The Heritage of the Hills Part 11

"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.

CHAPTER IX

NANCY FLEET'S WINDFALL

Jessamy Selden stood before the cheap soft-wood dresser in her bedroom, in a wing of the old log house, and completed the braiding of the two long, thick strands of cold-black hair. Then in the cozy little sitting room, which adjoined the bedroom and was hers alone, she slipped on her morocco-top riding boots and buckled spur straps over her insteps.

The sun had not yet climbed the wooded ridges beyond Poison Oak Ranch.

The night before the girl had prepared a cold breakfast for herself; and with this wrapped in paper she left the sitting room by its outside door and ran to the corral. The family was at breakfast in the vast room.

Hurlock's and Winthrop's families were likewise engaged in their respective houses. So no one was about to disturb or even see Jessamy as she hastily threw the saddle on White Ann, leaped into it, and rode away.

When she had left the clearing, and the noise of rapid hoofbeats would not be heard, she lifted the mare into a gallop. At this reckless speed they swung into the trail and plunged hazardously down the mountainside along the serpentine trail. They forded the river, took the trail on the other side, and raced madly up it until compa.s.sion for her labouring mount forced the rider to rein in. Now she ate her breakfast of cold baked apple and cold fried mush in the saddle as the mare clambered upward.

At sunrise they topped the ridge and took up the lope again toward the headwaters of Clinker Creek. Long before she reached it Jessamy saw a bay horse and its rider at rest, with the early sunlight playing on the flas.h.i.+ng silver of the famous saddle and bridle of Oliver Drew.

"Let's go!" she cried merrily as White Ann, convinced that some devilment was afoot, cavorted and humped her back and s.h.i.+ed from side to side while she bore down swiftly on the waiting pair.

For answer Oliver Drew pressed his calves against Poche's ribs, and the bay leaped to White Ann's side with a snort that showed he had caught the spirit of the coming adventure, whatever it might prove to be. At a gallop they swung into the county road, Poche producing a challenging metallic rattle by rolling the wheel of his halfbreed bit with his tongue, straining at the reins, and bidding the equally defiant white to do that of which "angels could do no more."

"Good morning!" cried Oliver. "What's the rush?"

"Old Man Selden is riding to Aunt Nancy's today," she shouted back.

"Good morning!"

"Oh! In that case, if that white crowbait you're riding hadn't already come three miles, we'd find out whether she can run. She's telling the world she can."

Jessamy made a face at him and, leaning forward, caressed the mare's smooth neck. White Ann evidently considered this a sign of abetment, for she plunged and reared and cast fiery looks of scorn at her pseudo rival.

"There, there, honey!" soothed the girl. "We could leave that old flea-bitten relic so far behind it would be cruelty to animals to do it.

Just wait till we're coming back, after we've rested and have an even chance; for I really believe the man wants to be fair."

Oliver's eyes were filled with her as her strong, sinewy figure followed every unexpected movement of the plunging mare as if a magnet held her in the saddle. The dew of the morning was on her lips; the flush of it on her cheeks. Her long black braids whipped about in the wind like streamers from the gown of a cla.s.sic dancer. The picture she made was the most engrossing one he had ever looked on.

They slowed to a walk after a mile of it.

"Well," said Jessamy, "I delivered your letter."

"Yes? Go on. That's a good start."

"It created quite a scene. Old Adam simply won't--can't--believe that you own the Old Ivison Place. So that's why he's fogging it up to Aunt Nancy's today. I think we'll be an hour ahead of him, though, and can be at the reservation by the time he reaches the house."

"Is he angry?"

"Ever try to convince a wasp that you have more right on earth than he has?" Her white teeth gleamed against the background of red lips and sunburned skin.

"Well?"

"He says that, whether you own the place or not, you'll have to leave."

"M'm-m! That's serious talk. In some places I've visited it would be called fighting talk."

"Number this place among them, Mr. Drew," she said soberly, turning her dark, serious eyes upon him.

"But I didn't come up here to fight!"

"Neither did the President of the United States take his seat in Was.h.i.+ngton to fight," she pointed out, keeping that level glance fixed on his face.

"Oh, as to that," mused Oliver after a thoughtful pause, "I guess I _can_ fight. They didn't send me back from France as entirely useless.

But it strikes me as a very stupid proceeding. Look here, Miss Selden--how many acres of gra.s.s does your step--er--Old Man Selden run cows on for the summer grazing?--how many acres in the Clinker Creek Country, in short?"

Jessamy pursed her lips. "Perhaps four thousand," she decided after thought.

"Uh-huh. And on my forty there's about fifteen acres, all told, that represents gra.s.s land. The rest is timber and chaparral. Now, fifteen acres added to four thousand makes four thousand fifteen acres. The addition would take care of perhaps five additional animals for the three months or more that his stock remains in that locality. Do you mean to tell me that Adam Selden would attempt to run a man out of the country for that?"

She closed her eyes and nodded her head slowly up and down in a childlike fas.h.i.+on that always amused him. It meant "Just that!"

He gave a short laugh of unbelief.

"Listen," she cautioned: "Don't make the fatal mistake of taking this matter too lightly, Mr. Drew."

"But heavens!" he cried. "A man who would attempt to dispossess another for such a slight gain as that would rob a blind beggar of the pennies in his cup! I've had a short interview with Old Man Selden. Corrupt he may be, but he struck me as an old sinner who would be corrupt on a big scale. I couldn't think of the masterful old reprobate I talked with as a piker."

Jessamy locked a leg about her saddle horn. "You've got him about right," she informed her companion. "One simply is obliged to think of him as big in many ways."

Oliver's leg now crooked itself toward her, and he slouched down comfortably. "Say," he said, "I don't get you at all."

"Don't get me?" She was not looking at him now.

"No, I don't. One moment you said he would put the skids under me for the slight benefit from my fifteen acres of gra.s.s. Next moment you maintain that he is not a piker."