the horse eagerly buried his muzzle in the tall green grass. Up in the branches paired California linnets, red breasted for their love season, went over plans and specifications for nest-building with much conversation