"There's your question, Oliver Drew. Say Yes and the gems are yours. Say No, and you have forty acres of almost worthless land, a saddle horse and outfit, and youth and health, and the lifetime office of Watchman of the Dead!" She ceased speaking. There were tears in her great black eyes as she looked at him levelly. "But--but--" Oliver floundered. "I don't know where the gems are. Selden has hunted them for thirty years, and has failed to find them. I've seen many evidences of his search. Will the Showut Poche-dakas tell me where they are?" "Your father thought that perhaps, after what has passed in connection with former Watchmen of the Dead, you might not be told the exact location. So he made provision for that." She reached in her bosom and handed him an envelope sealed with wax. On it he read in his father's hand: "Map showing exact location of what is known as the lost mine of Bolivio." "If you open it," she said, "your answer probably will be No, and you become owner of the gems. If you destroy it unopened, your answer is Yes, and you are a poor man. Yes or No, Oliver Drew? Think over it tonight, and I'll meet you here tomorrow at noon." "What do _you_ want my answer to be?" he asked. "I have no right to express my wishes in the matter," she said. "And your answer is not to be told to me, you must remember, but to your father's lawyers." Then she turned White Ann into the narrow trail that led from Lime Rock. CHAPTER XXIV IN THE DEER PATH The morning following the trip to Lime Rock, Oliver Drew sat at his little home-made desk, his mind not on the work before him. Tilted against the ink bottle stood the long, tough envelope that Jessamy had given him, its black-wax seals still unbroken. He stared at it with unseeing eyes. After they had left Lime Rock, Jessamy had given him a little more information on the subject which now loomed so big in his life. She thought, she had said, that for years the Showut Poche-dakas had suspected Old Man Selden of knowing something of their secret. They could not have missed seeing the gophering that the old man had done on the hillside above The Four Pools. She knew positively that the Indians had kept a watchful eye on him, and it could be for no other reason. The episode concerning Oliver's bayonet wound had come as a complete surprise to her. It seemed now, she said, that Peter Drew had communicated with Chupurosa not long before his death, and after Oliver's return from France, and had told him to be prepared for the coming of his son and how to make sure that he was genuine. She had not known that Peter Drew had been in the Poison Oak Country again, since he left after entrusting her with a hand in guiding Oliver's future.