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THE HOUSE OF SKULLS

CHAPTER I

I Buy a House

I met Balliol as result of answering an advertisement in a Los Angeles paper. It looked like just what I wanted. Here is the ad to speak for itself:

FOR SALE—Twenty-acre ranch, fine house, complete equipment. Ten acres walnuts, eight pears. Electricity. Water abundant. Income, five thousand dollars, but will sell cheap for cash. Near lake north of San Francisco.

John Balliol met me by appointment for luncheon at a downtown hotel. Instantly I saw that something was very wrong with him.

He was a fine-looking young fellow, but was terribly nervous; he must have smoked ten cigarettes with the meal. That, if you happen to know, is purely a city habit. Then, he had a way of glancing swiftly over his shoulder as though afraid something were about to come at him; and his eyes wandered, flitted with lurking suspicion.

He was afraid of something.

But he was a gentleman, a man of education. One or two things he said gave me the idea that he was a Harvard man, but he kept very close-mouthed about himself. He had a queerly aggressive manner, the manner of one who fights yet knows that he is licked. Also, he wanted to sell and get his money at once—before the following night.

“But you’re not a rancher, Mr. Desmond,” he said, suspicion in his eyes. “Why are you interested in my property?”

I laughed. “Largely because it’s a sacrifice for cash,” I replied. “I’m no rancher, but a sedate artist of a sort. Being a bachelor, I practice interior decoration; but I paint pictures as a preferential occupation. In the past year I’ve made so much money through supplying really worthless but gorgeously blended interiors to war profiteers, that my general physical condition has gone flooey, if you get my meaning! The New York medicos sent me to California. The Los Angeles medicos have ordered me to get on a ranch up north, where the climate is more bracing and not so deadly monotonous.”

“I get you,” he nodded briefly. “Know anything about ranching?”

“I can stretch an easel between rows of pear-trees, can’t I?”

At that he laughed, and for a moment lost his nerve-tensed expression.

“I need money,” he said after a bit. “I need it badly—before tomorrow night. I got the ranch several years ago; I’ve been improving it steadily, and the house and property are now in first-class shape. And, I’ve spent a lot of money on it.”

“Reason for selling?” I inquired.

“Strictly private.” He looked slightly flurried, but his eyes remained steady. “Merely because I need the money, and need it more badly than I can tell you. It’s a grand place up there, Mr. Desmond! Deer are a nuisance; you can shoot wild hogs anytime. If you like fishing, Clear Lake has the best in the State. In two or three years, after they get the boulevard through from Frisco, the whole valley will be opened up and land will be out of sight. At present it’s twenty miles from the railroad, and I can’t honestly brag of the roads—”

He got out a map of Lake County and showed me the lay of the land. When I saw that the lake was thirty miles long, that his place was only a few miles from Lakeport, the county-seat, that it was in the heart of the hills, and within easy distance of the big trees and of San Francisco itself, I warmed up to the subject.

“Well,” I said, “what’s the price? Lowest cash.”

“Ten thousand cash—if I can get it before tomorrow night.”

That looked queer to me. Ten thousand for a place bringing in five thousand a year!

“You want the money by tomorrow?” I said thoughtfully. “I have an old friend in one of the banks here; he’ll handle everything for us. He can make thorough inquiries as to the title, and so forth, by wire. If it’s as you say, and if the title’s clear, we can know by tomorrow noon—and I’ll take it. Otherwise, not.”

He drew a long breath. “I’m satisfied, Mr. Desmond. By the way, if you put through the deal, would you consider buying a car? I drove down here in mine—a Paragon four-passenger roadster. I’ll not need it, and I’m already offering it for sale. If you haven’t a car, you’ll find it the best bargain on the market. Cost me five thousand about four months ago, and I’ll take a thousand cash—before tomorrow night.”

“All right,” I assented cautiously. “If you’re willing to have the Paragon agency here give her the once-over.”

He was willing to have any kind of investigation made, either of the ranch or of the car. Inside of an hour my bank had the ranch matter in hand, and promised me a complete report the following morning. John Balliol and I went to the Paragon agency on Olive Street, where his car was laid up, and I found no report was needed.

The car was strictly a beauty, in first-class shape. She was not exactly an economical car, but she would give good service for years—a nifty, high-class job all around, as the Paragon agent described her. I liked her so well that I bought her on the spot, ranch or no ranch; and I’ve never had cause to regret the bargain.

That night I spent a good deal of time wondering about my friend John Balliol. He had all the earmarks of a gentleman; but for all I knew he might be a rank fraud. Not a word had he said about himself, other than I have set down here.

If he had not been in a hurry, and if his ranch was as described, he could have obtained twenty thousand for it—easily. And his car was salable for double the price I had paid. He was obviously in the position of one who is madly sacrificing all that he has in order to raise quick money—“before tomorrow night,” he had said. Of course, it was none of my affair aside from the business end of it.

At ten the next morning I went to the bank, where Balliol was already waiting. The cashier beckoned me into his private office and spread several telegrams before me.

“Everything looks correct, Mr. Desmond,” he stated. “In fact, everything is correct. The title is flawless, and the land is worth much more than is asked.”

“And this Mr. Balliol himself?” I said. “Will you satisfy yourself that he’s what and whom he says he is?”

The cashier grasped this somewhat involved query and nodded. Then he summoned Balliol to join us. At first Balliol was inclined to be insulted; then we made him realize that to hand out ten thousand in cash to a man without identification was somewhat risky. He immediately calmed down, and not only produced all kinds of papers, but had himself identified by one of the largest banks in the city, just around the corner from my own bank. In short, John Balliol was all to the good.

“You attend to the transfer,” I said, when Balliol produced the deeds to the property and handed them to the cashier. The latter nodded and left us alone.

“Now, Mr. Balliol,” I said, when I had written the check as was waiting for it to dry, “this deal is going through. I wish, as between gentlemen, that you’d tell me anything you know against the property—why you’re giving it away.”

He turned a little white under his healthy tan, and fished for a cigarette.

“Can’t do it, Mr. Desmond,” he responded. “It’s—well, it’s private, absolutely. Nothing whatever against the property, upon my word! I got into a bit of trouble, however, and had to have the money. That’s all.”

Of course I asked no further questions, and the deal was concluded on that basis. I had made out the check to him personally, and he did not cash it, but took it away with him. He did not even ask the bank about my standing, which made me feel rather ashamed of my insistence regarding him. But, as we separated with mutual expressions of good will, I saw him walk away—and glance again over his shoulder with fear in his eyes.

He had two checks, amounting to eleven thousand of my money; and I had his ranch and his car. And that little Paragon boat, believe me, was a wonder! It was a distinctive car, with a specially built body, and the color was bright canary-yellow—light enough not to show dust easily. The top had plate-glass and solid curtains, and was a deep maroon in hue. Taken all in all, the car could be recognized several miles away as the only one of its kind on earth, particularly as the wire wheels were a bright pea-green. The top was low and deep, of the back-curved variety which effectually hides the driver and passengers.

Speaking for the New York decorator, I could not say that Yorke Desmond was exactly wild about the color-scheme of that car. I forgot this in the beauty of her performance, however. Later on, perhaps, I would have the paint changed.

According to John Balliol, I would have nothing on earth to do except to sit around while my walnuts and pears grew, and rake in the shekels when they were ripe. Everything was bought on the hoof, as it were, so I did not even have to pick the fruit. This suited me, naturally. Of course, explained Balliol, the ground had to be cultivated once or twice a year, and the pear-trees had to be sprayed in the summer, but all equipment was on the place. Such mild diversions would but relieve me from the monotony of having nothing to do.

As they say just off Broadway, it listened good.

It was noon when the sale was consummated, as I have described. Within an hour I had two extra cord tires reposing on the hind end of my new car, and a complete outfit of maps from the automobile club, and an outfit of suitcases on the running board. By two o’clock I had packed up my belongings, shipped my artistic impedimenta by express to myself at Lakeport, and at two-five I was heading toward Hollywood and the coast highway north.

My mental attitude was precisely that of a child with a new toy. I wanted to drive that Paragon bus for all she was worth, and only the fear of speed cops held me down. I was wild to get up to my new ranch and see how the walnuts and pears grew. So, having nothing particular to keep me in Los Angeles, I got on my way without delay. Either I had bought a wondrously good thing, or I had somehow got wondrously stung—and the chances were that I had not been stung!

By six o’clock that evening I was safely in Santa Barbara for the night. Ahead of me were the alternated patches of boulevard and most abominable detouring which constitute the State highway to San Francisco, and I was supremely happy in the way the Paragon rustled along.

That canary car, with the green wheels and maroon top, certainly attracted attention; this was the only fly in my ointment. I am essentially a modest and retiring man, and I abominate being taken for some ornament of the film industry. Anyone who had ever seen that car would remember it to his dying day, and I never passed a car on the road that my rear-sight mirror did not show me the occupants craning forward for another eyeful of my beauty. All this bothered me, but caused me no particular worry.

I could not forget, however, the peculiarity of John Balliol’s manner. I felt sorry for the chap; felt rather as though I had taken advantage of a man when he was down. Elated as I was over my bargain, I thought to myself that if the ranch panned out, I’d send him an additional five thousand later.

But I could not forget him as I had last seen him—glancing over his shoulder as though half expecting something to pounce on him.

CHAPTER II

I Meet a Lady

It happens to be the case in California that the Los Angeles newspapers circulate north, and the San Francisco papers circulate south, until they overlap and die. They circulate swiftly, too. I was up and out of Santa Barbara before seven o’clock, and had the last Los Angeles edition in my pocket when I went to breakfast. They point of this digression will arrive in its proper place.

Beyond glancing over the headlines of my paper, I did not look through it, but jammed it into my overcoat pocket for later consumption. If only I had read that paper, things might have happened otherwise—or they might not. All’s for the best!

I got off in a drenching fog and drizzle of rain, which, I was assured, was the usual Southern California “high fog.” There were no speed cops out at this time of day, so in half an hour I was finishing the twenty-odd miles of boulevard north of the city, by which time the fog was breaking and the sun streaming forth gloriously.

The worst road I ever took, or ever hoped to take, befell me then and there. It was a detour, and there were miles of it, alongside the newly constructed but unfinished boulevard. Then I swung a bit of presumably finished road, with unfinished culverts at the bottom of each hill; the first one nearly took my head off when we struck. Then more miles, and long miles, of plain road—about as bad as the detour; then boulevard again, thank Heaven, that lasted! This took me until eleven in the morning.

Consulting my road maps, I found that I was close to a town—the name I have forgotten—and should reach San Luis Obispo for luncheon, with fair road most of the way. Being in a hurry, I stopped in the town long enough to buy gasoline, and I happened to stop at the first gasoline sign I saw, which was near the railroad station. Recalling the circumstance later, I remember that my car was headed north, quite obviously.

While the tank was being filled, a northbound train passed through without a stop, and the garage man said that it was the “flier” from Los Angeles. It had left there sometime the previous night, and passed here “regular as clockwork.” Naturally, at the moment I thought nothing whatever of the incident.

“Good highway all the way to San Luis,” observed the man, while he made change for me. “No speed-cop out today, neither. The boy got run into day ’fore yesterday, so burn her up if ye want! But keep your eye skinned north o’ San Luis, partner. Gosh! Say, ain’t this car a real oriole, though!”

Thanking him, I climbed in and proceeded to “burn her up.” The bad roads of the morning delayed me, and I was anxious to make time. I made such good time that I passed the limited train just before reaching San Luis, and, finding that it was still on the good side of noon, I determined to push on to Paso Robles for luncheon.

About twelve thirty I was in Paso Robles, still untouched of any speed-cop. Leaving my car before the garage in the main street, I began to skirt the block from storefront to storefront in search of luncheon. Now, I do not wish to pain the good citizens of Paso Robles; but I was too ignorant to go back a block to the big hotel; I merely asked for a restaurant and was directed accordingly. So I had no kick coming.

At last, on the other side of the block, I found a place, settled down to a table, and to my surprise found the food really endurable. As I ate I continued my perusal of the morning paper. It was the only Los Angeles paper in those parts, I imagine—for I saw no other there or north of there.

The paper was in two sections. And on the front page of the second section was a photograph of John Balliol.

As I glimpsed that picture I felt a premonition, a forewarning. Beneath it was his name and nothing more. But to the left was a three-column story, entitled: Scion of Prominent Eastern Family a Suicide.” Above this heading, after the custom of that particular paper, was another heading in very small type, being the quotation: “One More Unfortunate.”

It was just as well that I had about finished my meal, for now I was past eating. The thing stupefied me, left me blankly dazed; and to think that I had carried this paper with me all the way from Santa Barbara!

I plunged into the story, eager and horrified. There seemed to be no mystery at all in the affair, so far as the newspaper was concerned, except that there was no mention of Balliol having any money. He had merely plugged up his room and turned on the gas; this he had done shortly before midnight. An hour later the thing had been discovered and the story had broken in time for the newspaper to cover it fully in the last edition.

Friends of Balliol had volunteered that he had left a sister, whose whereabouts were totally unknown, and an uncle in Boston. Balliol’s father had been a prominent Boston lawyer, who had died some years previously, leaving his family absolutely nothing. Balliol himself had made a little money after leaving college, and some years before had gone on a ranch in the northern part of the State. There he had struggled along, fighting a losing game against the lean wolf, poverty, and so forth. In desperation to sell his ranch, he had committed suicide. They story was played up absolutely as that of a man weary of striving against the world, and had evidently been obtained from friends of Balliol.

For that very reason it left me dazed and bewildered! Four months previously, John Balliol had bought a five-thousand dollar car—a fact of which the newspaper was ignorant. That did not look like the grim wolf stuff. He had expressly told me that the car “cost him” that amount—not that it had been presented to him.

Of course he had wanted money very badly on those two days when I had seen him. But he had got the money; so why the deuce had he killed himself? The paper stated that his hotel bill in Los Angeles, where he had been stopping five days, had been unpaid, and that his personal effects amounted to nil. What the deuce had he done with my eleven thousand dollars, then? The thing began to look queer.

Investigating more thoroughly, I discovered that Balliol had been known at the bank which had identified him for me; but that he had no account there. One of the bank officers had known him in college. That was all. Nothing was known about his having sold anything to Yorke Desmond; my checks had not been found upon him, and neither had my money. By the time this information came out, the paper would hardly consider it worth reviving the affair. Balliol had killed himself, the present article made a plausible story, and nothing else mattered. He had certainly “gone west” of his own volition and act, and motives were unimportant.

Yet I knew that he had not killed himself because of poverty! The man had been afraid of something—that was it! As I sat there and stared at the paper, I felt absolutely convinced that, if the truth were known, John Balliol had killed himself to escape from something that had made him a nervous, fear-filled wreck! What had happened last night to make him plunge over the brink?

Realizing all of a sudden that I was outstaying the noon hour and my welcome, I paid the waitress and asked to use a telephone. By dint of paying the fee in advance, I got Los Angeles by long distance, and presently was speaking with the cashier of my bank.

“Yorke Desmond speaking,” I informed him. “I’m in Paso Robles and going north to the ranch I bought. Just saw the paper about Balliol. Did he cash my checks?”

“No, Mr. Desmond,” returned the cashier. “If they are presented, we’ll take every step to verify the endorsement of course. It seems to be quite a mystery.”

“All right, thanks. Address me at Lakeport in case of need.”

I rang off and left the place, stuffing the newspaper into my pocket. One thing was certain: the reporter had got the wrong steer from Balliol’s friends! Balliol had not killed himself because of poverty—not in the least. Why, he had told me that he had furnished his ranch house with all electric appliances and the best furniture he could get in San Francisco! No; his grim struggle had been one fine little myth. But it had satisfied the press, and had evidently been meant to satisfy the press—why? To keep the real truth concealed, of course. His friends were shielding him.

It was none of my business, but I could not help checking up on my private convictions. First, John Balliol had been afraid of something—either something in his past, such as disgrace which was hounding him, or something tangible and terrible in his present. Second, this fact was known to those in most intimate touch with him, and was being kept quiet.

Thinking thus, and being more or less absorbed in my trend of thought, I came back to the main street and my bright-hued car. A crowd of natives were standing about in admiring comment, which tended to make me want to get away from there. I jumped in and released the brake, pressed the starter, and was off. Regardless of warning signs, I went through town on second at a pretty good clip, then eased down into third and hit for San Francisco at an even thirty.

“Damn the whole affair!” I said aloud. “What if those checks were stolen from him last night—”

As the words left my lips, I heard a subdued gasp, then an exclamation. It came from the rear section of my car! I flung one startled glance over my shoulder, then I switched off the mag and put on the brakes. As we came to a halt, I half turned in my seat and stared blankly at the young lady and the suitcase.

She was staring at me just as blankly—more so, in fact; she seemed undeniably frightened. She had the suitcase on the short rear seat beside her, and it was a very good suitcase, of expensive make.

“Who—who—what are you doing in this car?” she stammered, anger creeping into her voice.

I was up against it, somehow; just how, I was not at all sure. She seemed perfectly sane, and I liked her voice immensely. I liked her face, too. It was a healthy, sensible sort of face, and it was exquisite into the bargain. She was dressed in a traveling suit which spelled something better than California tailoring.

“Who are you?” she demanded, half startled and half angry. “Answer me! What are you doing with this car?”

“Driving it, madam,” I answered. “I—er—I trust you don’t mind?”

She stared at me again. I removed the big, yellow goggles, pushed up my cap, and threw open my duster.

“Now,” I said comfortably, “we’re on an even basis. Since you wear gloves, I presume you are not a Californian—probably a mere Californiac. I hope you won’t think me offensive when I say that this is literally a charming surprise! Probably there’s been a mistake somewhere. I don’t see possibly how I can have got into the wrong car—”

“Stop that nonsense!” she cried out; and I observed that he had very blue eyes, and remarkably pretty eyes. “Drive this car back instantly!”

“Back—where?” I inquired. “Back—”

“Have you stolen this car?” she flung at me as if she really thought I had.

“No,” I said, and laughed. “No, madam. This car is protected from theft by reason of its color. No thief would attack it! The car belongs to me, it really does,” I went on, for her appearance of fright sobered me. “If you doubt it, look at the prescribed card here by the dash, which was legally affixed before I left Los Angeles. It bears my name and the car’s number—”

“Do you dare pretend that you are John Balliol?” she flashed out scornfully.

“Heaven forbid!” I said gravely. “Balliol’s dead. I bought the car, madam, day before yesterday. Only an hour ago I saw in the paper an account of his death—”

I curse the impulsive words. For she stared at me, her eyes slowly widening in horror, the color ebbing out of her face; then she collapsed in a dead faint.

CHAPTER III

I Receive A Warning

I had never had a fainting lady on my hands before, except once when Mrs. Wanderhoof, of Peoria, saw the Fifth Avenue apartment I had decorated for her, and looked at the bill. In that instance, Mr. Wanderhoof had assumed charge. But in this instance—

We were out of sight of Paso Robles, and there was not a soul nor a house in view. There was no water to throw on the girl’s face—she was no more than a girl, I judged—and the radiator water was apt to be dirty. So, not knowing what else to do, I swung over into the rear seat beside her and set her slim, drooping body upright against the cushions. As I did so, I was relieved to see her blue eyes flutter open.

Then I remembered a flask of whisky in the door-pocket, and produced it. I got the screw-cup to her lips, but at the first taste she pushed it away.

“Thank you,” she said in a low voice. “I—I am very well now.”

She seemed unable to take her eyes from me; the color slowly crept back into her cheeks, but in her eyes I read a bewildered fear.

Then she said something strange:

“You said—they killed Jack after all!”

I was puzzled. Jack! Oh, she must mean John Balliol. The poor girl—I must have given her a stiff jolt!

“No,” I said gently. “No one killed Balliol, madam. I have the paper here with an account of it; it was suicide. May I ask if you are a friend of his?”

She seemed to shudder slightly, and drew a long breath.

“Yes. I am a—a friend,” she said in a low voice, and flushed. I had the uneasy conviction that she was lying to me. “Your words were—a shock. I saw him only last night, before my train left—or, rather, yesterday afternoon.

“When this car passed the train this morning I felt that it was he; I knew we were ahead at Paso Robles, so I left the train and waited—and I saw the car and got in. When you came along, I thought it was Jack—and meant to surprise him—and when you spoke I discovered—”

She broke off, the words failing her. That told me the whole story, of course. Even from the train she had not been able to mistake this accursed car!

“But it was only six last night when I saw him! And my train did not leave until nearly midnight—there’s been a wreck somewhere, and the trains were all held up. It never occurred to me that he was not in the car—”

She broke off again, starting at me.

“My name is Yorke Desmond,” I said, trying to make matters smooth. To my dismay, I saw her eyes widen again with that same startled expression. I could have sworn that she had heard my name before.

“I met Mr. Balliol two days since, on business. I bought a ranch from him, in fact, and bought this car to boot. I’m on my way up to the ranch now. If, as I presume, you were en route to San Francisco, I shall be very glad to place the car at your disposal.”

She looked away from me, looked at the horizon with a fixed, despairing gaze. My dismay became acute when I perceived that she was going to cry. And she did.

“Oh!” She flung up her hands to her face suddenly. “Oh—and to think that it took place last night—right afterward! And now it’s too late—”

A spasm of sobbing shook her body. Not knowing what else to do, and feeling that I had been a blundering ass, I went for a walk and let her cry it out. All my married friends tell me that crying it out is the only solution.

As I paced down the roadside, I found myself extremely puzzled, even suspicious. She had admitted to me that she had seen Balliol the previous evening. But first, when she had not been on guard at all, she had cried out: “They killed Jack after all!” Upon hearing that Balliol was dead, she had immediately taken for granted that “they” had killed him! Things looked rather badly.

The initials on her suitcase, which I had seen, were M. J. B. Was she a Balliol? No; she had said that she was a friend, and had distinctly said “friend,” not “relative.” And she had been lying about it, somehow; a minute later she had lied when she told of seeing Balliol the previous night. For her train had not been late! It had left Los Angeles a little before midnight, on regular schedule. “Regular as clockwork,” had said the garage man as the train had passed us. I remembered that incident now.

This girl must have known Balliol pretty well. She had seen him last night, and he had gone from her to his suicide. And, by Heaven, she knew it! She was lying!

Well, this conclusion gave me quite a jolt, to be frank. That girl did not look like an ordinary liar, and she did not lie with practiced ease. Why should she deliberately set out to deceive me? I could not see any light whatever. And the mysterious “they” whom she took to be Balliol’s murderers!

The whole affair was strictly none of my business. As I walked back to the car, I took out my pipe and filled it. This girl was in trouble, and my best course was to mind my own affair and ask no questions.

When I had regained the car, I found that the girl had composed herself and was now staring at the horizon again—a poor, crumpled bit of exquisite femininity. I removed my cap and addressed her.

“Madam, it seems that there has been a mistake somewhere. Please consider me at your service in any way possible! If you want to get to Frisco, we can reach there tonight, I believe.”

Her gaze came to me for a moment, and she drew a deep breath.

“Thank you, Mr. Desmond,” she said quietly. But she did not give me her name. “Jack told me of selling his ranch to you, but did not mention the car. That was how my mistake came to be made.”

Her lips quivered, and she looked down. Then she forced herself into calm again.

“If—if it would not be asking too much, will you take me on to San Francisco with you?” she pursued. “I’m very sorry indeed to have made this terrible blunder.”

“It will be entirely my pleasure, madam,” I returned rather pointedly. But she did not take the hint, and obviously intended to keep her identity to herself. So I got into the car, and, as I did so, removed the paper from my pocket.

“Here is the newspaper in question,” I added, handing it to her.

She took it in silence and leaned back again.

I started the car, and we went on.

For the remainder of the afternoon the two of us exchanged scarcely a word. Once or twice I attempted to divert her thoughts by comments upon the road or the country, but she discouraged my efforts quite visibly. I was too occupied with the road, which again alternated good with bad, to let my mind dwell upon the mystery of the girl.

We made time, however. I took the chance of speed-cops, and let out the Paragon on the good stretches. To my satisfaction, we got into Salinas a trifle before seven o’clock, with fine boulevard all the rest of the way to San Francisco.

“We have about a hundred and twenty miles ahead,” I remarked to my companion as we rolled into Salinas. “We had better get a bit to eat here, for we can’t make Frisco before ten or eleven o’clock. I imagine you had no luncheon,” I added hastily, seeing a refusal in her eye, “so I must really insist that you eat something.”

She had been crying again, but assented composedly to my request. We located a Greek restaurant, and went in together. After a cup of execrable coffee and some alleged food, we felt better.

“Now for the last lap!” I said cheerfully as we came out again to the car. “I haven’t much faith in the speed-cop myth, so we’ll let her out while the going’s good. All set?”

“Yes, thank you,” she responded, settling herself in the rear.

We started north, and the Paragon flitted along like a bat out of purgatory. She was a sweet boat for speed. When it got gloomy I threw on the headlights and the big spotlight which formed a part of her equipment, and we zoomed past the California landscape in the finest fashion imaginable. These vast stretches of country were entirely different from driving around New York, and I liked the change immensely; it was intoxicating!

Then we came to the extraterritorial suburbs of San Francisco, after getting through San Jose and Palo Alto and safely past the military camp. I am not at all certain where the spot was, but I know the Paragon was hitting a pretty good clip when into the cone of light beside and ahead of us flashed a man on a motorcycle. He passed us like a flicker, then he slowed down and extended his hand.

“Good night!” I remarked, with sinking heart. “There was a basis for the myth after all.”

When we were halted, the motorcycle planted itself at my elbow, and the officer took out his pencil and pad.

“Know how fast you were going?” he inquired.

“I’m afraid to guess,” I said meekly. “Your word’s good, officer.”

“I made it fifty-eight,” he observed. “Also, there’s a headlight-law in this State and you’ve got a blaze of lights there that would blind a shooting star. And your taillight is on the bum. That’s three counts. You seem to be sober.”

“Thank Heaven, I am!” I returned. “Anything else?”

He grinned, and took down more information about me than would have filled a passport. Then he gave me a slip and told me to report to a certain San Francisco judge at ten in the morning.

“Isn’t there any way out of the delay?” I queried. “I’m trying to get north in a hurry.”

“So I judged,” he retorted. “Too much of a hurry. Well, I must say you’ve took it like a gent—Tell you what! Run along with me, and we’ll drop in on a justice of the peace. This is a first offense, so you can give bail—and forget it. See? Of course, we’re not supposed to give this info, but—”

“But you’re a gentleman,” I added, “and I’ll make it right with you. If you can fix that taillight of mine, I’d appreciate it.”

Half an hour later we were once more on our way, with full instructions as to the proper rate of speed; and I was minus fifty-five iron men, and lucky to get off that cheaply. But the whole thing had delayed us so that it was hard on midnight when we saw the gay white way of Van Ness Avenue off to our left. I halted the car and turned around.

“Asleep, comrade? No? Well, if you’ll be good enough to give me orders, I’ll take you wherever you’re going.”

M. J. B. gave me the name of a hotel on Sutter Street where she was known favorably, it seemed, and instructed me to drive up Van Ness. She appeared quite at home in the city. I followed her instructions, and ten minutes later drew up before the doorway of a quiet family hotel. I helped her out of the car with her suitcase, but she refused to let me take it inside for her. She held out her hand.

“Thank you, Mr. Desmond, for your kindness,” she said earnestly. “And—I’ve been trying to think over what’s right to do. Would you take some very serious advice from me?”

“I’d take anything from you,” I said smiling. “Shoot!”

“I am not joking, Mr. Desmond,” she made grave response. “Please, please do not go to the ranch! I can’t give you any reasons; but I mean it deeply. For your own sake, do not go on to the ranch! Not until the end of the month at least. Good-by!”

She picked up her suitcase and was gone, leaving me staring after her.

CHAPTER IV

I Hear a Bullet

Out of sheer decency, I had to seek another hotel, naturally. I did not pay much attention to M. J. B.’s warning. At midnight, after a tremendously hard day’s ride in a car, after a stiff shock and a fainting-spell, the girl would be in pretty bad nervous condition. I took for granted that she was overwrought, and let it go at that.

As I wanted to reach Lakeport the next night, and had a plentitude of bad roads ahead, I was up and off at seven the following morning. Ferrying over to Sausalito delayed me, and before getting to San Rafael I was off on a detour which took me around nearly to Petaluma. The road was fair, but outside Petaluma I picked up a tenpenny-nail held upright by a scrap of wood, and it took one of my cord tires in a jiffy. Fixing that held me up a little while.

I got to Santa Rosa in time for an early luncheon, and discovered that I was going to make Lakeport in the afternoon, barring accidents. This was good news. I also discovered that the last place I could get any liquid refreshment was at the famous tavern kept by one McGray, on ahead. So, about one o’clock, I drew up before the wide-spreading place, in the shade of the immense oaks that shade the tavern-grounds, and went in to get a long, slim drink.

In view of the after-developments of that same day, it might be well to set down that I had one drink, and one only. Upon returning to my car, I came to an abrupt halt in some astonishment. A young man was standing by the off rear wheel, and he was not observing me at all. He was well dressed, but rather swarthy in complexion; this country was full of Italian, French, and Swiss grape specialists, as I had learned coming north, so there was no stating the antecedents of the young man. What interested me, and seemed to be absorbing him, was the fact that he had a knife in his hand and was industriously pecking away at one of my rear tires!

At times I yield to impulse, and this was one of the times. I reached that young man in two jumps and banged him solidly into the car, then jerked him upright and planted my fist rudely against his nose, allowing him to sprawl in the dust.

He picked himself up and went away in a hurry, swearing as he went.

“Of all the infernal deviltry!” I exclaimed as he vanished among the trees. “That fellow certainly had his nerve—”

I was relieved to find that he had effected no damage, beyond a hole in the casing that had not yet reached the breaker strip. Taking for granted that he had had a drop too much, I climbed into the car and departed.

Within no long time I had reached the village of Hopland, my destination on the highway. From here a toll-road ran over the hills to Lakeport, and I turned off without pause in the village, thankful that the end of my trip was in sight—as I thought.

That road was a brute—thick with dust, barely wide enough for two cars to pass, and with crumbly edges and a sheer drop at that, and a steep up-grade for five solid miles! In places it was a very beautiful road, winding up between forested growths of redwoods and giant conifers. As I nursed the Paragon up that road at fifteen miles an hour I had plenty of time for reflection.

Back to questions again. Out of the general muddle these had resolved themselves into certain distinct and coherent queries; and they fell under two heads:

John Balliol:

1. Whom had he been afraid of, and why? Unknown.

2. What had brought him to suicide? Not poverty, certainly.

3. What had he done with my checks? When they were cashed I would know.

4. Why had he needed the money by a certain night—the night he was to meet M. J. B., the night he killed himself? Unknown.

M. J. B., the Fair Unknown:

1. What was her connection with Balliol? Mystery.

2. Did his suicide hinge on his meeting with her? Problematical.

3. She had said: “They killed him!” Were “they” microbes or gunmen? Unknowable.

4. Why her warning against my going to the ranch?

My answer to that final query was: “Because she liked me!” It was a satisfactory answer, too. It made me glow happily. I had always been a sedate bachelor, but I must say that M. J. B. was the most attractive girl I had ever met, and to find her interested in me was, to say the least, very pleasing.

My only regret was that I had left her in San Francisco. I thought of going back to the city as soon as I had inspected my ranch—

Just then I observed that my radiator was boiling, what with the grade and the hot sun; and ahead of me was a spring beside the road, with a turnout. I halted the car at the turnout, baled cold water into the radiator with a rusty tin can, and sat down to smoke and let my engine cool off. It was a cool and pleasant spot, under lofty pines.

I was just knocking out my pipe when I heard voices and the creaking of a vehicle. Around the sharp bend ahead came a horse and buggy, the latter occupied by three men. All three carried rifles and knives, and beneath the buggy trotted a big hound. They nodded to me and drove to the spring, letting the horse have a mouthful. Obviously, they were natives.

“Good afternoon,” I returned their greetings. “Why the artillery? Sheriff’s posse?”

They grinned and laughed.

“Deer season opened yesterday,” one of them replied. “Thought you’d come up from the city for the same reason.”

“Not I,” was my answer. “Plenty of deer around here?”

“That’s what they say—but there ain’t none when we want to get ’em. Most of the folks in Lakeport are out, from the Chink laundryman to the sheriff.”

They drove on down the trail, but as they went I could see that they were looking back and making observations—probably on my car. Until they passed out of sight at the next curve they were still staring backwards and discussing something: either me or the car. I took for granted that it was the car, and it was.

The deer season did not interest me particularly, because I have no taste for hunting. Cursing the foot-thick dust in the road, I got into the car and went on.

At last, to my deep relief, I attained the summit of the divide, where the tollgate was located. I paid my dollar fifty and had a magnificent view of Clear Lake in the distance amid the hills, then started downward. The descent was steep enough and winding, but three miles of it brought me to the floor of the valley, in a region of jackpine and brush and hogbacks.

And, as I turned a quick curve, there before me in the road stood two deer—does. For the fraction of an instant they gazed at me, then they flung away. Like brown streaks they went over the nearest hill and were gone. Instinctively I halted the car, gazing after the graceful creatures. A moment later, I shoved my foot toward the starter, but I was still staring at the hillside; instead of touching the starter, my foot touched the accelerator—and touched it with a particular pet corn. I smothered an oath and leaned far forward to clutch my aching tow, for the stab of pain was acute. And, as I leaned over thus, a bullet came exactly where I had been sitting, at about the height my head had been.

I know it was a bullet, because I heard it—and because the effect was terrific. It plumped through the rear of the top, on one side; it passed above me, and its shrill song was lost in a rattling smash of glass as it took the top half of my windshield into slivers. Then came the crack of a rifle to prove that it had been a bullet.

If I had not happened to lean over, and to lean over pretty far, that bullet would have finished me—sure!

My first instinct was to start the car and get away; then I checked the impulse and slid out to terra firma. Someone not very far off was shooting recklessly, and it made me angry.

Hopping out in the road, I stared around. Naturally, I saw nobody. If any hunter had mistaken the maroon top for a deer, he was not advertising his mistake to me.

“Shove fer home, Balliol!” cried out a rough voice. “Shove quick, or he’ll give ye a closer one!”

The voice came from somewhere behind and to the left of the car. Balliol! I was being mistaken for Balliol—and there was no mistake being made!

As this astounding fact percolated to my brain, I wasted no time asking questions, but climbed into the car, started her up, and rolled away from here in a hurry. Balliol! Who in the name of goodness was trying to assassinate John Balliol?

In that rough voice from the hillside had been a deadly earnestness which had impelled me to flight; it brought home to me in a flash that I was up against something serious. Under the blue sky, under the hot August sunlight, the thing was extremely matter of fact. I thought again of the young man who had been jabbing my tire, and of the warning administered by M. J. B. The sequence was pretty plain!

Absurd as it seemed, this land-cruise of mine was actually taking me into perilous waters.

It was the fault of car, of course; people though that Balliol was driving it. As I rattled across a bridge and entered upon excellent dirt roads, the realization cheered me immensely. Balliol had admitted that he had gotten into trouble up here of a private nature. Well, the minute his enemies discovered that I was not John Balliol, but Yorke Desmond, I would be left alone! Yet why, in such case, had the girl warned me? I gave it up.

With a suddenness for which I was unprepared, Lakeport jumped into my immediate foreground. I had anticipated a county seat of some importance, but I found it a village straggling along the lakeshore, with a single main street and outlying residences. The valley had been settled by Missourians back in the fifties—and they were still here.

Presently I descried a charming square and courthouse, with a fine new Carnegie Library down by the lakefront. Except for a couple of docks and some moored launches and houseboats, the lakefront consisted of reed-beds and was not beautiful. But the lake itself, with the mountains opposite, was magnificent!

Volcanic action had done its work well in this place, and it was the sweetest spot I had seen in California. Once the town was wakened from its sleepy repose, it would be a second Geneva.

As the deed to my ranch had been sent on here for recording, I drove directly to the courthouse, left the car, and walked up to the county recorder’s office on the right of the main building. There I found everything in order and awaiting me. I inquired for the sheriff, meaning to set him on the trail of my near-assassin, but found that he was hunting deer. So was everyone else in town who could get away, even as my hunter-informants had stated.

I walked half a block to the bank, with whom my Los Angeles bank had corresponded. The bank was closed, for it was after four o’clock, but I telephoned and obtained admission. I presented my credentials to the banker, an extremely cordial chap, and asked directions to my property. He showed me exactly where my ranch lay and outlined the road.

“Tell me one thing confidentially,” I inquired; “do you know why Balliol left here? Do you know anything against that property—any reason why I shouldn’t have bought it?”

“Certainly not!” he answered with evident surprise. “Balliol left because of his health, I believe, and for no other reason. The property is absolutely good, and a give-away at the price, Mr. Desmond! You got a good thing.”

He was in earnest, beyond a question. But as I sought the street again I found myself wishing that he had phrased it in some other fashion than “because of his health.”

After my late experiences, it had an ominous sound!

CHAPTER V

I Discover Skulls

I stopped at the hotel that night and the next morning departed to my ranch. It lay about twenty miles from town, by road, as I had to get around Mount Kenocti to reach it. By water it would be much closer. The ranch lay at the edge of the lake, and Balliol had done his clearing with the eye of an artist. The house itself was built of rough-hewn timber and cement, and was admirably situated at the edge of a small bluff over the water; about it stood gigantic white oaks, while the orchard ran back on the other side of the road.

Although I had half expected more excitement on my trip, I met with nothing untoward.

In Lakeport I had loaded up with camping supplies, a bit of forethought which came in handy. As I ran down the side road to the house and opened up the gates I was filled with delighted anticipation; with half an eye I could see that the place was a gem of beauty! The gates open, I ran the car inside, then shut the gates again. I was in my own domain at last.

Fortunately, I had telephoned the electric people on the previous afternoon, so that I found the electricity turned on—the place was on the power-line, which in California gives right to the juice, whether it be in a desert or a mountain canyon.

Of course, one expects to get something for ten thousand cash; but as I opened up the house and saw what things were like, I was astounded.

Balliol must have laughed in his sleeve at finding me to be an interior decorator. The place was furnished—literally crammed—with things which, in New York, would have been beyond price. They had come over with the Missourians in prairie schooners, and Balliol had bought them at various farms for a song.

There were two rosewood pianos, one an importation from Holland; several antique clocks, with original glass, in running order; the chairs were fiddlebacks of crotch-mahogany; there were two satinwood cabinets, genuine Sheratons. And the beds! Each of the two bedrooms was furnished completely in walnut; not the burl walnut of the late Victorian days, but the old carved French walnut of the earliest period. All in all, that furniture was a delight to the heart.

On the more practical side, the place was ready for use, from the bedding to the electric stove in the kitchen. By the time I had investigated everything and opened up the house, the morning was nearly gone, and it was about eleven o’clock when I descended the short path that ran down the bluff to the lakeside. Here was a boathouse, with a short dock beside it; when I had gained access to the boathouse by means of Balliol’s keys, I found a launch of small size but sturdy construction, and a fine Morris canoe. Fishing tackle swung that walls, and in one corner was a drum half filled with gasoline.

I took out my pipe and sat down in the launch. Not only was everything here which Balliol had described, but more—much more. To think of what I had dropped into astounded me. It was much too good to be true!

The acres of fruit-trees, which must be worth a good sum as income property, could no doubt be rented to neighbor ranchers. I resolved to see about it at once. All I wanted was this house and what was in it—no gentleman’s ranch for mine, but a gentleman’s country home.

My ideas had changed since seeing the place. Brought face to face with pear and walnut trees, as it were, I lost enthusiasm; fishing, tinkering with old furniture, and painting suited my lazy inclination a good deal better.

“I’ll get something to eat,” I said, knocking out my pipe into the water, “then I’ll try out the launch and visit the neighbors, and see about renting the orchard. It has a crop on right now, so it ought to be a good thing.”

I trudged back up the path, and when I reached the house I noticed a curious thing. The foundations were of cement, and a low cement wall-foundation ran the full length of the front veranda. There were a number of curious projections from that cement, and when I came up to the wall and examined them I found that they were human skulls!

The gruesome find rather staggered me. They were real skulls, set in the cement wall so as to project three or four inches, and they were in good condition. I am not superstitious, and I had no objections to this scheme of decoration on personal grounds; but it struck me that Balliol had carried his search for novelty just a bit too far.

“It’s only a step from beaux arts to bizarre,” I reflected, “and my friend Balliol seems to have taken the step. Where did he get ’em I wonder? Two—four—six—an even half dozen! Wonder if he put any more inside? I didn’t notice them—”

I hastened inside the house, my thoughts on the big hearth and chimney of cobbles; but I confess that to my relief I found it was quite lacking in further remains. All the skulls were outside.

With that, I paid little more attention to the matter, practically dismissing it from my mind—and for excellent reasons. I passed out on the veranda, meaning to go around to the car at the side of the house, and get my provisions; but at the first step I came to a dead halt, with a cold chill at my throat.

Upon the cement floor of the veranda were wet tracks; they began at the door and ended abruptly in the middle of the floor.

Yet the veranda was empty.

Those were not the tracks of a man. Something in their very appearance sent queer horror rippling through me, sent my gaze quickly over my shoulder at the empty house.

I had been gone not twenty minutes; these tracks were still wet, and whatever had made them must have come from the lake while I was down there.

Undeniably shaken by the mystery of it, I rushed back through the house to the back door. Absolutely nothing was in sight; I ran around the house, past the car, and saw nothing.

At the edge of the bluff I could see the shoreline below—and it was deserted.

I came back to the veranda and stared again at those tracks, now fast drying. They frightened me; there was something about them vaguely unnatural! And never in my life had I seen anything like them. Of course, I had opened the wide veranda window, and a bird might have walked in, then flown out and away—

But, a bird of this size? A bird from the lake? There was no other water, except in the well behind the house, from which the house itself was supplied by an electric motor.

And were those the tracks of any bird alive? I doubted it. The size was immense; the shape was that of a small central foot, with four immense toes—and beyond these the marks of long claws, unless I were mistaken!

What was the thing—monster or hallucination? I tried to argue that I was self-deceived, and I failed miserably. There were the wet prints on the cement before my eyes, slowly drying away! They could not have been made more than a few moments before I returned from the boathouse.

I felt suddenly prickly cold and very uncomfortable, and turned into the house. To go ahead with luncheon was, for the moment, impossible. I went into the living room, and, as I passed one of the two pianos, I suddenly descried a book lying open upon it.

I paused to glance at the book; to my astonishment I saw upon the printed page a cut of the exact print which I had seen on the veranda. Beneath the illustration was the legend:

Fossil imprint of Pterodactyl,

Marsh Collection, Yale College.

The realization smote me like a blow, as I leaned over the book and read. Balliol had left the book open here, of course! Balliol had seen the same prints—or had he seen the thing itself? Had he seen the living actual pterodactyl, the creature that had become extinct when the world began, the flying dragon of myth and legend? He had seen the tracks, at any rate, just as I had seen them.

This proved that I was under no delusion about those prints. But—was the thing credible? It was not. The bowl of this lake was an ancient volcano, the whole valley was of volcanic creation; mineral springs abounded; a few miles distant were quicksilver mines; the water in my own well was mineralized. Now, I had read stories about prehistoric monsters coming back to the world via extinct volcanoes and bottomless lakes, and so forth—stories, that is, which were purely fiction. Had such a thing really come about here in Lake County, California, upon my own ranch?

“Not by a damn sight!” I exclaimed, throwing the book across the room. “Balliol was frightfully nervous; I’m not. He may have been frightened out of here by his imagination—but I’m going to be shown!”

Then and there I dismissed the unnatural fears which had shaken me. If the creature existed, I would shoot it; if the whole affair were one of those queer mental quirks which come to all men, if the prints were caused by some natural agency not at the moment obvious to my deduction, well and good.

I went around to the car and hauled in my provisions. The electricity was on in the house, and I got the electric range working and managed to make myself a fairly decent meal. At times I found myself desirous of casting quick glances over my shoulder, at windows or doors, but I repressed it firmly. I was not going to get into Balliol’s condition if I could help it.

Lunch over, I dragged a rocker to the veranda and enjoyed a smoke, with the beauties of the lake outspread before me. By reason of a deep indendation of the lakeshore, the bluff on which my house was built faced almost due east; opposite me, across the bight, I saw the roofs of a farmhouse, doubtless my nearest neighbor in that direction.

It occurred to me that if I wanted to talk business, the noon hour would be an excellent time to do it.

So I went down to the boathouse again, opened up the water doors, and filled the boat’s tank with gas. She was in good shape, and almost with the first turn of the wheel the spark caught. A moment later I was chugging out into the lake, feeling intensely pleased with myself, and I headed directly down to my neighbor’s dock among the tules or reeds.

The neighbor himself I found sitting on his front porch. He was a brawny, bearded man of stolidly slow speech, Henry Dawson by name. I introduced myself as the new owner of Balliol’s ranch, and was in turn introduced to Mrs. Dawson and two strapping Dawson boys. They all eyed me with frank curiosity.

I lost no time in setting forth my business. Dawson, like all farmers, was content to let me talk as long as I would. When I cautiously broached the subject of renting my land, however, he nodded his head in slow assent.

“Ought to rent,” he stated, as though he thought just the opposite. “Maybe. Don’t know as folks would want the house, though.”

“I want that myself,” I said. “What I want to rent is the fruit land. Could you handle it?”

At this direct assault, he hemmed and hawed. He was a very decent chap, however, and when I make it clear that I was not after extortionate rentals he came around quickly. I could see the house had killed the place, for some reason.

“Just what’s the matter with that house?” I demanded, while he was making up his mind about rental. “Is it those skulls in the front wall?”

“Blamed if I know,” he rejoined slowly. “Reckon it’s that, much as anything. Gives folks a creepy feelin’.”

“Why didn’t Balliol get along there?”

He gave me a slow stare. “Get along? Why, I guess he got along all right. He was kind o’ queer in his ways, ye might say; but he got along right well, Mr. Desmond.”

“Where on earth did he get those skulls, though?”

“Dug ’em up right on the ground, I heard. He done all the work himself on that house, except what he hired done. Guess it was an old Injun cemetery; there was a heap of Injuns here in the old days. Quite a bunch here yet. They sent ’em to a reservation, but the poor devils got homesick and were ’lowed back. Right prosperous farmers, some of ’em, today. Well, about that orchard, I reckon we can manage it if we settle on the right terms.”

We settled, then and there, at terms which were satisfactory to both of us.

CHAPTER VI

I Buy a Gun

I asked Dawson about big birds, but he said there was nothing larger than a buzzard around the lake; and presently I went home again. The rest of the day passed quietly, and after writing a few letters, chiefly on business, I went to bed and slept the sleep of the just.

I was well satisfied with my new home, and for the coming six months my partner in New York could run the decorating business without my aid, so there was nothing to worry me.

The next morning I was up and off early, this time in the canoe, and got in an hour’s fishing before sunrise. Although it was distinctly the wrong season for fish, I trolled down along the shore off the reed-beds, and picked up two fine bass, both over three pounds.

About sunrise I headed for home, well content with results. I wanted to visit Lakeport this morning, chiefly to see if there was any news from my Los Angeles bank about those checks. That Balliol had struggled along in poverty on his ranch, as the newspaper account had said, was quite absurd; that he had died in poverty, with eleven thousand dollars in his pocket, was entirely nonsensical.

Across the little bay from my place I paused suddenly. I had already learned from neighbor Dawson that Balliol had obtained his skull-decoration from relics of the red men, so their gruesomeness was removed in some measure. But—that did not explain what I now saw.

As it chanced, I had found a pair of field-glasses in a niche in the cobbled chimney, and had brought them along. Now I raised and focused on my house; rather, on the front wall under the veranda, where the skulls were located. To my uneasy surprise, I found my eyesight corroborated. The eyes of those six skulls were gleaming and flaming with a brilliant crimson!

Optical delusion? Not a bit of it. Reflections from the rising sun to the bone-level? Not a bit of it; such reflections would not come in a scarlet flame from the eyes of each and every skull. They were reflecting the lurid sunrise squarely at me, of course; but those hollow eye-sockets were filled with red fire.

I dropped the glasses, seized the paddle, and spurted for home, savagely determined to run down the uncanny hoodoo which had settled on this house of mine. As I drew nearer to my landing, I could see those red skull-eyes flaming more and more distinctly. There was no optical illusion whatever.

Then I was in the boathouse beneath the bluff, and of course the house was shut from view. Making fast the canoe, I paused to pick up a broken oar to serve as club, then ran up the path. Puffing, I gained the bluff in front of the house.

“Confound it!” I exclaimed blankly. “Am I going off my head?”

The crimson flame was gone from the skull-eyes. There was not a sign of it. In the sockets the white cement came close to the surface, and there could be no mistake.

I was completely taken aback by this startling development.

Of course, I told myself, there must be an explanation. Perhaps the sand in the cement was glassy, and at certain angles reflected the sun—that would be plausible in a single instance, but it would not do for twelve eye-sockets. Whatever the explanation might be, it was certainly beyond my comprehension. Then, again, the color of those eye-sockets had been a distinct blood hue.

As I stood there staring at the cement wall, I jumped suddenly. From the kitchen of the house came a banging crash, and I remembered a double boiler I had set out on the stove. Someone—or something—was in the kitchen, and had knocked it over!

Swearing under my breath, I leaped to the veranda and ran through the house. Now, I glanced at every room in my course; and I can swear that the house was absolutely empty. So was the kitchen when I reached it. Yet by the stove, whence it had obviously been knocked by some direct agency, the double boiler lay on the floor, a pool of water surging from it, and running directly to the stove from the doorway—but not back again—was a single line of muddy tracks. They were the tracks of the pterodactyl!

I was staggered, right enough. A prehistoric monster with a wing-spread of twenty-five feet does not hide easily in a bare kitchen; yet I looked around as if expecting to see the brute before me. Then I rushed to the windows. The yard was absolutely empty. The monster might be somewhere in the encircling trees; it might have flown out and down to the lake while I was coming through the house; but, by the gods; it had been here. Those muddy tracks on the floor reassured me, certified to my sanity and common sense.

Hastening outside, I looked around. The barn, which served as garage, was empty. I could discover no hole about the house where any such beast could hide. I flung my club whirring amid the nearest trees, and strode back into the house.

“Damn it!” I remarked as I set about cooking my two fish. “I’m going to get a shotgun and settle this mystery. I don’t believe in fictionists’ dreams coming true; and as for this flying dragon, I’ll settle him with buckshot if I get one crack at him.”

The red eyes of the skulls had paled into insignificance before this mysterious visitant, and I forgot the lesser matter for the time being. That double boiler knocked off the stove, and those muddy tracks, settled the pterodactyl once and for all as a living creature, and I meant to go after him. I only regretted that I must have missed him by less than a minute.

My second day in my new home was beginning in a way to make me realize why Balliol had come to Los Angeles with the jumps riding him.

An hour after these things happened I had closed up the house and was chugging merrily away from the boathouse in my launch. Navigation was no difficult problem here; I merely had to head straight up the lake, which I did. The voyage was monotonous, as are all launch trips in ordinary craft, and as I throbbed along the wind-ruffled water the memory of M. J. B. recurred to me with a twinge of self-irritation that I had not even her name.

Why had she warned me? And who was the dark-complected chap who had cut at my tires back at McGray’s Tavern? And who had fired that shot at me? These were perplexing problems, but M. J. B. was more perplexing yet. I once again pictured her face before my mental vision, the trim sweetness of her, the capable manner which she wore, the energetic womanhood that lay in her blue eyes—

“Hang it!” I exclaimed. “I’m getting romantic—it won’t do, Yorke Desmond! You’ll never see that girl again, so forget her.”

Easier said than done. I was still thinking of her as I tied up to the dock at Lakeport and walked uptown past the library to the main street. And within five minutes I was thinking of her again.

The telegraph-office was a dingy little place, messages being received here by phone. When I inquired for any wires, the young lady in charge handed me an envelope. I found it to be a night-letter from the cashier of my bank in Los Angeles. It read as follows:

Check for ten thousand, cashed yesterday First National, San Francisco, returned here this afternoon. Endorsements John Balliol, Martha J. Balliol. No further developments suicide. Good luck with ranch.

The ulterior meaning of this message gradually percolated through my brain, and I wandered forth to a bench on the courthouse square and sank to rest.

The check had been cashed the same morning I left San Francisco, and it had been cashed by Martha J. Balliol—no other than M. J. B.! No wonder she had seemed to know my name, when she must have borne in her pocketbook that check of mine! Balliol had given it to her the previous night, just before his suicide; so much was evident.

But—she had been Balliol’s sister, then! Why had she not admitted her identity? Perhaps she would have done so, I argued, but for the news of her brother’s death. After that, to find herself traveling in her brother’s car, with the man who had bought that car and the ranch to boot, must have disconcerted her immensely at first. And after telling me that she was a friend of Balliol, she probably had lacked the nerve to confess her white lie and give her real name. Perhaps she had merely considered it unnecessary.

I felt relieved. Folly though it undoubtedly was, I had indulged a secret conviction that M. J. B. was Balliol’s sweetheart; now she proved to be his sister, but although this fact afforded great relief, it none the less gave me new anxiety. I have always noticed that girls, especially very charming and attractive girls like Martha Balliol, are all too seldom free and heart-whole. Somebody else always seems to get acquainted with them first. That was one reason that I was still a bachelor!

But never had I met anyone like Martha Balliol. The more I thought about her, the more I felt like a fool for having left her in San Francisco as I had done. At last, realizing that I had bungled everything very sadly, and that it was now close to noon and I was hungry, I got up and sauntered toward the bank seeking information. On the way, however, I passed a hardware store, and bethought me of the pterodactyl. There was an attractive display of guns in the window, so I entered and besought the proprietor to sell me a shotgun.

“Want a license, I s’pose?” he inquired amiably. “I’m the game warden here, y’know. I dunno why you’re goin’ after deer with a shotgun—”

“I’m not,” I rejoined. “I’m going after pterodactyls, and there’s no closed season on them!”

He rubbed his chin, and with a mystified air agreed with me. “Well, I reckon not. Say, you the man just bought the Balliol ranch?”

“Yes. Desmond is my name.”

“Stark’s mine. Glad to meet ye. Seen any ghosts around there yet?”

“Ghosts?” I met his eye, and he chuckled. “What do you mean?”

“Well, that place is built right close to where the old Injun chiefs is buried, and I hear tell they’s ghosts around there at times.”

“Nothing doing,” I rejoined cheerfully. “Not so far, anyhow. Where’s the best place to get a meal in town?”

“Well, ye might go several places, but if I was you, I’d go up to Mrs. Sinjon’s, back o’ the courthouse.”

He directed me, and leaving the shotgun until after luncheon, I went to the boardinghouse back of the town square.

Ghosts, eh? That was a new angle. Had the natives played unpleasant jokes upon John Balliol, because of his skull decorations? No; the very notion was silly. Grave, stolid farmer folks like Dawson were not given to such trivial foolishness. Besides, Balliol’s affrighted nerves must have come from months and years of fear, not days or weeks. And jokes do not extend over months and years.

I found the boardinghouse simple and thoroughly delightful, the cooking wholesome, the company very mixed, ranging from a stage driver to an itinerant preacher. It was a warm noon, and conversation flagged. I was just finishing my meal, when, in the intermittent and broken-off speech of farming men, two workmen at the other end of the table spoke.

“Heard young Balliol’s sister come in this mornin’,” said one.

“Uhuh,” said the other, and looked toward the stage driver. “Good looker, Mac?”

The stage driver glanced up. “Got him beat all hollow,” he observed. “Come in on the morning train. Going up the lake, I reckon.”

I paid for my meal and departed, feeling a bit dizzy. Balliol’s sister! What the deuce was she doing here?

Calling for my gun at the hardware store, I arranged about mail at the post-office, then went down to the dock. And out on the dock, all alone, she was standing!

CHAPTER VII

I Make Discoveries

To see me sauntering along with a gun under my arm, seemed to cause her some alarm. And, too, she seemed very self-repressive; her greeting was cold. Then, with a quick change of mood, she smiled.

“Are you going hunting like everyone else, Mr. Desmond?”

“I am, Miss Balliol,” I responded.

An adorable flush stole into her cheeks, but her blue eyes did not falter.

“I must apologize for that,” she said simply. “It was abominable! But at first, I—I said that I was a friend—”

“And you turned out to be a sister,” I cut in. “Please, Miss Balliol, don’t explain; I figured it out for myself later on, and I understand perfectly. But, if it is not an impertinence, may I ask what on earth you’re doing here? This is an outlandish place in which to meet anyone—particularly a person of whom one has thought so much and often.”

Her gaze dwelt upon me thoughtfully, searchingly, even suspiciously.

“To be candid, Mr. Desmond, I hadn’t the least intention of confiding in you,” she stated coolly. “But I can’t help believing that you are honest—”

“Oh! Who said that I wasn’t?”

“You implied as much—by buying my brother’s property here.”

“Thanks,” I murmured, feeling pretty well dazed.

“I am going to Dawson’s farm for a short visit,” she went on. “If you care to see me there, I’ll be very glad to explain matters fully. I think the up-lake launch is about due.”

I did not know anything about the up-lake launch, but I took chances.

“No,” I said positively. “She ran on a mud bar this morning and is stuck with a broken propeller. If you want to get to Dawson’s, will you let me take you in my launch? There’s not another to be hired, I assure you. Besides, it will let us talk on the way.”

I have a suspicion that she knew that I was lying; but if so, she did not mind. At all events, she accepted my invitation. As she had only her suitcase, we were chugging away from Lakeport inside of ten minutes. She added to the mystery by stating that Dawson’s took boarders, and that, while she was totally unknown here, she had determined to pay a visit to the lake on business. I began to feel somewhat uncomfortable.

“There are several things to straighten out, Miss Balliol,” I observed. “First, your remarks about my honesty. Then, if you remember, when I told you about your brother, you exclaimed that ‘they’ had killed him—”

She whitened a little.

“Please!” She checked me swiftly. “Let me take things in order, Mr. Desmond. I should not have made that remark about your honesty; it required another apology from me. Now, let me get these things out.”

She opened her handbag and began to look over papers. Meantime, she went on to give me some idea of her brother’s past life, and of her own.

Balliol, senior, who had been a wealthy lawyer in Boston, had died suddenly, six years previously. He had left few resources except a family residence near Boston, and two small, undeveloped ranches here in Lake County. Martha Balliol had at once fitted herself for a position as stenographer, remaining at home with her mother. John Balliol, a boy nearly through Harvard, had come to California and had set to work developing the two ranches on Clear Lake.

He had worked like a Trojan, too. As the girl told me of what he had accomplished lone-handed, I felt a pang of pity for him. Two years before this present time, he had sold one of the ranches for a handsome sum. He had sent a large part of the money home to relieve conditions there and pay off the mortgage on the family home. Then, meaning to bring his mother and sister to Clear Lake, he had built his house on the twenty-acre ranch, and had built it well. The work had taken him nearly a year, for he had done most of it with his own hands.

During that time, however, some trouble had developed. To balance this, he had made money off his crops, and had ordered his Paragon car, specially built. What with one thing and another, he had spent every red cent that he could raise, being confident of the future.

“Then,” went on the girl, “the trouble increased. What it was, I don’t know; I can’t find out! He only wrote about it once, and then he sent this photograph. It explains itself, so far as I can discover. Jack must have made an enemy of this man, and took his picture while they were having an argument. That was like Jack—he had no lack of nerve.”

“Or of nerves either,” I added to myself, as I took the letter and picture which she handed me.

The picture was a kodak snapshot of a very angry young man shaking his fist at the camera. There was no doubt about his anger; a snarling, venomous rage was stamped all over him! As I recognized his face, however, an exclamation escaped me; for, beyond all question, it was the same swarthy young man who had tried to cut my tires at McGray’s Tavern.

“What’s the matter?” broke out Miss Balliol. “You know him?”

“I’ve seen him,” I commented. “Tell you about it in a minute.”

Beneath the picture was written: “John Talkso registering rage.”

Taking the letter, I read a marked paragraph. It dealt with the same John Talkso, a name whose very queerness made me wonder what nationality the young man could be. Balliol had not explained this, but had written:

Am having more trouble with the individual whose picture I enclose. However, I hope to obviate further trouble with him. The whole thing is so silly that one hesitates to write any explanation. Don’t worry about it.

That was finely indefinite, was it not? It was.

“About six months ago,” resumed Miss Balliol, “we got into terrible trouble, and I was afraid to write Jack about it, because we were trying so hard not to increase his worries. Mother was very ill and we had to mortgage the house again; then a private bank failed—a bank in which father had left us a block of stock. The stock had never been any good, and then on the failure of the bank we had to pay a tremendous assessment to secure the depositors—and that finished everything for us. Mother died suddenly. When it was all over, I wrote Jack what had happened. Then I went back to work.”

I did not hasten her recital, and she paused for a few moments. We were chugging merrily down the lake, and the heat of the sun was relieved by a cool breeze which brought stray locks of Martha Balliol’s hair about her face in distracting fashion.

“It was a hard blow to Jack, of course,” she went on. “Now, what has happened I don’t know and can’t discover, Mr. Desmond. He wired me a month ago to meet him in Los Angeles at once—he wrote little or nothing in the interim. I came to Los Angeles and he did not turn up; I could not get into touch with him at all. Then, one morning, he called me up on the telephone and told me to catch the night train to San Francisco, and to meet him at the station an hour before the train left.

“I felt that something terrible was happening, but he gave no explanation. When we met at the station, he was a nervous wreck, and he was frightfully mysterious about everything. He told me to go on to San Francisco and that I’d hear from him en route.”

“How did you recognize his car from the train?” I broke in. “You’d never seen it.”

“No, but he had sent us the colored picture when he had ordered it built, and he had sent photographs of it after he had received it—it’s such a distinctive car that no one could possibly mistake it!”

That was true enough, as I had discovered.

“Well, that night at the station,” she pursued, “Jack gave me an envelope and said to open it after the train had started; he made me promise him. Then he kissed me good-by and said not to worry, that he had fixed everything all right for me. That’s the last I saw of him, Mr. Desmond. Later—on the train—I opened his letter and found your check to him, with this note.”

She handed me a note in Balliol’s writing, which read as follows:

Dearest Sis:

The game’s up as far as I’m concerned; you’ll hear about it soon enough. They were too much for me at the ranch. They drove me out, to put it bluntly. If I hadn’t had too much cursed pride, I might have done otherwise; but I fought them, and now they’ll get me sure if I go back.

Besides this, I’ve got in bad with another deal. If I go through with it, then you’ll lose everything, and I can’t face it. I guess I’m pretty well broken down, sis. I’ve been a fool, that’s all. There’s only one way to secure to you what can be secured, and I’ve taken it. I’ve sold the ranch for ten thousand, which is far below its value, and enclose the check. Cash it immediately in San Francisco. Good-by, dear little sis, and make the best of it.

Jack

That was on the face of it a cowardly letter, considering that an hour later Balliol had killed himself; but I could not help remembering all that he must have endured and fought for in the past years.

“Still we haven’t solved the secret of the mysterious ‘they,’” I observed, “except that John Talkso, whoever he is, is concerned in it. This letter, too, speaks of another deal—vague and mysterious as ever. Miss Balliol, do you have any idea why your brother did what he did in Los Angeles?”

She shook her head. His suicide was still a mystery to her.

I told her about my encounter with John Talkso, and with the shot from the hills. She had warned me in San Francisco merely on impulse, for she had felt that there was something vaguely but distinctly hostile about that ranch; also, she had been distrustful of me, for she had imagined that I might have been concerned in some conspiracy to beat down the value of the ranch and get it cheap. There is the contradiction of woman for you!

Well, inside of twenty minutes we were on solid footing of friendship. I managed to convince her as to my entire ignorance of the trouble; and I could see that the poor girl had been driven nearly wild by the mystery which had shrouded Balliol’s latter days.

As we drew up the lake, I suggested to Martha Balliol that she might care to stop at the ranch and look over the house.

“There may be books or other personal belongings of your brother’s that you’d like to keep,” I explained. “Really, Miss Balliol, I’d feel much relieved if you’d go through his effects and take everything that you’d like to have. I’ve felt very badly over the deal, because I’ve seemed to take undue advantage of his circumstances; and I feel as though some reparation and expiation were due you.”

Later, I thought, I’d add at least five thousand to the purchase price of the ranch, but of course this was not the moment to broach such a matter. Since it was early in the afternoon, Miss Balliol thanked me and consented to stop in at the ranch, for Dawson’s lay just across the bay and we could run over there in ten minutes.

Accordingly, we ran in to the dock, and on this occasion there was no red flare in the skull-sockets. Nor did I say anything to her about the skulls, for the subject was not a very pleasant one to bring before the girl’s mind. I was careful to steer her up the hill and then around to the side of the house, and as we reached it, I heard a bell buzzing away.

“Hello!” I ejaculated. “I ordered the telephone unplugged this morning—the instrument was in, of course. Someone’s calling to see if the line’s working, maybe. Go right in and make yourself at home, Miss Balliol—I’ll answer the call.”

The telephone was in the kitchen, and a moment later I was at the instrument.

“Yorke Desmond speaking!” I said. “Hello?”

It was my friend the banker at Lakeport speaking; and what he had to say was one little earful—it certainly was! What he wanted from me was the address of John Balliol, for no one in these parts seemed to know that Balliol was dead. I wanted to know why he wanted it.

Being a banker, he was mighty hard to pin down and hold on the mat; but at last I made him cough up the information. It appeared that some time previously Balliol had gone on the note of a friendly rancher to the tune of six thousand dollars. Fire had wiped out the rancher’s property—this was over in High Valley—and the man himself had broken both legs in an accident; and it was up to John Balliol to make good the six thousand, now overdue.

“What date was it due?” I demanded. The banker told me. That note had become due the day after I had bought the Balliol ranch!

“You listen here,” I said, thinking fast. “I’ll come in to Lakeport tomorrow and see you; and I’ll make good that sum. Savvy? Never mind my reasons. I owe Balliol that money, so I’ll explain further tomorrow.”

I rang off and dropped into the nearest chair.

Light on the subject? I should say so! This was the “other deal” to which Balliol had referred; and he sure had been a fool to endorse the other man’s note. He knew it, also, and knew that to make it good would wipe him out. That was why he had given up the fight.

He had sold out his ranch to me at a give-away price, in order to secure the ten thousand to his sister. He had given her the money, then had killed himself. He had left no estate whatever. Whether or not the law could reach that ten thousand, I did not know; at all events, he had, of course, figured that it was safe to Martha. The banker had told me that Balliol had sent back one thousand from Los Angeles—the thousand which I had given him for his car, of course.

This explained Balliol’s haste to get the money. It did not explain the enmity which had existed between Balliol and this John Talkso, but of that I took little heed at the moment. Instead of giving Martha Balliol the extra five thousand, I would pay it over to the bank, clear Balliol’s name, and square myself with the dead man, as I looked at it. Martha Balliol need never know of it.

I had figured this out to my own satisfaction as the best possible course, when from the front of the house I heard a cry, followed by a scream. Then I remembered that cursed pterodactyl, for the first time!

CHAPTER VIII

I Go Hunting

Martha Balliol had fallen against the cobbled chimney of the fireplace, and lay in a crumpled heap, arms outflung. To my horror, I thought her dead—then I saw, upon the floor, the muddy tracks of the flying dragon. She stirred a little, and at the motion, I leaped for the door.

The room was empty save for the girl, but I knew that the creature was somewhere close at hand—and I had left the shotgun in the boat!

I went down the path like a madman, secured the gun, tore open the box of shells, and as I ran back up to the house I loaded both chambers. As I came to the doorway, I saw that Martha Balliol was sitting up, holding one hand to her head. She stared at me.

“What—what was it?” she exclaimed.

“That’s what I want to know.” I turned my back on her, perhaps ungallantly, to seek some sign of movement from the yard. Nothing stirred. If the thing had been here, it had gone quickly; it had vanished among the trees. “I heard you scream—”

“Something—someone—came up behind and pushed me.” Martha Balliol was standing now, and anger was flashing in her blue eyes. “I heard nothing at all; the surprise made me scream, and I must have fallen against the stones, here—”

She suddenly saw the tracks upon the floor, and paused. Her eyes widened with a swift fear as she pointed to them. I nodded carelessly, then left the door and placed a chair for her.

Without exaggeration, but omitting nothing, I told her about the skull-eyes which I had seen only that morning, and also of the pterodactyl. She listened in silence, but her incredulous gaze made me squirm a bit.

“You speak as if you believe it,” she commented at last.

“Look at the tracks for yourself!” I countered. Then, getting her Balliol’s book, I showed her the illustration in question.

That shook her fine scorn of the story. She declared herself quite unhurt and refused to let the matter drop; but sat in thoughtful silence for a little.

“There’s something queer about this house!” she said at last, and rose. “Let’s look at those skulls, Mr. Desmond! I believe Jack said something about them in one of his letters, but I don’t remember the exact words—they were Indian relics, I believe. He did not say that he was building them into the house!”

Together we went outside, and while she inspected the skulls, I scrutinized the trees and shores, but vainly. The devilish thing had hidden itself absolutely, and I could see no particular sense in going to find it.

“I can’t honestly say that I care for this scheme of decoration,” declared Martha Balliol. “Jack was always given to odd notions like this, however. As for your story of the red eyes—well, I’ll pass on it when I see them for myself! Now let’s go up and look at the house; that is, if you still care to have me do so.”

“Do you still want to?” I queried, surprised by her coolness. “You’ve had a shock—”

“I’ve been very silly, you mean,” she corrected me severely, as we walked toward the steps. “About this prehistoric thing, Mr. Desmond—didn’t you say that the steps always came in to the center of the room, then ended? The footprints, I mean. Well, that does not look right to me. Of course, the creature might have come so far, then have flown away—”

“You admit there’s a creature, then?” I struck in.

“I admit there’s something to make those tracks,” she said, and laughed merrily. “I wish I had looked over my shoulder when I felt the shove!”

“Perhaps the confounded place is haunted,” I said gloomily.

We spent half an hour going over the house. Miss Balliol picked out a few pictures and other things which she would like to have, and I promised to pack them up for her. She was planning to stay for a week or two with the Dawsons.

Although she did not say it in so many words, I realized that her reason for coming here had been to settle the mystery which surrounded her brother’s death. And she would settle it. There was no doubt that within a few days she would find out about that note at the bank. The other trouble, the trouble which had smashed Balliol’s nerves and which was somehow concerned with John Talkso, whoever he was, lay in the background unsolved.

So, when she had finished with the house, I told her frankly what the banker had just telephoned to me. To be more exact, I told it with some additions and evasions, for I did not think it necessary to say that I was paying off the five thousand. I got around that by saying that the creditor had paid up, having unexpectedly gotten some money, and that the banker had phoned to let Balliol know it was all right.

Beyond question I got things a little involved, but Martha Balliol did not probe the story. To her mind, her brother might still have been living had he only learned in time that he would not have to meet the note. It was a sad business, of course. Out of justice to the dead chap, I felt in honor bound to relate his reasons for suicide, which did his heart better credit that his head.

Yes, taking it up and down, it was a sorry and sordid and a dashed brave little story. Balliol was a fool and a coward, perhaps, but the thing he did was done in a bravely silent fashion.

Martha Balliol cried a little, and tried to laugh a little; but she finished with a clear and sober understanding of why her brother had killed himself. Then she said that she thought I had better taken her on to Dawson’s by road, the sun being pretty hot on the water; so I went out and got the car ready. And I kept the shotgun handy.

The road, which ran down along the lakeshore, was very dusty—the dust was six inches deep in places. This did not trouble the Paragon, of course, and we hummed into the Dawson yard in fine fettle. Mrs. Dawson was there to receive us, and under her wing Martha Balliol vanished almost at once.

I paused to help myself to a few nectarines from a tree near the house, then set forth for home. I drove rather fast, for the road was good; and I got almost to my own place when something happened. Both front tires blew at the same instant!

Fortunately the Paragon was a heavy boat, or we’d have gone topsy-turvy; as it was, I almost went into the trees. Of course cord tires do not act as those had acted without very definite reasons. The reasons were in the shape of stout nails, set in scraps of board which had been buried in the dust. I am afraid that I said some very unscriptural things as I drove home on the rims.

Who was the miscreant? The thing was intentional; those bits of board had been planted since I had left home. I cursed some more, while I sat working on the tubes and then pumping up the refitted tires sufficiently to reach Lakeport and an air hose.

One thing was sure: I had inherited John Balliol’s enemies! Of this I had not further doubt. If someone were lurking about the place, it was a case of catch or get caught! And the afternoon was young, or young enough, to do a good deal of catching in!

With these brilliant deductions crowding me into action, I began to use my head a little. Obviously, I had two sets of enemies—human and inhuman. The human type was very possibly the man John Talkso. The inhuman was the pterodactyl. I was as much concerned over one as over the other; and as I abandoned my tire labors and glanced up at the house, a sudden scheme struck me.

I picked up my shotgun and sauntered around to the front of the house. For a moment I stood at the lip of the bluff, watching the water and shore, planning just what I would do. Then I hurried down the path to the boathouse, and beneath its shelter laid the gun in the canoe and covered it with fishing tackle and some burlap. After this, I shoved out and paddled down the shore, away from Dawson’s.

Since I kept close in to the shore, I was in five minutes beyond sight of my place, and to anyone watching, was off for a fishing trip. But I jerked in to shore and landed before I had gone fifty feet farther. Pulling up the canoe, I stowed it among the bushes, took my shotgun, and struck directly up the steep slope.

It was a hard scramble, but I made it, and in fifteen minutes I gained the road, hot and puffing. I was not a mile from the house, and I went down the road at a good walking clip, certain of being unobserved. The trees to either hand effectually concealed me.

When at length the trees opened up to the left, I had an excellent view of my house and farmyard. I paused, made myself comfortable among the trees, got my pipe going, and began to watch, flattering myself that I had flanked the entire place very neatly. I was well placed to see whatever was going on. But nothing was going on, it seemed. Things happened around that place in bunches, and just now was a quiet moment.

I sat with the gun over my knees, and reflected that this had been a crowded day. It was very nice to think that Martha Balliol was just across the bay at Dawson’s farm. The neighborhood seemed very agreeable to me. Of course, the poor girl was overcome because of her brother, but this was a grief which lay in the past; she had nothing unhappy ahead of her. I wished that I were as sure of the same for myself—

Then, abruptly, in the sunlight-flooded clearing around my house, I saw that for which I had been watching and waiting!

CHAPTER IX

I Meet John Talkso

In plain sight of me, walking out across the open space toward my house, was a man. He carried a bucket in one hand, and a basket in the other hand. These he set down at the veranda steps, and then turned, scrutinizing the lake and shore. His face showed clearly.

A low word escaped me as I watched. I recognized that face on the instant; he was no other than the enemy of John Balliol, the man whom I had met at McGray’s Tavern—the man with the queer name of John Talkso! An instant later he had vanished inside the house.

“Now,” I said to myself, “here’s one mystery about to be solved in a hurry!”

A moment longer I waited. Talkso appeared again, stooped over the basket he had been carrying, and then went around to the front of my house; when he did there, I could not see. He reappeared, took up both bucket and basket, and went into the house.

I started for the house with the gun under my arm, both barrels loaded.

When I got safely over the gate and into the yard, I knew that I had my man this time; there was going to be an explanation! To judge from his attire when I had seen him at McGray’s Tavern, this Talkso had money—and he was going to settle what he owed me, chiefly in the matter of tires. What he was doing in my house was another thing. And if he had fired that bullet at me from the hills—

At that juncture I heard the telephone ringing. The kitchen windows were open and I stole toward the back entrance. An instant later, I heard a man speaking at the telephone; Talkso was answering the call! His infernal imprudence made me chuckle, for at the instrument he must be standing with his back to the door. He was playing directly into my hand!

“He’s not here—out fishing,” I heard him say. Somebody, obviously, was asking for me. “Who’s this? Oh, hello! This you, Sheriff West?”

There was a moment of silence, during which time I gained the back door and paused. Talkso was standing at the telephone, right enough, entirely unconscious of my presence.

“The hell you say!” he exclaimed suddenly, a snarling intonation in his voice. “None of your cursed business what I’m doing here, Mr. West! What? You come out here if you want to—I’ll be gone by then.”

Again he paused, and again made angry response to the sheriff.

“Nonsense! You’ve nothing on me—don’t try bluffing me, Mr. West! You can’t do it. That shot? Go ahead and tell Desmond all you want! You know damned well you can’t prove anything on me, and I know it too! I’ll have Desmond out of here inside of a week—oh, I won’t, eh? Much you know about it!”

With a snarling oath, he slammed the receiver on the hook.

As he did so, I pushed open the screen door and stepped inside. Talkso caught the squeak of the door, and whirled about like a cat.

“I guess the sheriff was right, Talkso,” I said cordially, over the sights of my shotgun. “Hoist your hands—thank you; that’s the way it’s done in the films. So the sheriff’s coming out here, eh? Good thing. He can take you back with him, unless we come to terms.”

Talkso stood perfectly motionless, his hands slightly raised. The surprise of my appearance had confounded him; but now passionate rage convulsed his swarthy features, and in the snaky blackness of his eyes flicked a scornful hatred. The contempt expressed in his eyes rendered me uneasy.

“You!” he uttered, flinging the word at me in almost inarticulate fury. “What d’you think you’re doing, anyway?”

“I don’t think,” I assured him. “I’m perfectly confident about it, my friend. By the way, did you fire a shot at my car the other day, mistaking me for Balliol?”

“I wish to hell the bullet had got you!” he foamed.

“You’re a charitable cuss. And since then, you’ve given me a lot of tire trouble, to say the least. What’s the idea, anyhow? What’s back of the feud between you and Balliol?”

He seemed to take no notice of the question.

“You poor fool!” he said scornfully. “I could have killed you any time in the past day or two—”

“Well, you didn’t,” I chipped in. “Come ahead and loosen up! Let’s have an explanation!”

To my horror, I realized that he was coming at me; he had the silky, invisible movement of a snake. To blast the life out of his with that shotgun was impossible. He seemed to be leaning forward, leaning toward me, farther and farther—and then he was in the air and on me.

He gripped me and the gun together, and we struggled for it. I was ready enough to drop the gun and slam into him with my fists, but I saw no use in letting him perforate me with my own gun. So I hung on, and we fought it out by arm-power.

In the middle of it, we lost balance and went to the floor—and the shotgun went off with a deafening explosion, between us.

I realized quickly enough that I was not hurt, and rolled backward, leaping to my feet. Both barrels had exploded, sending both charges into the telephone, which hung wrecked and useless against the wall. Talkso was not hurt either. First thing I knew, he was up and coming at me with a yell, brandishing the shotgun like a club.

According to jiu-jitsu experts, the easiest thing in the world is to lay out a man bearing down on you with a club. As it happens, I am not a jiu-jitsu expert.

Talkso had been an easy mark in the road by McGray’s, but he was something else now. He shoved the butt of the gun into my stomach, and when I doubled over, he slammed me over the skull with the barrel. Then he swung up the gun for a finishing stroke.

By this time I was just beginning to realize that it was me for swift action or the count, and I came out of my dream. To be candid, it was only in books that two men get into a hot mix-up and follow the Queensberry rules with meticulous chivalry; in a real scrap of real men, it’s hit hardest with anything that will count!

I followed the most natural rules, and being backed against the stove, I went for Talkso with an iron skillet that was handy. I ducked the gun in a hurry, and to even matters I dropped the skillet and began to finish off his education.

He knew something about fighting, and he tried to fight, but that skillet had him groggy from the start. In about two minutes he was trying to get through the door, so I let him out—and hopped right after him. I caught him by the pump, and laid him out finely.

When he came to himself, I had him tied wrists and ankles with dust-cloths from the car, and was wasting good mineral water pumping over his torso. In spite of all my kindness, however, he would do nothing except splutter curses at me, so finally I tired of trying.

“Very well, then, lie there and talk to yourself!” I stated in disgust. “When the sheriff gets here, maybe we’ll learn a few things.”

I was dead right about that, too!

CHAPTER X

I Build a Wall

On the morning after my encounter with John Talkso, I was working like a beaver on the skull wall in front of my house. I had been working there since dawn.

In front of the wall, I had a solid framework of staked boards, edge to edge, six inches from the wall’s face. The end spaces were closed with other boards. From the shore I had toted barrow-loads of sand until my palms were blistered, and from the barn behind the house I had brought a couple of sacks of cement which had lain there unmolested. For lack of a mixing bed I was utilizing a depression in the rock at the head of the path. Boulders of all sizes were handy, and with these I had partially filled the space in front of the wall, enclosed by the boards.

I mixed my concrete rapidly and after four or five batches had been shoveled into the gap, my work was done. The former face of the wall, together with the protruding skulls, was nicely buried behind six inches of concrete.

I was lighting my pipe and vastly admiring my handiwork, when I heard a voice.

“Mercy! What on earth is the matter with your telephone? Here I’ve walked all the was over here just to see if the pterodactyl had eaten you up—”

It was Martha J. Balliol, flushed and laughing.

“Hurray!” I exclaimed. “I’ve been building a wall—sure, the phone is wrecked! But I have a few things to show you; important things, too! Come up to the veranda and sit down while I explain.”

“But are you a mason?”

“No,” I said. “I’m a pterodactyl—and I can prove it.”

When she was sitting in one of my porch chairs, which I placed in the middle of the veranda floor, I excused myself and got the bucket and basket which John Talkso had left behind after departing on the previous afternoon.

“Now shut your eyes, Miss Balliol! Promise not to peep.”

“Cross my heart,” she returned gaily.

I slowly crossed the floor to her, then stepped away a pace or two.

“Open!”

Her wondering gaze fell upon the concrete floor. From the door of the living room to the side of her chair extended a line of fresh, muddy pterodactyl tracks! She almost jumped, then her blue eyes went to me.

“Exhibit A!” I said, holding up the bucket of muddy water, and in the other hand the plaster-of-Paris cast which had made the tracks. “John Talkso was here yesterday. So was the sheriff. Talkso left these things behind—and he’s not coming back.”

Her face sobered.

“What do you mean, Mr. Desmond?”

“Well,” I explained, “this Talkso was an educated chap. He knew what a pterodactyl was, you see—and he knew that other men knew! Then he left some other things. Typical of them was a set of twelve pieces of round, crimson glass; these, placed in the eyes of those skulls, made a fine crimson effect when seen from the lake. You get the idea?”

Her eyes widened.

“Talkso? That man? But what about my brother—”

“I’m coming to that. Between the sheriff and Talkso, we got the whole thing straightened out yesterday afternoon.”

After telling her something of what had happened, I explained.

“Your brother, Miss Balliol, had peculiar notions of what to do with Indian relics. In building this house, he uncovered the so-called graves of the former chiefs of the Indian tribe which inhabited this valley—and which still inhabit it in places. Your brother used the skulls for decoration, and once set in that concrete, the skulls could not be removed without destroying the foundation wall of the house. You see?”

She nodded, watching me with eager absorption.

“Well,” I pursued, “this John Talkso found out about it. He came after your brother in a rage and there was a fight on the spot, in which Talkso got worsted. Then he set to work to drive your brother off.

“He invented some very clever stage stuff, such as the pterodactyl tracks and the red glass in the skull-sockets; he also had some other tricks in his basket, and all of them clever. He had managed to make everyone believe that this house was haunted. He had once or twice attempted your brother’s life—”

“But why?” broke in the girl, astounded. “Whatever made the man act so? Was he mad?”

“Not a bit of it! He was sane. He was also well educated. But—mark this—he was not a white man; he was a halfbreed Indian, and he was the last of the Indian chiefs in this particular valley. He had all the Indian’s sense of outrage at seeing the skulls of his forefathers ornamenting this house. So, naturally, he tried to drive out the desecraters—your brother and me.

“He did not go in for murder in cold blood. Yesterday he merely entered the room behind you and gave you a shove, for example. In general, he contented himself with such things. But when I met him at McGray’s Tavern and beat him up, he lost his head. He hiked over another road from McGray’s, a shorter road east of the river, and got here ahead of me. But the sheriff and another man were hunting, and they saw Talkso deliberately ambush my car. It was assault with intent to kill, right enough, and it meant the coop for Mr. Talkso.”

“But that wall you were building!” exclaimed Martha Balliol.

“That’s the sheriff’s idea; our sheriff is a bright man,” I returned laughing. “The skulls, you note, are now buried completely, yet the foundation of the house is not damaged. Thus the feelings of John Talkso have been smoothed over, particularly as he faced the penitentiary if they were not smoothed over! He and his family are rich ranchers across the lake, and beyond having him bonded to keep the peace, I’ll not punish him further.”

“Then you think—”

“Sure! Everything’s all right!”

* * * *

A little later that day, Martha Balliol was bidding me farewell. There was nothing to keep her here further, she said; at least, she knew of nothing. Nor did I, unhappily. She would go back East and take up the broken threads again.

“But,” I proffered, “will you not let me take you as far as Lakeport?”

“It will be very kind, Mr. Desmond. Of course!”

“It’s a promise?” I anxiously inquired. “Word of honor?”

“Eh?” The blue eyes inspected me with surprise. “Why, of course it is!”

“Good!” I lighted my pipe and puffed contentedly. “To tell the truth, the car is useless—I failed to fix my tires efficiently. There’s no gas to run the launch on; I forgot to fill up when we left Lakeport, I was so excited over your arrival! Naturally, we do not want to walk; so, Miss Balliol, we must go by canoe.”

“By canoe?” she echoed. “Why—Lakeport is miles and miles away! And I can’t paddle a stroke. We’d never get there!”

“Well?” I said inquiringly.

She met my eyes. Slowly a rosy glow crept into her cheeks; then she turned—and passed toward the canoe.