"So do I," said Mackintavers, grimly eyeing his guest. He did not know that Deadoak had just come from a long and involved conference with Piute, wherein property had changed hands and other arrangements had been made; he did not need to know all this, however, to realize that his visitor had not come for philanthropic purposes. Deadoak, blissfully unconscious that he was introducing a new game and a cold deck to the gentleman who had invented that game and patented the cold deck, sank into a chair and blinked solemnly at the lamp. He produced a battered corncob pipe, filled and lighted it, then straightened out his legs along the floor and blew a cloud of smoke. "If I had money," he prologued dismally, "I wouldn't ask odds o' no man----" "Me the same," struck in Sandy. "Aiblins, now, I'd wager there ain't a man in this country who couldn't develop a promising hole if he had money. Go ahead." Slightly daunted by the grimly sophisticated front of his host, Deadoak took a new pull at his pipe and began afresh. "It's a right queer yarn, this story I got on my mind," he observed dreamily. "Up north of here is the Dead Mountains, and it's a good name. If there's anything deader'n them hills, I'd admire to see it! Ye go out the good road along to where Piute an' me has got pear orchards an' wells. After that, it ain't no road--it's an excuse. I don't reckon anybody has traveled that way sinct ol' Hassayamp Perkins got stove in by the cave-in." "How long ago?" queried Sandy seeking facts. "Two year. I ain't been that-a way myself, and nobody else ain't got right good reasons for doin' it, except that there crazy chink. He went that-a way this mornin', and he ain't got back yet. Another hill fell on _him_ I reckon. After ye get through the marble cañon, there ain't only volcanic ash and rock till ye come into the basin. I been over in Death Valley an' the Aztec Fryin' Pan, and they don't hardly show up alongside that basin to speak of. It ain't big, however, and from there ye go into Morongo Valley." "Sounds lively," commented Mackintavers without great interest. "It is. If ye take two steps in any direction, there comes such a buzzin' ye can't hear a man shout at ye twenty feet away--that's how many rattlers there is! Well, as I was sayin', Hassayamp homesteaded Morongo Valley. It ain't but a few hundred acres, and he'd located a spring o' water big enough for all he wanted--he didn't wash much, Hassayamp didn't." The shaggy brows of Mackintavers were bent upon the speaker in a silent but forbidding fashion that somehow discouraged the careful narrative which Deadoak had built up in his mind--a narrative with cunning discursions and excursions. He decided to throw it all overboard and to reach the point at once. "As I was sayin', Hassayamp homesteaded that valley to keep out other folks----"