The Heritage of the Hills Part 16

"Can you spin a dollar in air with your left hand, draw, and hit it before it strikes the ground?"

"Aw, let's be sensible!" he cried. "I'm after another colony of bees.

Come on up and look at 'em."

"Sit still," she ordered. "Can you do what I asked about?"

"I don't know--I've never tried."

"Digger Foss can," she claimed.

"Well, that's shooting."

"It is. I'd strap that gun on if I were you and practice up a bit."

"Cartridges are too high-priced," he laughed. "What's the rest of the news?"

"The store up at Cliffbert, about fourteen miles from here and off the railroad, was broken into three days ago and robbed of cutlery, revolvers, and other things to the tune of several hundred dollars."

"M'm-m! Do they have any idea who did it?"

"Oh, yes. The Poison Oakers."

"They know it?"

"Of course--everybody knows it. But it can't be proved. It's nothing new."

"I didn't know the gang ever went to such a limit."

"Humph!" she sniffed significantly. "And the next piece of news is that Sulphur Spring has gone dry for the first time in many years. And here it's only May!"

"Where is Sulphur Spring?"

"About a mile below your south line, in this canon. I heard Old Man Selden complaining about it last night, and thought I'd ride around that way this morning. It's as he said--entirely dry, so far as new water running into the basin is concerned."

"Well," said Oliver, "my piece of news is just the opposite of that. My spring is running a stream five times as large as heretofore--"

She straightened. "What caused that?" she demanded quickly.

He explained in detail.

"So!" she murmured. "So! I understand. Listen: I have heard the menfolks at the ranch say that all these canon springs are connected. That is, they all are outbreaks from one large vein that follows the canon. If you shut off one, then, you may increase the flow of the next one below it. And if you open one up and increase its output, the next below it may go entirely dry. The flow from yours has been cut off in time gone by to increase the flow of Sulphur Spring. And now that you've taken away the obstruction, your spring gets all the water, while Sulphur Spring gets none."

"I believe you're right," a.s.serted Oliver. "And do you think it might have been the Poison Oakers who closed my spring to increase the flow down there?"

"Undoubtedly."

"But why? They were running cows on my land, too, before I came.

Wouldn't it be handier to have a good flow of water in both places?"

"No doubt of that," she answered. "And I can't enlighten you, I'm sorry to say. All I know is that Old Man Selden is hopping mad--angrier than the situation seems to call for, as springs are by no means scarce in Clinker Canon."

Jessamy's disclosures had ended now, so they scrambled on up the hill toward the bee tree.

The colony had settled in a dead hollow white-oak. The tree had been broken off close to the ground by high winds after the colony had taken up residence therein. The hole by which they made entrance to the hollow trunk, however, was left uppermost after the fall, and apparently the little zealots had not been seriously disturbed.

Anyway, here they were still winging their way to and from the prostrate tree, the sentries keeping watch at the entrance to their increasing store of honey.

Oliver had found the tree two weeks before, purely by accident. At that time the hole at which the workers entered had been un.o.bstructed. Now, though, tall weeds had grown up about the tree, making a screen before the hole and preventing the nectar-laden insects from entering readily.

"This won't do at-all-at-all," he said to Jessamy, as she took her seat on a limb of the bee tree. "There must be nothing to obstruct them in entering, for sometimes they drop with their loads when they have difficulty in winging directly in, and can't get up again."

"Uh-huh," she concurred.

She had unlaid one of her black braids and was replaiting it again after the havoc wrought by the p.r.i.c.kly bushes.

Oliver lighted his bee-smoker and sent several soft puffs into the hole to quiet the bees. Then without gloves or veil, which the experienced beeman seldom uses, he laid hold of the tall weeds and began uprooting them. Thus engaged, he kneeled down and reached under the tree trunk to get at the roots of certain obstinate plants; and in that instant he felt a sharp sting in the fleshy part of his wrist.

"Ouch! Holy Moses!" he croaked. "I didn't expect to find a bee under there!"

"Get stung?"

"Did I! Mother of Mike! I've been stung many times, but that lady must have been the grandmother of--Why, I'm getting sick--dizzy!--"

He came to a pause, swayed on his knees, and closed his eyes. Then came that heart-chilling sound which, once heard, will never be forgotten, and will ever bring cold terror to mankind--the rattlebone _whir-r-r-r-r_ of the diamond-back rattlesnake.

Oliver caught himself, licked dry lips, and was gazing in horror at two bleeding, jagged incisions in his wrist. The girl, with a scream of comprehension, darted toward him. He balanced himself and smiled grimly as she grabbed his arm with shaking hands.

"Got me," he said, "the son-of-a-gun! And I'd have stuck my hand right back for another dose if he hadn't rattled."

Jessamy grabbed him by both shoulders and tried to force him to the ground.

"Sit down and keep quiet!" she ordered, sternly, her nerves now firm and steady, her face white and determined. "No, not that way!"

She grasped him under the arms and with the strength of a young Amazon slued him about as if he had been a sack of flour.

Deftly she bound his handkerchief about his arm, drawing it taut with all her strength. Something found its way into his left hand.

"Drink that!" she commanded. "All of it. Pour it down!"

Then her lips sought the flaming wound; and she clamped her white teeth in his flesh and began sucking out the poison.

At intervals she raised her head for breath and to spit out the deadly fluid.

"Drink!" she would urge then. "And don't worry. Not a chance in the world of your being any the worse after I get through with you."

Oliver obeyed her without question, taking great swallows from the flask of fiery liquor and closing his eyes after each. His senses swam and he felt weak and delirious, though he could not tell whether this last was because of the poison or the liquor he had consumed.

At last Jessamy leaned back and fumbled in a pocket of her chaps. She produced a tiny round box, from which she took a bottle of dry permanganate of potash and a small lancet. With the keen instrument she hacked a deep x in his arm, just over the wound. Then she wet the red powder with saliva and worked a paste into the cuts with the lancet.