The morning of departure had come and, trembling with both fear and eagerness, Jessica stood beside the reporter upon the station, waiting for the great train to move outward.

“Step aboard, Lady Jess. Homeward bound!”

“Oh! it looks so big and somehow dreadful. I can ride any kind of a horse, or an ostrich, and burros, of course, but–”

“But you don’t know yet how to ride a railway carriage. Then let me tell you you’ll find it so delightful you’ll not want to get out when the journey’s done.”

“Don’t you believe that, Mr. Sharp. The end of the journey, this part, at least, means, Marion, and that’s but a bit of a way from my mother. Is everything ready? Scruff? Is he here?”

“Come and see the sorrowful chap in his moving stable if you wish. Though it hasn’t moved as yet. He’ll probably rebel against the state of affairs, at first; then be just as unwilling to leave the car as he was to enter it. It’s a fine place for sleeping, and sleeping is Scruff’s chief aim in life.”

“He’s had to make up for lost time, for he’d never too much sleep at home, where Ned and Luis were. Oh! to think! To-morrow, to-morrow–this very next day that’s coming–I shall have my arms around those children’s precious necks and feel my mother’s kisses on my lips. I can’t wait. I can’t.”

“Humph! I shall begin to think you can wait and very contentedly if you don’t step into this car pretty soon.”

Jessica had never traveled by rail and the shock of the accident which had befallen Luis’ father made her more timid than she had ever been before. She had pleaded to make the return trip by saddle, as she had come, but Mr. Sharp would not consent.

“Time. Time. We must make time, Lady Jess. A newspaper man never uses a week where a day will do. If he did–well, no knowing if we should ever get out a single issue of The Lancet. Come on. If there were any danger do you think I would make you face it?”

Thus shamed and by the friend who had proved so true to her interests, the little girl shut her eyes, held out her hands and was lightly swung upon the rear platform of the luxurious coach in which they were to make the first half of their trip. Later, they would have to leave the main line for a branch road, terminating at Marion, their postal station. From Marion, the thirty miles of saddle work, with the added detour on account of El Desierto, would be all the reporter fancied he should care for.

“Some day I’ll come back to Sobrante, if I’m invited, and get that famous rider, Samson, to teach me the trick of ‘broncho busting’ or some other caper. But now, the engine can’t travel fast enough to suit my impatience.”

Nor Jessica, neither, after the first few moments of the journey. She forgot her fear in watching the swiftly moving landscape, and found it hard to believe that the landscape itself was still and she who was carried past it. This time there was none of Aunt Sally’s bountiful luncheon but what seemed to Lady Jess something far finer–a dining car. To be sure, during their first meal in this, served by colored waiters whose unfamiliar faces distracted her attention, and swayed by the motion of the train, the girl’s appetite was not worth mentioning; but by the time the supper hour was reached she was ready to enjoy almost everything which her companion ordered for her. It delighted him to observe how swiftly she comprehended and adapted herself to new things, and in his spirit of “teasing” he laid several harmless “traps” for her entanglement.

But she had now learned to distinguish his fun from his earnest and, after one keen glance into his face, would skillfully avoid the little slips of speech or manner that would have so diverted him.

“No, Mr. Sharp, I’m ever so ignorant of the way city people and traveling people do, but one thing Ephraim taught me, even on our quiet way out. That was: ‘Use your eyes, not your tongue, and watch what other folks do.’ So, if watching will prevent my doing awkward things, I’ll watch, surely enough.”

They were to sleep at Marion, and when they finally left the less comfortable car of the branch road at that town, it was very dark and no vehicles were in waiting to convey passengers to the one hotel of the place. Few persons stopped at Marion, except such as resided there or near, and such either walked from the station to their homes or had their own wagons meet them.

Ninian Sharp was disgusted. He was tired, his head ached, and he had anticipated no such “one horse” village as this. “Why, I thought it was your post town and all that.”

“So it is. And a very pretty place by daylight, save that they don’t irrigate.”

“Which means there isn’t a spear of grass within the town limits, doesn’t it?”

“Almost as bad. But now we’ll change places, if you please. I’ve been to Marion several times with my father and once since–since he went away, with Samson. There! They’re taking Scruff out of the car and you must ride him. I know the way. It’s only a mile, about, to the hotel. Of course, there’s a lodging-house nearer, right by this station, indeed, but the hotel’s much nicer. You’ll get a better bed there, and we’d best go on.”

“I’d rather sleep on the ground than walk a mile.”

“You shall do neither. Didn’t you hear me say we’ve changed places now? I’m so near home I am at home and I’m–the captain. Obey orders, sir, and mount Scruff’s back.”

He was too weary to protest and too ill. Subject to acute neuralgia, he was, like plenty of people, rather less courageous when he was in pain than at other times. Besides, now there was something of that decision in Jessica’s tone which sick people find restful, and he quietly threw one leg across Scruff’s back and let the girl do as she pleased.

This was to start forward over the unpaved, unlighted street at a swift unbroken run, which Scruff had some work to equal; but the speed brought them promptly to a wooden “tavern,” from one window of which there gleamed a solitary oil lamp.

“Horrors! Antonio described a ranch called Desolation, or something like that, and I reckon we’ve arrived,” lamented the reporter, jolted into fresh distress by the burro’s trot.

Jessica laughed.

“Wait. Be patient, dear man. Within five minutes you’ll be sleeping on a clean, sweet bed, and when you wake up in the morning it will be to a fine breakfast, a perfect day, and–Sobrante!”

Then she tapped on the window and called:

“Hello, there! Sobrante folks! Open the door, quick!”

A head was thrust out of another window, further along the narrow porch, and a sleepy voice asked:

“What’s that you say? Who wants–”

“I do! Jessica Trent, from Sobrante. But last, right from Los Angeles city. Please be quick!”

In less time than seemed possible, for such a drowsy person to reach it, the door was flung wide and there rushed out upon the porch a man and a woman, who both seized Jessica at one time and in their effort to embrace her succeeded in hugging each other. Whereupon the landlady flung her stalwart husband aside and caught the little girl in her arms, to carry her within.

“Oh! but this is the darling home again! And is it good news you’ve brought, my dear? Ah! by the shining of your bonny eyes one can see that plain. Light up, Aleck! Light up! How can we have such darkness when the bairn is safe back? And begging pardon, lassie, who is this yon?”

Jessica presented her friend and added, quickly:

“Only for him I could never have done that business, Janet, Aleck. And it is done. Everybody–”

“All the countryside knows it already, Jessica Trent. It’s ringing with it, as it rung with the story of a wave little lass who set out alone and unfriended, save for one old man, to clear her father’s memory of a stain some ne’er-do-well had dared to splash it with; and how the old man broke his leg and lost the bairn; and, losing, she fell into wiser hands and all, and all. Why, the ‘boys’ are here long before sun up; hours before mailtime, to get the latest news. Ah! it’s proud is all this land because of you, my wee bit bairnie!”

Again was Jessica caught and kissed till her breath was gone; but released she demanded, and with disappointment in her tone:

“So the news is no news, and does my mother, too, know all?”

“Hasn’t the sweet lady read the papers that the ‘boys’ have carried, loping to break their necks! Ah, lassie, ’twill be an ovation you’ll get when once they sight your bonny head shining on the sandy branch road!”

Jessica turned toward Ninian Sharp with the first feeling of anger she had ever had toward him.

“The papers? Your Lancet, I suppose. But you knew, you knew how much I wanted to surprise my mother.”

“Even so. But could you expect a man to keep back such fine ‘copy’ from his office? If you did, or if I could, somebody else, like The Gossip, would have got ahead of us. It was public property, my little Lady, and private interests, or fancies, always yield to the great public. We’ll discuss this further to-morrow. To-night I’d like to see the bed you promised.”

Jessica caught the hand of her weary friend and begged:

“Forgive me. I forgot. And I suppose that the very feeling which made you so kind and faithful to us, strangers, made you faithful to–to that horrid old Lancet, too. Now Janet, you are to give Mr. Sharp your very nicest bed and breakfast, for he is tired and suffering.”

“’Tis ready this instant. ’Tis always ready, lassie, though few come nowadays, to use it. This way, sir. After I show him I’ll come for you, Lady Jess.”

Jessica had not overpraised the neatness and comfort of this out-of-the-way hostelry, and Ninian Sharp slept dreamlessly till joyous voices outside his window roused him to the fact that morning and hunger had arrived together. Remembering, too, the long ride that lay before him and the necessity of finding a horse for it, he rose and hastily dressed. He had lost his neuralgic pains and his spirits were again such as Jessica had always seen him show. She, too, was up and waiting, and it looked as if her ovation had begun; for she was already the center of an admiring group yet held closest to the side of a big ranchman, grizzled and rugged, but beaming upon her and all the rest like an incarnate joy.

“Samson, Samson, here he is! Mr. Sharp, dear Mr. Sharp, this is my biggest ‘boy’!”

“Huh! Glad to see you, little one. ‘Looks like you’d be quite a man when you get growed up,’” quoted the joker, giving Samson’s hand a cordial grasp.

“Come on! Come on! You’re the lad for us! Well, sir, you do me proud. You do Sobrante proud. You do all the world proud, and that’s my sentiment to a t-i-o-n, sir! Breakfast’s ready.”

“Oh, Mr. Ninian, he’s brought–my mother has sent you the horse that nobody else has ridden since my father did. Nimrod, the swiftest, gentlest thoroughbred that anybody ever rode.”

“Sent him for me? Why, how could she know that we were coming?”

“Why shouldn’t she?” asked Samson. “Him and John Benton was over yesterday, but to-day it was my turn. One of us has been every day since the captain left Sobrante; and since the good news arrived there’s always been a led horse for you, sir. Would have been till the day of judgment, too, if you hadn’t struck us afore. Reckon you aren’t acquainted with our little settlement, sir.”

“Reckon I wasn’t, but I’m beginning to be. My! What a magnificent animal. And it solves the difficulty of finding a mount out to the ranch. I’m not much of a horseman, though. I don’t know but I’d better stick to Scruff and leave Nimrod to Lady Jess.”

Samson wheeled around and eyed the stranger, curiously. Then he advanced and held out his hand again.

“Shake, Sharp. You’re a man, even if you do live in a city, and the first one I ever met who hailed from such a place and didn’t think he knew it all. You’ll do. And you can ride. A baby could, that creatur’. If you can’t stick I’ll hold you on. Now, breakfast, I say.”

This was Jessica’s chance, and before they sat down to the bounteous meal which Janet had been hours in preparing she managed to draw Ninian aside and whisper a request, to which he nodded prompt assent. So nobody but they two knew what was meant when, as the three mounted and were about to ride away, she asked Samson:

“Do you know the trail to El Desierto?”

“Do I know a pisen serpent? What in the name of reason put such a forsaken hole into your head on this joyful occasion?”

“Never mind what, and never mind speech-making, dear old fellow. I have to call at El Desierto on my way to Sobrante and would like to know the shortest road.”

“Is she–has she got a little ‘touched’ down there in your City of Angels and Scamps, eh?”

“Samson, am I still the captain, or am I not?”

“Captain, I salute. Ride on! You, Aleck, hitch up a board and take that trunk of Miss Trent’s to her country seat, and be quick about it. Hurray! I’m so happy I’m looney! Here’s for El Desierto and no questions asked. Hurray!”

CHAPTER XXI
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.