THE VALLEY
OF ARCANA

BY
ARTHUR PRESTON HANKINS

AUTHOR OF
“THE JUBILEE GIRL,” “THE HERITAGE OF THE HILLS,” ETC.

NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
1923

Copyright, 1923,
By DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, Inc.
PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. BY
The Quinn & Boden Company
BOOK MANUFACTURERS
RAHWAY NEW JERSEY

TO
THE MEMORY OF
My Father

CONTENTS

THE VALLEY OF ARCANA

CHAPTER I
AN EXTRA BED

TRIED outlanders though they were, Dr. Inman Shonto and Andy Jerome were hopelessly lost. Afoot, horseback, and by motor car the pair had covered thousands of square miles of desert and forest land in Southern California. But it was different up here in the mountainous region of the northern part of the state, where they found themselves surrounded by heavy timber vaster than they had dreamed could have been left standing by the ensanguined hand of the lumberman. And, besides, thin fingers of fog were reaching in from the sea, about eighteen miles to the west of them.

For hours they had been following wooded ridges, which here and there offered a view of the seemingly illimitable sweep of redwood forests below them. Spruce, fir, several varieties of oak, and madrones crowned these ridges—trees of a height and girth that they could understand. But down below them towered the monarchs of the vegetable kingdom, straight as the path of righteousness, solemn, aloof—impossible trees—whose height would bring their tops on a level with the clock of the Metropolitan Building, whose boles occupied a space greater than a good-sized living room.

They awed the southerners immeasurably, for this was their first trip into the northern part of their state. They were silent as they hurried on, sliding down steep slopes, clambering up rocky, timbered inclines, always hoping for some familiar object that would show them they were on the campward trail.

Each carried a .25-.35 rifle, for they had left camp early that morning to hunt deer—and both had entertained fond hopes that a wandering bear or a panther might cross their path. The doctor had wounded a big six-pointer close to noon, and following the bloody trail which the cripple left had led the pair astray.

Now night was close at hand, and, for all they knew, they were still many miles from camp. The trail had inveigled them down into the mysteries of the dark forest below them, and there they had lost all sense of direction. With the approach of night they had abandoned the bloody trail and climbed to the ridges once more, in the hope of relocating themselves. But an hour had passed, and they still were lost.

“This is a little serious, Andy,” remarked the doctor. “I’m afraid we haven’t much of an idea as to the vast scope of this forest. Of course we’ll make it back sometime, and I guess we’re old enough hands at the game to take care of ourselves until we do; but meanwhile we’re going to be up against a little inconvenience, to put it mildly.”

“It’s going to be mighty cold to-night,” was the only answer that the younger man vouchsafed.

He was about twenty-four, this companion of the doctor—a good-looking youth with light curly hair and a friendly blue eye. He was of medium height, well knit, wiry. His step was light and his muscles sure, and more than once the older man eyed him admiringly as they hurried on into the coming dusk.

Dr. Inman Shonto was one of those men who command attention wherever they go. He was tall and lean and broad-shouldered, and his outing clothes had been fitted to his remarkable body with precision. He was an ugly man as masculine comeliness goes, but, for all that, women found him intensely interesting. His nose was monstrous, and lightly pitted from bridge to tip. His mouth was big, and the lips were thick, puckered, and firm. His hair was thin and neutral in colour—somewhere between a dark brown and a light. His ears were rather large and a trifle outstanding. His eyes were grey and very intense in their manner of observing others.

It was the strong face of a strong man. One knew instinctively that great will power was this man’s heritage. One believed, after a glance into that homely face, that this man took what he wanted from life, and that his wants were by no means puny. Even in hunting clothes Dr. Inman Shonto was fastidious. And his walk was fastidious, even here in the wilderness. The realization that he and his young companion were lost in the wilds did not serve to ruffle the doctor’s calm exterior. He was nothing if not self-controlled on all occasions.

Despite his homeliness, his smile was engaging as he turned and looked back at Andy after topping a little bald rise toward which the two had been travelling, hoping on its summit to gain a better view of the surrounding country.

“Andy,” he said, “I smell smoke. Sound encouraging?”

The young man reached his side, and the two stood looking in every direction and sniffing speculatively.

“I get it, too, Doctor,” Andy told the other finally. “It seems to be over in that direction.”

Andy pointed west, and the doctor nodded silently.

“There’s a ranch or a camp pretty close,” he decided. “Now let’s locate that smoke definitely and make a bee-line for it. I don’t just fancy a night in this cold, unfriendly forest.”

“Do you know, Dr. Shonto,” said Andy, “that I don’t exactly think of the forest as unfriendly. Time and again, when you and I have been together in the outlands, you’ve thought nature unkind—bleak—unfriendly. Nature never strikes me that way.”

“That’s your inheritance from your Alps-climbing Swiss ancestors, I imagine,” replied the doctor. “But, if you’ll pardon me, Andrew, I’m more interested right now in locating a welcoming curl of blue smoke over the treetops than I am in a discussion of the attitude of Mother Nature toward two of her misplaced atoms. Look over there to the west. (I suppose that’s west.) Don’t you imagine you see a thin stream of smoke going up over there—just above that massive bull pine on the brow of that hill? Confound this infernal fog!”

“Yes, I believe you’re right,” Andy agreed after looking a long time in the direction the doctor had indicated. And after another pause—“Yes, smoke, all right. And if it weren’t for the fog it would spread, and we’d never have seen it. Now what, Doctor?”

Dr. Shonto gave the surrounding country careful study.

“It seems to me,” he decided, “that, if we head straight for that tall fir on the brow of the hill beyond the next one, we ought to see what’s causing the smoke. But we’ve got to go down and up, down and up; and we’ll pass through heavy timber between here and there. We must keep our wits about us and not swerve from a straight line. And that’s hard to do, with the fog rolling in on us. Anyway, it’s up to us to try it. Let’s go!”

With each of them picking his own way, they rattled down steep slopes and came upon tiny creeks, cold, brown from the dye of fallen autumn leaves. They clambered up slopes that seemed far steeper because of the extra strain they put upon their hearts and muscles. Dense growths of chaparral occasionally confronted them and made them make detours, despite their firm resolve to keep to the straight and narrow way. But in half an hour after sighting the thin stream of smoke they came out in an open space on a hillside and saw the tall fir which was their goal.

They crossed to it on level land, to look down a more precipitous slope than they had before encountered. And down there far below them they saw the misty gleam of cabin lights as they struggled with the night and the increasing obstinacy of the fog that marched in from the sea.

“Here’s a sort of trail, Doctor,” announced Andrew Jerome. “And it looks to be leading straight toward those lights. Shall we try it?”

“Sure,” replied the doctor. “By all means. You’re the better mountaineer, Andy—take the lead. We can get a shakedown on the floor of the man who made those lights, I guess, and get set on the right trail to-morrow morning.”

It was dark now, and the insweeping fog added to the density of the surrounding gloom. Far to their left coyotes lifted their mocking, plaintive yodel to the Goddess of Darkness, their patron saint, who shielded their stealthy deviltry from the eyes of men. But the blurred lights beckoned the wanderers downward, and they obeyed the signal, slipping over rounded stones, staggering into prickly bushes, sliding over abrupt ledges.

Andrew Jerome followed the trail by instinct, and Dr. Shonto was glad to follow Andy. The youth’s aptitude in the mountains was ever a source of wonder for the doctor, and often he had told the boy that he attributed it to heredity. For on his mother’s side of the family Andy’s ancestors had been of Alpine Swiss stock, by name Zanini. Dr. Inman Shonto was a firm believer in heredity, anyway, and his young friend’s dexterous mountaineering presented a sound basis for his theorizing.

They came out eventually on level land, heavily timbered with pines. Straight through the pines the trail led them, and soon they were confronted by a set of bars. Beyond the bars the fog-screened lights still invited them, so the doctor lifted his voice and called.

There came no answer from the gloom. No dog rushed around an invisible cabin to challenge them.

“Let’s take a chance, Andy,” said the doctor. “If a pack of hounds leaps out at us, we can retreat as gracefully as possible. We’ve got to get closer to make ourselves heard.”

They crawled between the bars and struck out along a beaten path. Still no outraged canine came catapulting toward them. Still the house remained invisible. Only the smeared lights stared at them through the fog.

Dr. Shonto came to a halt, and Andy stopped beside him.

“In the cabin there!” called Shonto. “Cabin ahoy!”

Several silent moments followed, and then, between the window lights that had lured them there, a new streak of muddy brilliancy grew to a rectangle, and a woman’s figure stood framed by a door.

“Hello!” shouted the doctor. “We’re lost in the woods and hunting shelter for the night. Our camp is far from here, and we can’t find it. Can you help us out? There are two of us—two men! We’ll gladly pay you for your inconvenience.”

They saw the figure of the woman turn. She was speaking with somebody within the cabin, and her profile was toward them. It vanished as she once more turned her face their way.

“Come on in!” came her invitation. “She says she’ll do the best she can for you.”

“She,” muttered the doctor. “I once knew a man that never called his wife anything but ‘she.’ Come on—I smell baking-powder biscuits, or my name’s not Shonto. Here’s the backwoods for you.”

And then, as if to give the lie to his words, he stepped upon a broad stone doorstep and was faced by a radiant girl in a sky-blue evening gown, with precious stones in her dark hair, and gilded, high-heeled slippers on her feet.

“Good evening,” she greeted them easily. “Welcome to El Trono de Tolerancia. There are baking powder biscuits, venison, and chocolate for supper, and we’ve an extra bed.”

CHAPTER II
EL TRONO DE TOLERANCIA

DR. INMAN SHONTO was not easily moved to a display of surprise, but for at least once in his life he found himself unequal to the occasion.

The girl in the doorway was galvanically pretty. Her features were of that striking, contrasty quality that is the result of an artistic makeup—but she was not made up. She was dark, red-lipped, large-eyed, and her figure brought a quick flush of masculine appreciation in the doctor’s face. Physically, it seemed to him, he had never before seen so gloriously all-right a girl. But the desirable physical characteristics which she displayed were not what had caused the cat to get the physician’s tongue. It was the low-neck, sleeveless gown, the sparkling hair ornaments, the gilded slippers and the creaseless silk stockings—all of which had for their background the coal-oil-lighted interior of a log cabin lost in the wilderness—that had wrecked his customary poise.

Her ringing laugh served in a measure to readjust his scattered wits. She had interpreted the meaning of his surprise.

“It’s my birthday!” was the girlish announcement that followed her fun-provoking laugh. “It’s my birthday—and I’m twenty-two—and my name is Charmian Reemy. Mrs. Charmian Reemy, I suppose it is my duty to inform you. Aren’t you coming in, Dr. Shonto?”

At last the doctor’s hat was in his hand, and Andy Jerome, standing just behind him and equally amazed, removed his too.

Shonto was mumbling something about the unexpected pleasure of meeting a girl in the wilderness who knew his name while Andy followed him inside. The girl hurried on before them and was arranging comfortable thong-bottom chairs before a huge stone fireplace. Skins and bright-coloured Navajo rugs half covered the puncheon floor. Dainty, inexpensive curtains hung at the windows. Deer antlers and enlarged photographs of wildwood scenes broke the solemnity of the dark log walls.

Before the fireplace another woman bent and cooked in a Dutch oven on red coals raked one side from the roaring fire of fir wood.

“This is Mary Temple, my companion, nurse, cook, and adviser in all matters pertaining to my general welfare,” announced the girl. “I love her companionship, appreciate her nursing, rave over her cooking, and ignore her advice entirely. Mary Temple, this is Dr. Inman Shonto, lost in the woods with a friend whom I have not given him time to introduce.”

Once more the bombarded doctor stood by his guns, bowed gravely to middle-aged Mary Temple—who smiled over her lean shoulder but continued to hover her Dutch oven—then turned to Andy.

“Mrs. Reemy, permit me,” he said. “My friend, Andrew Jerome.”

“Mr. Jerome,” laughed the girl, extending her hand, “I am happy to welcome you to my birthday party.” Then, with one of her amazingly swift movements, she swung about to the physician. “And you, Dr. Shonto, are to be the guest of honour—and you are going to tell us all about glands and things like that.”

“It is absolutely impossible,” Dr. Shonto returned gallantly, “that I could have met you and forgotten you, Mrs. Reemy.”

“Very well spoken, Doctor,” she retorted, with a smile that twisted up a trifle at one corner of her mouth. “But I have heard that before. One would expect Dr. Inman Shonto, renowned gland specialist, to say something more original. There—I’m being impolite again! (Beat you to it that time, didn’t I, Mary Temple!) But you are pardoned for a commonplace speech, Doctor. It must have stunned you not a little to come upon a dolled-up flapper out here in the forest. I’ll relieve your mind instantly. We have never met before. But I have read about you for years. And this morning, when I was down at Lovejoy’s for my mail—and incidentally a big piece of venison which I hadn’t expected to be given me—I saw you and Mr. Jerome walking up the road with your guns. I inquired about you, and was told that the eminent Dr. Shonto and his friend Mr. Jerome, of Los Angeles, were in our midst. And, though I saw only your backs this morning, those shoulders of yours, Doctor, are as wide when seen from the front as from the rear. And when I saw them threatening to push to right and left the uprights of my door frame, I thought Samson was about to bring the house down on us two Philistines. For that’s what we are, gentlemen—outlawed Philistines. And this is the house called El Trono de Tolerancia—which in Spanish is equivalent to The Throne of Tolerance. All right, Mary Temple—I see your shoulders quivering! I’ll stop right now and let somebody else get in a word. But since I already know the doctor and his friend—and a great deal about the doctor that he doesn’t suspect—doesn’t it stand to reason that they ought to hear about us before sitting down to my birthday dinner?”

“You oughtn’t to’ve called yourself a flapper,” said the kneeling Mary Temple, showing one fire-crimsoned cheek.

With her ready laughter, which was hearty and whole-souled without a suggestion of boisterousness, Mrs. Charmian Reemy seated herself. Then Andy and Doctor Shonto found seats one on either side of her.

“This is certainly a refreshing experience, Mrs. Reemy,” were the younger man’s first words since acknowledging his introduction to her.

“I’m glad you think so,” she replied. “I dearly love to make life refreshing for folks. For myself as well. I thought it would be refreshing fun to dress to-night, with only Mary Temple and me ’way out here in the woods. It was just a freakish whim of mine. I get ’em frequently. Don’t I, Mary Temple?”

The firelight showed red through one of Mary Temple’s thin ears as she half turned her head, doubtless to administer a reproof, and executed “eyes front” again when she changed her mind.

“I had no idea at the time, though, that two distressed gentlemen were to come to my party and admire me and my table decorations.”

She swept a white arm in the direction of a table at one side of the large room, on which were a spotless cloth, china and silver, and an earth-sweet centerpiece of ferns and California holly berries.

“Now I’ll tell you who I am, so that you will be better able to celebrate properly with me—and then for the glands. I’m dying to learn all about glands. Could you rejuvenate me, Doctor Shonto? Now’s your chance for that pretty birthday speech!”

“I think,” said Shonto, with his grave smile, “that you, Mrs. Reemy, are a far more successful rejuvenator right now than I shall ever be. I’ve sloughed off five years since entering your door.”

“Better! That was extremely well done. And now let’s get down to business:

“I am Charmian Reemy, aged twenty-two to-day. I was born in San Francisco, and live there now. When I was seventeen I was married to Walter J. Reemy, a mining man from Alaska. To be absolutely frank, that marriage was the result of a plot by my father and mother to marry me off to a wealthy man. And I was too young and pliable to put up a decent fight.

“I went to Alaska with my husband, where we lived two years. He was killed in a gambling game, and his will left everything to me. I sold out his Alaska mining property and returned to the United States, where I lived with my parents in San Francisco until both were taken away in the recent flu epidemic.

“Since then I have been alone except for Mary Temple, who was with me in Alaska. She had returned to San Francisco with me after Walter’s death. So when I was left entirely alone again I hunted her up, and she has been my companion and housekeeper ever since.

“When I was little I was what is generally called a misunderstood child. Whether that was true or not I can’t say, but I know that, almost from my earliest remembrance, my home life was unpleasant. My parents were plodders in the footsteps of Tradition. At an early age I showed radical tendencies.

“I am a radical to-day. I am intolerant of all the intolerance of this generation of false prophets. I come up here to forget man’s stupidity. And I call my retreat in the big-timber country The Throne of Tolerance. Wait until to-morrow morning. Then, if you can look from those west windows and be intolerant of anything or anybody, you don’t belong to my clan.

“I make pilgrimage to El Trono de Tolerancia whenever I begin to choke up down in San Francisco. Mary Temple and I live simply up here in the woods until the suffocation passes, then we return to the city—and boredom. I learned to love the outdoors up in Alaska. And sometime I’m going on a great adventure. I’m going to some far-off place where man never before has set his foot. And maybe I shan’t come back.

“That’s about all there is to be told about me. Except that I never intend to marry again. Oh, yes!—and I always call Mary Temple Mary Temple. If I were to call her Mary it would sound disrespectful from one so much younger than she is. If I called her Miss Temple it would sound stiff and throw a wet blanket over our comradeship. And I’m too human, and I hope too genuine, to ape high society and call her Temple. So she’s Mary Temple to me, and everything seems to move smoothly. Now I’m through—positively through. Now tell me about the glands, Doctor Shonto.”

Shonto was smiling in quiet amusement. He could not quite make out this girl. Shonto was very much a radical himself, and he believed that she knew it. But he considered her too young to hold such a pessimistic outlook on life as she had hinted at. That she was ready to worship him because of his reputation as a specialist in gland secretions seemed apparent. The doctor had been fawned upon by many women intellectually inclined, and they had nauseated him immeasurably. He admired Charmian Reemy for her physical charm, her vivacity, and her good-fellowship; but he was experienced and therefore wary.

But he was saved for the present from committing himself by Mary Temple, who had completed her ministrations over the Dutch oven, and had carried the result to the table.

“Dinner’s ready,” she announced unceremoniously.

Whereupon Charmian rose and seated her guests.

Dr. Shonto was not a little puzzled at the behaviour of his friend. Andy Jerome had spoken to Mrs. Reemy but once since their entrance into her home, aside from muttering her name when the doctor had introduced him. It was true that their hostess had done most of the talking herself, but Shonto had managed to get in a word edgewise now and then. While Andy had showed little or no inclination to talk at all.

For the most part he had sat and almost stared at her, as if never before had he seen a beautiful girl in an evening gown. The doctor knew that this was far from the case, and that Andy ordinarily was quick to respond to pretty women. He usually could hold his own with them, too. But it seemed that Charmian Reemy had fairly swept him off his feet. Shonto felt a slight twinge of regret. He found that he himself was rather impressed by this frank, free-spoken girl of the woods and the cities.

Mary Temple occupied the foot of the table, where she sat stiffly and with an austere mien, and attended to the greater part of the serving. They were no more than seated when Charmian Reemy again began begging the gland specialist to initiate her into the mysteries of his witchcraft. But Shonto, seeking an avenue of escape, hit upon a topic that at once changed her thoughts into another, though no less interesting, channel.

“You say, Mrs. Reemy,” he began, “that you are contemplating going off for a big adventure some day. If you haven’t anything definite in mind, I’d like to offer a suggestion. How would you like to make an attempt to explore a lost valley—a forgotten valley—in reality, an undiscovered valley?”

“What?” Her dark eyes were sparkling.

“Just that. Andy and I heard about it the other day. And on the way to this undiscovered valley you may hunt for opals. Of course, a fellow may hunt for opals anywhere he chooses. But in this case he may do so with reasonable hopes of success.”

“Do you mean that, Doctor Shonto?”

“Absolutely. But I have only the story of a couple of prospectors, one of whom has been an old-time opal miner in Australia. They are both intelligent men, and their story rang true.”

“Please let’s hear all about it!” begged Charmian. “An undiscovered valley! How can it be undiscovered when these prospectors know about it? And opals! You’ve lured me away from glands for the present, Doctor. Give us the yarn!”

CHAPTER III
THE PROSPECTOR’S STORY

“WELL,” began Dr. Shonto reflectively, “Andy and I were in our camp on the North Fork of the Lizard, about two and a half miles from Lovejoy’s place. Two men came along with pack burros, bound up into the Catfish Country—if you know where that is.”

Charmian nodded eagerly.

“They stopped, and as lunch was about ready we invited them to eat with us.

“They called themselves Smith Morley and Omar Leach. They are both middle-aged men and seem to have had a great deal of experience at prospecting.

“Well, Andy and I are old-time ramblers ourselves. We spend a great deal of time together in the outlands, mostly just loafing around and enjoying camp life and the scenery. We were able to talk with the pair about many things of interest to both factions. One thing led to another, and finally Smith Morley mentioned that he had hunted for opals with a camel train in Australia. We at once became interested and asked him all about the life. It is vastly entertaining, from his account.

“Then he told us of the California opals, but when Andy asked if he ever found any in this state he grew reticent. Finally, however, when he learned that both of us were men of some means, he told us about certain opal claims that he and his partner had filed on this year, and which they would be obliged to lose because they were financially unable to get into the country and do their assessment work.

“They offered to sell the claims to us, and to take us to them and establish us if we would defray the expenses. Morley showed us one of the handsomest opals I have ever seen. Its fire was simply wonderful—I’d never before seen anything to equal it.

“We weren’t greatly interested, however, until they mentioned the undiscovered valley. While Andy has nothing much to occupy his time, I have my investigations to carry on and a great deal of laboratory work, though I am not practising medicine regularly. Anyway, we didn’t want to go into the opal-mining game. But, as I said, the undiscovered valley enticed us, and we wanted to know all about it.

“The opal claims are on the desert in what is called the Shinbone Country. It is very difficult to get to them, and the soft, deep sand makes automobiles a failure. One must use horses and pack burros, and at best the water supply is dangerously short. However, the undiscovered valley is something like thirty miles beyond the desert, in the mountains, at an elevation of perhaps eight thousand feet.

“From the description they gave us, those who know of its existence say that it is about thirteen miles long by seven or eight miles in width. It is surrounded by high peaks upon which the snow lies for almost the entire year. These peaks are said to be straight up and down, to use Morley’s phrase, and heavily timbered up to the snow-line. The valley is therefore like the crater of an extinct volcano, and many claim that it is just that. To reach the timbered section, one must cross miles and miles of country covered with the densest chaparral. He must either cut his way through it with a knife and an ax or crawl on all fours. This stretch is waterless, and exposed to the sunny side of steep mountains, where the heat beats down unmercifully.

“But assuming that a fellow gets through this chaparral country, he has yet to scale those grim peaks which Morley calls straight up and down. And if he reaches the summit, he then will be obliged to get down into the valley, perhaps several thousand feet in depth.

“The valley was discovered some years ago by a forest ranger. He had climbed to a high peak about sixteen miles distant from it, and assumed that, even then, he was on ground where no man of to-day, at least, had ever stood before. He suffered a great deal on that trip, but determination kept up his courage and he finally reached the goal for which he had set out. And from the summit of that peak he glimpsed the unexplored valley.

“It seems strange that, in this day and age, such a valley could remain unknown. But such seems to be the case. Andy and I have found in our travels over the state that there are vast stretches of forest land where a white man has probably never set his foot. But in almost every case, there was nothing to draw him. This instance is different.

“Fortunately the ranger had a telescope with him, and was able to see a portion of the valley between two of the peaks that surround it. He circulated the report that the valley is wooded, and that a fair-sized river flows down the centre of it. He saw great quantities of meadow land, and on it animals were grazing, but he could not determine what they were. Altogether the valley presented a pleasing outlook, and he made up his mind to explore it.

“He made many trips, alone and with friends, which occupied months. They strove to get at that valley from every angle, and one man lost his life in the attempt. Finally they were obliged to give it up, though they estimated that they had approached to within three miles of their goal. So throughout the Shinbone Country the undiscovered valley is well known to be in existence, but that’s the end of it. The country is thinly populated, of course, and the people who live there mind their own business pretty well and are completely out of touch with the outside world. And thus it transpires that the unexplored valley is not generally known to be in existence.

“One of the most remarkable features concerning it is the river that flows through it. All rivers in this country flow in a general westerly direction, of course, toward the Pacific Ocean. Not so the river that flows through the undiscovered valley. It runs due east, according to the ranger, though that may mean much or nothing at all, for it may change to a westward course farther on.

“But the question is, where does it come out of the valley? All of the rivers and streams in that section are known and named. No one can account for a river without a name, flowing toward the coast on the west side of the range. But farther back in the mountains, estimated at about ten miles from the peaks that surround the undiscovered valley, there is what is known as a lost river. In fact, it is called Lost River.

“The source of Lost River is known. It rises from springs high up in the range, and is fed by other springs as it flows westward and gathers width. Then, about ten miles from the high peaks, it vanishes—is swallowed up by the earth in a mountain meadow. It is not just soaked up by the ground, but plunges into a cave in the side of a hill. And, so far as anybody knows, that is the end of it.

“Of course, it is assumed that this river runs underground from that point and eventually reaches the undiscovered valley, where it rises again and flows serenely across the valley—quite a large stream, it seems—and then vanishes once more. And for the remainder of its course to the sea, it may be any one of the known rivers in the Shinbone Country. It probably would not pop up out of the ground in the lowlands so abruptly as it plunges into the cave in the high altitudes. It may rise again as springs—seep up from the soil in a natural way. Or its waters may separate during their underground journey after leaving the unexplored valley, and they may form two or more streams in the lowlands.

“So that’s about all there is to be said about the undiscovered valley—or perhaps the unexplored valley would be more proper—and the river that loses itself in the ground. Andy and I grew quite excited over it, but when we tried to pump Morley and Leach to find out the location of the Shinbone Country they refused to come across. Shinbone is a local name, it seems, and few besides the people who live there know it as such. We don’t even know what county it is in. Leach and Morley, however, promised to tell us all about it and to take us to it, provided we would interest ourselves in their opal claims. So, as we didn’t care to do that, we let the matter slide.”

Charmian Reemy had forgotten her dinner and was resting her bare elbows on the table, nesting her chin in her hands. Her dark eyes were fixed on Inman Shonto. And Andy’s eyes were fixed on her.

“Where,” she asked in a low voice, “are Morley and Leach now?”

“Still on their way to the Catfish Country, I suppose,” Shonto replied.

“When was it that they were in your camp?”

“Day before yesterday, about noon—wasn’t it, Andy?”

Andy Jerome nodded absently.

“Then they can’t have reached the Catfish Country yet,” said Charmian. “I’m going after them to-morrow morning. Now, for the first time in my life, I wish I had a car. I could travel in it as far as Jorny Springs, and there I could get a saddle horse and run them down before they get into the wilderness.”

“Do you really want to go after opals and the unexplored valley?” asked Andy suddenly.

She turned her dark eyes on him. “I want to more than anything else I’ve ever wanted to do,” she told him.

“Then you can have my car to-morrow morning. And, if you’ll let me, I’ll go with you after Leach and Morley. And if we find them, and can come to terms with them, I’ll—I’ll— Well, if we can arrange matters to suit you, I’d like to go with you to the Shinbone Country.”

For a short time they gazed into each other’s eyes. Andy Jerome’s lips were parted, and Shonto noted the quick rise and fall of his breast. Then a slight flush covered Charmian Reemy’s cheeks, and her long, dark lashes hid her eyes.

“If we can arrange matters,” she said, “I’d—I’d be glad to have you, Mr. Jerome.”

Then, with another pang, Dr. Inman Shonto interpreted the strange silence that had existed between these two. It was the result of an odd embarrassment that both had felt since they first clasped hands. It was love at first sight between them, and they were backward and afraid of each other.

The eyes of both now were lowered. Shonto glanced quickly at Mary Temple. Her gaunt face was set in hard lines. She knew, and she disapproved—at least until she knew more about this handsome young man who had invaded their quiet retreat.

And Shonto— Well, Shonto disapproved, too. Shonto was far older than Andy—too old, perhaps, to think of loving a woman of Charmian Reemy’s age. But he put all this behind him. If Andy and Charmian were going in search of the unexplored valley, he meant to go along. Several years her senior though he knew himself to be, Shonto believed that he was the man for a woman like Charmian Reemy rather than Andy Jerome. Anyway, he meant to know more about her. It would not do for Andy to win her away from him if she was what he believed her to be. Yes, Shonto would go along, and his life’s work could go hang, for all he cared. Until he knew the truth about Charmian Reemy, at any rate.

“We could find it easily, I guess, in an airplane,” Andy suggested.

“An airplane!” scoffed the girl. “Not I! I hate airplanes—I hate anything mechanical. I’ll find that valley as my forefathers would have found it, or I’ll stay away. And I must think up an appropriate name for it. Doctor Shonto seems undecided between ‘the undiscovered valley’ and ‘the unexplored valley.’ Neither is romantic enough. I’ll think up a name before morning. I like to name things. And I’m going, really—if we can overtake Leach and Morley. Do you approve, Mary Temple?”

“No!” snapped Mary Temple, and passed the venison to Andy with jerky hospitality.

CHAPTER IV
A MEMBER OF THE CLAN

DR. INMAN SHONTO, always an early riser, was the first one stirring at El Trono de Tolerancia the following morning. He left the log house by the door through which he had entered it the night before, and gazed off into the timberland to the east, through which Andy and he had reached the place. He turned and walked around the cabin, and then he realized what Charmian Reemy had meant when she stated that it was next to impossible for one to be intolerant when he looked from her home to the west.

The cabin was set on a gigantic rock that overhung the brow of the mountain. A metal railing had been erected along the edge of the rock to prevent the unwary from plunging down at least forty feet to the rock’s massive base. From the base the land sloped off sharply for perhaps half a mile. And beyond that it continued to slope more gently to level wooded stretches below. The great forest over which one looked would have seemed endless were it not for the broad Pacific in the far distance, which began at the end of the mass of green and rolled on to the uttermost ends of the earth.

Never in his life had the nature-loving man seen a more gorgeous picture. It seemed that the very world was laid out for him to gaze upon from that gaunt pinnacle. He stepped to the iron rail, cold and dewy, grasped it in his strong, lean hands, and stood there, bareheaded, reverent.

“Do you feel tolerant of all mankind now, Doctor?” came a low voice at his elbow.

Shonto wheeled about, startled, as if awakened from a dream. Charmian Reemy stood beside him, dressed in a man’s flannel shirt, a divided whipcord skirt, and high-laced boots. She had combed her dark brown hair, but had not stopped to do it up. It fell in a cataract, gleaming bronze-gold with the rays of the early-morning sun behind her, almost to her knees. She was smiling that smile which lifted one corner of her mouth in a whimsical little twist.

“I am tolerant of all mankind,” said the doctor seriously. “But now that you have come, I don’t know whether to look at you or—that.” And he pointed over the mysterious forest to the sea, which seemed to stand upright before him as if painted on a huge canvas.

“Do you think I’m pretty?”

“I know it—you’re almost beautiful.”

“But that,” she said, pointing over the forest, “is not only beautiful but mighty—stupendous. You’d better look at that, Doctor.”

“The redwood forests are mighty,” he told her, “but they are no more beautiful than the redwood lily that hides in the perpetual shade they cast. One cannot say that the giant redwood tree is more wonderful than the slender lily at its feet. Both are the product of nature’s mysterious laboratory. And you are, too.”

“Speaking of tolerance,” she went on, without comment upon his comparison, “don’t you think that we could all be more tolerant of others if we only would look at every one we meet as a distinct product of nature? I mean this: We say, ‘Here is a redwood tree. Isn’t it magnificent?’ Or, ‘Here is a redwood lily. Doesn’t it smell sweet?’ Or, ‘Here is a buckthorn bush. Aren’t its spines prickly?’ We never think of comparing them. We would not say, ‘This redwood lily is puny compared with a redwood tree.’ Or, ‘This buckthorn bush is so prickly. I don’t think nearly so much of it as I do of the whitethorn bush, which has beautiful flowers and is soft to the touch.’ Wouldn’t that sound ridiculous! We accept all things in nature as they are, except man. For man we have set a standard, and he must live up to it or be forever displeasing to us. I wonder if you know what I’m talking about.”

“I think I understand you perfectly,” replied Shonto. “And I believe that you are entirely right. In fact, my life’s work is based on what you have just expressed.”

“The glands?” she asked eagerly.

“Yes.”

“Won’t you please explain? We have lots of time. None of the others are up yet.”

Dr. Shonto was tempted. “It is my firm belief,” he said, “that man’s daily life—all that he does and all that he is—depends almost entirely upon his gland secretions. His height, his attitude toward others, the colour of his complexion, his strength or weakness, his ability or lack of ability—all this, and much more, is controlled by his glands, or their secretions. The glands are collections of cells which make substances that bring about a specific effect on the economy of the body. The microscope proves that every gland is a chemical factory, and the product of these factories is their secretions. For instance, the sweat glands manufacture perspiration, the lachrymal glands manufacture tears.

“The thyroid gland—the most interesting of all—consists of two dark-red masses in the neck, above the windpipe, and near the larynx. A narrow strip of the same tissue connects them. The secretion of the thyroid glands is called thyroxin, and it contains a relatively high per cent of iodine. The more thyroid a person has the faster does he live. An abundance of thyroid causes one to feel, sense, and think more quickly. The less he has the slower will be his mental processes. And the thyroid gland puts iodine into our blood.

“Sea water, you know, contains iodine. And as man was originally a creature of the sea, iodine is necessary to his existence. There is little or no iodine in the food we eat, so, when man became a land animal, Nature gave him the thyroid gland to supply him with this necessary element. In certain parts of the world—in high altitudes and fresh-water regions—the water does not contain enough iodine. In such regions goiter is prevalent.

“To sum up very briefly the workings of the thyroid gland, life is worth while when it is sufficiently active; and when it is not, life is a burden to the unfortunate individual so affected. It is my belief, then, that when we come to know more about the glands we will realize that man is regulated by them. Then we will be more tolerant, won’t we?—and seek to rectify the errors rather than condemn promiscuously?

“It would be next to impossible for me to tell you all that has been discovered about the functions of the various glands. There are the thyroids, the pituitary, the adrenals, the pineal, the thymus, the interstitial, the parathyroids, and the pancreas to be dealt with; but for you and me the thyroids are by far the most important. And I regret to say that I am not in a position to go into the matter thoroughly with you at this time.”

“But you haven’t told me anything!” she expostulated.

He looked at her gravely. “I really do not feel free to discuss the subject,” he said. “I hope you’ll pardon me.”

Her dark eyes showed a trace of embarrassment as she turned them upon his face. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to intrude. I guess it was stupid of me to ask a specialist to disclose his secrets to me.”

“It’s not that,” he told her. “But there is a reason why I must refrain from discussing this subject with you just now. Perhaps at some later date I shall find it possible to go into the matter more fully. And you don’t need to apologize. I have no professional secrets. But, as I said, for a rather strange reason, I must not be the one to initiate you into the mysteries of the gland secretions, and what science has accomplished in the way of treating patients who are lacking in these secretions. I’m extremely sorry, Mrs. Reemy, for I must confess that, ordinarily, I like to talk about my work.”

She continued to gaze at him, completely mystified; then she showed her good breeding by dropping the subject entirely.

“I have thought up a name for the undiscovered valley,” she announced.

“Good! Let’s have it.”

“The Valley of Arcana.”

Dr. Shonto lifted his scanty eyebrows. “Arcana,” he repeated. “That sounds familiar. Let me paw through my vocabulary.... I’ve got it. ‘Arcanum’ is the singular, isn’t it? And it means something hidden from ordinary men. In medicine it means a great secret remedy—a panacea. But you use it in the first sense—a mystery. Or in the plural, ‘arcana’—mysteries. The Valley of Mysteries. Good! A dandy!”

“Give Webster the credit,” she said demurely. “I stumbled upon the word by accident last night, browsing through the dictionary in search of something new. I’m surprised, and a little piqued, that you knew the meaning. I thought I was springing something on you.”

She turned her head quickly as she spoke, and once more the doctor saw the pink creep into her cheeks.

“Mr. Jerome is up,” she said, “and is coming around the house to find us. Don’t say anything. I mean, don’t call his attention to that.” She pointed over the glistening forest to the sea once more. “I want to see how he reacts to it when he steps up here and finds it suddenly stretched out before him.”

“I’d like to ask you a question,” the doctor declared quickly. “Do you really intend to go to the Shinbone Country?”

“Why, certainly—if everything turns out all right.”

“When?”

“Right away.”

“But it is rather late in the season for such an undertaking, isn’t it? Winter is almost upon us.”

“But doesn’t the assessment work have to be done on the opal mines immediately in order to hold them?”

“I’d forgotten about that,” said Shonto.

And then came Andy’s “Good morning,” as he stepped to the rail beside Charmian and caught his first glimpse of the stupendous scene below him.

“Lord!” he breathed. “Oh, Lord! Look at that!”

And Charmian Reemy smiled. Andy Jerome had shown himself to be a member of her clan.

CHAPTER V
THE CONFERENCE AT JORNY SPRINGS

IT was seven o’clock in the morning when Andy Jerome set off on Charmian Reemy’s gray saddler for his camp. A trail led direct from El Trono de Tolerancia to the county road, and once upon it Andy could not possibly miss the way. He was to leave the horse at Lovejoy’s, a wilderness resort, and continue on afoot to camp. There he would get his big touring car and drive back to a point in the county road opposite Charmian’s home. She and the doctor were to travel after him afoot and meet him there. And Mary Temple had flatly refused to allow Charmian to “go traipsin’ off with a couple o’ strange men the Lord knew where,” so she had truculently constituted herself one of the party.

Andy met the trio about noon. Dr. Shonto took the seat in the tonneau with the stern-faced Mary Temple, and Charmian rode in front with Andy. The handsome big car purred along through the solemn redwoods, following the level valley which paralleled the coast, with a range of wooded mountains between. Gray squirrels scurried across the narrow road, to scamper up lofty trees and bark at them mockingly. The streams that they crossed were riotous and roared about the huge boulders in their courses. The sun scarcely penetrated the dark avenues of the forest. Huckleberry bushes lined the road, the berries ripe and coloured like grapes.

They estimated that the prospectors would not make over twenty miles a day with their slow-moving burros, and maybe less. It was about fifty miles from the North Fork of the Lizard to the outskirts of the Catfish Country; so, as they were virtually two days and a half behind the men, Andy pushed the big car at every opportunity. But the road was so narrow, and there were so many abrupt turns in it, made necessary by gigantic trees, that the driver averaged little better than fifteen miles an hour.

But they reached Jorny Springs, at the gateway to the Catfish Country, before four o’clock that afternoon. And there, to their great satisfaction, they found the prospectors in camp. One of the burros had gone lame on them, and they were resting the little animal before beginning the rough journey into the wilds that lay before them.

Jorny Springs was a backwoods resort conducted by an old man and his wife. They bottled the effervescent water that bubbled up in a dozen places from the ground, and shipped it to San Francisco, where it was known in cafes and soft-drink establishments as Jorny Water. Every house in that country was, on occasion, a hotel and summer resort, and such places were known as stations.

Smith Morley and Omar Leach were camped under the big trees by one of the springs. Shonto went over and talked with them a little, while Charmian and Andy ordered lunch at the house. The doctor returned to them before lunch was ready and made his report of the preliminary conference.

“They are willing enough to drop their present prospecting project right now,” he began. “They have gold claims up in the Catfish Country, but their importance is more or less problematical. However, they had enough capital to make this trip, they say, but could not rake up enough for the Shinbone expedition. So they will be only too glad to deal with us.”

“What do they want?” asked Charmian.

“I didn’t go into that with them,” replied Shonto. “But I imagine they prefer to sell the claims outright rather than to take in partners. If you’ll accept my advice, Mrs. Reemy, you’ll be mighty careful what kind of a deal you make with these boys. They may be all right, and their claims may be all that they say, but, somehow or other, I don’t just fancy their looks.”

“The one you pointed out to me as Morley,” said Charmian, “is a delightful looking villain. I like to deal with villains. That is, I think I should. I’ve never had an opportunity. I do hope they try to put something over on us.”

Shonto and Andy laughed heartily at this, but the austere Mary Temple tightened her thin lips and glared at the young widow.

“Mary Temple refuses to let me have any fun in life,” said Charmian. “She doesn’t understand my romantic and adventuresome nature in the least. She wants everything to move along smoothly. Well, everything has always moved entirely too smoothly to suit me. I want a few obstacles set in my path. I want to have things happen to me. I want to live!”

After lunch the quartette approached the prospectors. Dr. Shonto introduced Charmian and Mary Temple, and all found seats on stones or logs or filled pack-bags.

Charmian was eying the two men closely.

Smith Morley was dark and tall, and his features were fine except for the black eyes, which were set too close together. Omar Leach was older and heavier, with a sprinkling of grey in his hair. His face was full and inclined to be red. He looked to be a powerful man.

When they spoke Charmian was surprised. Both used good, everyday English, and Morley’s account of his opal seeking in Australia was intensely interesting and fired her imagination. They talked for half an hour before Morley spoke of the matter that had brought them together. And when he did so he made the plain statement that the opal claims in the Shinbone Country were for sale, on a cash basis, and that he and Leach would take the others to them, prove their value, and do anything in reason to establish them.

“And how much do you ask for the claims?” asked the girl.

“Fifty thousand dollars,” was Morley’s prompt reply.

Before she could express surprise at the amount, or make any comment whatever, Smith Morley reached into an inner pocket of his canvas coat and took out a wad of tissue paper. He deliberately unfolded it, and dropped seven large opals into the girl’s hand.

“Look ’em over,” he invited. “They all came from our claims. And there are plenty more like them to be found.”

“They’re beautiful,” admitted Charmian, turning a stone this way and that so that it might catch the light filtering down through the treetops. “But I can’t understand why, if you can find gems like these, it doesn’t pay you to work the claims and make them defray their own expenses.”

“We could do it if we were there,” put in Omar Leach. “But we’re practically broke, and it’s a long, expensive trip to the Shinbone Country.”

“Then why don’t you sell these?” she asked, rattling the opals in her hand.

“We’ve kept them to show prospective buyers,” explained Morley. “We tried all summer to interest somebody, and that’s one reason why we’re so short of funds. Showing the gems and trying to induce somebody to take hold caused us to lose lots of time, when we ought to have been working for our winter’s grubstake. When we saw that our efforts were a failure, we worked a little and got together a small grubstake for this trip into the Catfish Country. Our placer claims up in there are pretty good, and we can sometimes pan out as high as twenty-five dollars a day. It’s seldom that we run less than ten dollars. So we thought we could get up there and pan enough to get us down into the Shinbone Country before winter set in. Then we could rush things and finish our assessment work before the end of the year. But if a person had money, Mrs. Reemy, he could get down there at once and hire half a dozen men to finish the work in short order. Then he could sit pretty until spring, provided he didn’t care to winter it in the Shinbone Country and dig for opals.”

“You’ll pardon me for what may seem to be an insolent question,” said the girl, “but how do I know that you did not bring these opals from Australia?”

Smith Morley laughed and shrugged. “You have every right to look into the matter from every angle,” he exonerated her. “We want you to be cautious and investigate thoroughly. That’s business, Mrs. Reemy. Of course we can’t prove to you now that those stones didn’t come from Australia, or that they did come from our claims. But we can show you when you reach the Shinbone Country.”

“When can you start?”

“Just as soon as we can make arrangements with somebody to take care of our outfit, Mrs. Reemy. We can put the burros on pasture here at Jorny Springs, I guess, and cache the outfit. Unless it would be more advisable to take the outfit along. I have an idea we’ll be ready to hit the trail to-morrow.”

“And how do we go?”

“Well, by train, if you prefer. Or if we had a couple of machines like the one you drove here in—”

“We have two,” put in Dr. Shonto briefly.

Both Charmian and Andy Jerome glanced at him curiously.

“Why, you’re not going along, are you, Doctor?” asked the girl.

“If I’m welcome, I am,” he stated.

“Why, of course you’re welcome!” cried Andy. “But—but I’m surprised, Doctor.”

“Don’t let it affect you too seriously, Andy,” said Shonto, with his quiet smile. “Don’t you suppose that I am interested in a project like this one?”

“But you weren’t the other day,” his friend pointed out.

“The other day is not to-day,” said the doctor. “In other words, I’ve changed my mind. I’ll be frank. I wouldn’t consider going at all if Mrs. Reemy weren’t taking the matter up. I think she’ll need my mature judgment in many things; and I mean to go along—if she wants me to—and give her the benefit of it.”

“Nothing would delight me more than to have you go, Doctor,” Charmian said quickly. “But can you spare the time?”

“I can,” he replied. “I haven’t had a real vacation in the past ten years. And it strikes me that a fellow might run across some new medicinal herbs up in your Valley of Arcana. For all we know, there may be valuable scientific phenomena in that valley that only await discovery. Your valley, Mrs. Reemy, tempts me more than the opal mines. But to find the location of the valley, it seems, we must tackle the mines. So if everything turns out satisfactorily when we get to the Shinbone Country, I’ll go partners with you on the opal project.”

“Let’s make it a triple partnership,” Andy suggested.

“That suits me,” said Charmian. “To be frank, I hardly wanted to go into the thing alone. This is going to be my life’s big adventure—the adventure that I have been planning for and longing for and waiting for for several years. This looks like the big opportunity at last—and I’m going to take a chance.”

And here a new voice piped up.

“Charmian Reemy,” said Mary Temple, “you are not going down into that hideous country with the hideous name in the company of four strange men.”

“Why, old dear,” laughed Charmian, “two of them are not strangers at all.”

“What two are not, please?”

“Doctor Inman Shonto is known all over the United States and Europe,” Charmian pointed out. “And Mr. Jerome is his friend. What better recommendation could one ask for, Mary Temple?”

“There will be four men, and only two women,” Mary told her. “And it’s—it’s all but downright indecent.”

“Two women?”

“Certainly. You are one, and I am one.”

“Oh, you mean to go, too, then? I thought you would return to San Francisco and wait there for me.”

“If you persist in going into that boneyard country, Charmian, I am going with you. And that ends that.”

“Well, goodness knows you’re welcome, Mary Temple,” laughed Charmian. “But I didn’t for a minute imagine that you would care to go.”

“I don’t,” snapped Mary Temple. “But that’s not saying I’m not going. And there must be two more women in the party.”

“Oh, Mary Temple! What a prig you are! Do you want to pair us off?”

“Common decency demands that there be as many women as there are men,” declared Mary.

“We might take my wife along,” Smith Morley put in. “She’s in Los Angeles now. She could meet us at ——. Well, I’ll arrange that. But Leach hasn’t a wife—yet. Wouldn’t three women do, Miss Temple? Another person would make the two machines pretty full, you know. We’ll have a world of baggage to pile in the tonneaus and lash on the running-boards.”

“What is your wife like?” demanded Mary Temple unfeelingly.

“Why, Mary Temple! What an impertinent question!” cried Charmian.

“Impertinent or not,” barked Mary, “I want to know what his wife is like before I give my consent.”

Morley only laughed and showed no resentment. “Why, she’s a pretty good old girl,” he told her. “She’s a good housewife, not bad looking, a good dresser when I’m in luck, and pretty rough and ready when it comes to camp life in the wilderness. You’ll like her, I think.”

“Have you any children?” demanded Mary.

“No.”

Mary sighed and clasped her veiny hands. “Well,” she declared, “I’d feel safer if you had a child to take along—preferably a little girl of seven or eight. The child, perhaps, would restrain you if you had anything evil in your mind.”

“Mary Temple, I’m ashamed of you!” Charmian half laughed, and the colour flooded her face.

“I’m only looking out for your interests, my dear,” said Mary. “If I didn’t, who would? I distrust men on general principles, as you know very well. But if you’re determined to go, Charmian, we can at least travel to where we are to meet Mrs. Morley. Then if she suits me, we’ll go on. If not, we’ll come back.”

“You’re a regular tyrant, Mary Temple!” pouted Charmian.

“I know it,” Mary retorted. “But I get results.”

CHAPTER VI
SECOND SIGHT

BECAUSE Mary Temple was afraid to ride over the narrow curving road after dark, the four prospective adventurers remained at Jorny Springs all night. Before going to bed Charmian, coached by the doctor, made arrangements with Leach and Morley to go to San Francisco and sign certain papers to show good faith, which papers would be drawn up by the young widow’s attorney. When this matter had been settled, they were to drive together to the Shinbone Country—wherever that was—and make a thorough investigation of the properties.

Both Leach and Morley had protested against entering into a written agreement. They offered to produce references which ought to satisfy the most suspicious, but Dr. Shonto remained firm. Finally, seeing no way around the obstacle, they consented, but declared that they begrudged the time that would be taken up by the trip to San Francisco.

After the plain, old-fashioned dinner served by the owners of Jorny Springs, Charmian took a walk through the twilight. Shortly after she left the house Andy Jerome set off in the opposite direction, stating that he too would like a stroll. But when the great trees hid him from the house he made a swift circle back, and soon was on Charmian’s trail. He found her leaning over a fence, watching a dozen fat and shockingly muddy pigs in a stake-and-rider corral.

“I see you prefer to choose your own company,” he observed, as he rested his arms on the fence beside her. “I hope one more won’t constitute a crowd.”

“Aren’t they funny!” she laughed. “I love pigs and things like that. Cows and chickens and horses and everything. Do you know that I, as the head of the expedition to be, intend to make a hard-and-fast ruling at the very outset? It’s this: No one in the party will be permitted to kill any living thing.”

“Why, that’s a funny idea,” he laughed. “If a fellow can’t do a little hunting to pass away dull hours, how’s he going to amuse himself? And it may be that we’ll frequently find ourselves in need of fresh meat.”

“I don’t care,” she said. “I don’t approve of the slaughter of the innocents. I used to hunt myself, but I gave it up. I can’t bear to take a life. Man can’t create, yet in the winking of an eyelid he can and will destroy a life that he can never reproduce. It’s the same with a tree. One can cut down a tree in thirty minutes which nature has spent hundreds of years in growing. And man can’t replace it. Whenever I hear one of these giant redwoods fall groaning under the ax my heart fairly bleeds.”

“But man must live,” Andy pointed out.

“I don’t know whether he must or not,” she said seriously. “He’s made a complete botch of existence. Sometimes I wish the entire race were wiped out, so nature could begin all over again. Man is as barbarous to-day as he was a thousand years ago. The only difference is that he has invented new machinery with which to practise his barbarism.”

“Why, you’re a regular little cynic!” Andy accused.

“Perhaps. I have little patience with mankind, if that’s what you mean. The so-called lower animals have my love and sympathy. They haven’t made a farce of their lives, as we have. And vivisection—that’s what makes me wild! Man, by his own selfish indulgences, by his reckless living, his complete disregard of the laws of nature, has succeeded in shortening his life and depleting his physical vigour. So, in his eagerness to continue the debauch, scared stiff at thought of the yawning precipice just ahead of him, he turns in his cowardly way to the so-called lower animals. He robs these helpless creatures of their health and vitality in order to patch up his poor, miserable, worthless body. Like the five foolish virgins, men say to these wise virgins—these innocents of the earth who have conserved their oil of life—‘Give us of your oil, for our lamps are gone out.’ Could anything be more cowardly, Mr. Jerome?”

“But aren’t the lower animals placed on this earth for the benefit of man?” asked Andy.

“Oh, yes—man imagines everything on earth is put here for him to exploit and ruin! Where are the buffaloes? Where are the beavers? Where are the elks? Where are the bighorns? Were they put here for man to destroy—to wipe almost completely from the face of the earth? When man has learned to step down from his papier-mâché throne of insufferable conceit, he will find that he is only a part of nature’s scheme—that every other atom in the universe is as important as he is. Then we can begin to look for the dawn of civilization.”

“I’m afraid,” said Andy, “that you and Doctor Shonto are not destined to get along very well together.”

“Why?”

“Well, it is his business to exploit nature for the rebuilding of man.”

“Yes—I know. I tried to draw him out this morning, but he refused to be tempted into a discussion of his work. How long have you known him, Mr. Jerome?”

“Why, almost all my life, it seems. He is an old friend of my father and mother. I can’t remember when I didn’t know the doctor.”

“That seems strange. He is not so much older than you are. How old are you?”

“Twenty-four,” Andy replied.

“And I should say the doctor is not much over thirty.”

“Thirty-four, I believe.”

“Then he was ten years old when you were born. Could you call him a ‘friend of your father and mother’ when he was ten years old? Did you play with him when you were a boy?”

For a long time Andy Jerome was silent. Then he said slowly:

“I must tell you something about myself. I can recall almost nothing of my childhood before my twelfth birthday. And my earliest recollections are of Doctor Shonto. I remember him as about twenty-two or twenty-three years old. And, to me, he never was younger than that.”

“Why, I can’t understand you at all!” exclaimed the girl.

“It’s very difficult to understand,” he said in low tones. “But when I was about eight years old, they tell me, something happened to me. It seems that I got a crack on the noodle while playing and lost my memory. I remained in that condition from the age of eight until I was perhaps between eleven and twelve. It was Doctor Shonto, who had just been graduated from a medical college and was already making a big name for himself, who treated me and brought me out of my coma. But, strange to say, it left me with a weak heart. I have to take treatment for it right along, and the doctor tells me that, if I neglect this treatment, my old condition will come back, or I may suddenly drop dead. For all that, I’m fit as a fiddle and strong as an ox. It seems funny to think that I may bump off at any moment—hard to believe. But nobody ever doubts Doctor Shonto. However, he has assured me again and again that I have nothing whatever to worry about, so long as I take my medicine diligently. I guess I haven’t missed a day since he began his treatment.”

“Why, how strange!” was Charmian’s only comment.

“It is strange—mighty strange. Now and then I get a faint glimmering of something that took place before I was eight years of age, but it’s so hazy that it seems like it happened to some one else instead of me. And it seemed that, when I gradually regained my memory, I was being born all over again. I had the mind of a child of two or three, though I was over twelve years old. I remembered nothing of what had been taught me in the private school that they told me I had once attended. I had to begin my schooling at the very bottom again. Lord, how they made me cram! I studied night and day, and seemed eager enough to learn. They tell me that I have caught up because of my perpetual digging—that I now have the mentality of a normal man of my age. And so for the past year I have studied very little, and have been catching up on the physical end. I have lived in the open months at a time, and frequently Doctor Shonto has been with me. He likes it himself, and he likes to be with me. And I can tell you right here and now that I think Doctor Inman Shonto the greatest man alive!”

“I’ll bet you do,” said Charmian warmly. “But it strikes me as rather strange that you should never call him Doc, since you two are so close.”

“I guess I’d never think of calling him that,” said Andy reflectively. “No, that wouldn’t seem the proper thing to do.”

“What do you do when you’re at home, Mr. Jerome?”

“Why, I hope to become a lawyer some day,” he replied. “You see, I’m still a student. I’ve studied law a little and mean to take up a regular course next year. But for the present my parents and Doctor Shonto think it best for me to loaf around outdoors.”

“I suppose your folks are wealthy,” said Charmian in her frank way.

“Yes, they’re accounted so. Pop has retired. He was a candy and cracker manufacturer. I’d like to have you meet my mother. She’s a peach. You’d like her. She’d like you, too.”

“And so your hero is Doctor Inman Shonto,” mused Charmian. “I wonder if it would be proper for me to ask you about his work, after he himself has refused to tell me anything?”

“Precious little I can tell you,” laughed Andy. “But I’ll do my best. If Doctor Shonto has any secrets, they’re safe with me because I couldn’t explain them if I wanted to. Fire ahead. Doctor Shonto doesn’t like to talk about himself. He’s entirely too modest.”

“I wanted to ask you,” said the girl, “if Doctor Shonto is in any way responsible for the horrible things I have read about in the papers lately. Rich men hiring thugs to waylay strong, healthy men, knock them out, and take them to doctors, who operate on them and steal their glands, which are substituted for the worn-out glands of the rich men?”

“Nothing doing!” loyally cried Andy. “Doctor Shonto says the most of that news is nothing but hot air. No, he never uses human glands in his work. He uses sheep glands exclusively. And the animals are killed before he cuts the glands out of them.”

“Are you positive?”

“I have only his word for it. But he’s a very tender-hearted man—for a surgeon. And he has a magnificent sense of justice. No, not in a thousand years would Doctor Shonto countenance anything like that.”

“I’m glad to hear you say so,” she sighed. “I think that is simply horrible—ghoulish! But why was it, then, that the doctor refused to tell me anything about his work?”

“Well, he has accomplished wonders, they say. And, as I told you before, he’s modest.”

“Modesty reaps its reward only in fiction.”

“I imagine the doctor is keener after results than rewards,” Andy mused. “I’ll tell you the little that I have gleaned—mostly about the thyroid gland, which, you know, is in our throats.

“It seems that, if a fellow is shy on thyroid, he’s up against it in many ways. He may be slow to learn, clumsy, and may have an unbalanced sense of right and wrong. If he is fed the extract of the thyroid glands of sheep, this can be corrected.

“It is the same with the other glands in our system. Some control one thing, some another. And, according to Doctor Shonto’s theory, the time is close at hand when deficient people can be entirely remade by injecting into them, or feeding them, the extract of the gland secretion that they’re shy on. This will revolutionize our social system, according to Doctor Shonto. We will know then that mental defectives, criminals, people who are petulant and hard to get along with—in fact, everybody who is in any way not up to normal—are so because of the absence, or the over-supply, of the secretions of certain glands. This science can correct, and the time may come when we will be able to do away with prisons and corrective institutions, and treat our fellowmen instead of mistreating them.”

“Heaven speed the day!” said Charmian fervently. “But why, tell me, did Doctor Shonto hesitate about telling me that?”

Andy shrugged his broad shoulders. “Quien sabe,” he said, “unless his modesty made him reticent. I think he’s afraid of being ridiculed as a visionary theorist.”

“Doctor Shonto doesn’t strike me as a man who would shrink from ridicule, if he thought he was in the right,” Charmian declared.

Two days later the six who were interested in the opal project and the Valley of Arcana arrived in San Francisco late in the evening. It was after business hours, so nothing could be done toward drawing up the papers until the following morning. Charmian called up her attorney, briefly outlined the situation, and arranged for a conference at ten the following day. Then she went to her apartments with Mary Temple, while Andy and Dr. Shonto took rooms in the Palace Hotel. Smith Morley sent a telegram to his wife in Los Angeles, after which he and his partner sought a cheap rooming house on Kearny Street. They were to meet the others in the offices of Charmian’s lawyer at eleven o’clock next morning.