He was an Indian--a Showut Poche-daka. Oliver remembered his swarthy face, his inscrutable eyes. He had been pointed out to him at the fiesta by Jessamy as the champion trailer of all the Paubas, of which the Showut Poche-daka Tribe was a sort of branch. Often, Jessamy had said, this Indian, who was known by the odd and laughable name of Tommy My-Ma, had been employed by the sheriff of the county in tracking down escaped prisoners or fleeing transgressors against the law. He wore no hat. He was barefooted. His only covering seemed to be a pair of faded-blue overalls and a colourless flannel shirt. Neither did he carry any weapon, so far as Oliver could see. His progress was now soundless as he came from the chaparral, flat on his belly, wriggling along like a lizard with surprising speed. His black, glittering eyes were unquestionably fixed with rapt intentness on the man aloft in the digger pine; and by reason of this alone he did not see Oliver Drew. His movements commenced to be extraordinary. He wriggled himself speedily over the unlittered earth and made no sound. There was a pile of dry brush at one edge of the clearing, the tops of the bushes that had been cut off to facilitate the sinking of the prospect holes. Toward this Tommy My-Ma glided; and when he reached it he passed out of sight on the other side. Then suddenly he reappeared again. Instantly he lowered his head to the ground at the edge of the pile of brush; then swiftly the head and shoulders disappeared, the trunk and legs following. For a second Oliver saw the bare brown feet, then they too went out of sight. Oliver understood the disappearing act of Tommy My-Ma, he thought. The pile of brush covered another of the prospect holes, and into the hole the Showut Poche-daka had snaked himself. It seemed that he too had sought a hiding place often frequented. In there he perhaps could sit erect and, screened by the pile of brush, would be entirely hidden, while he himself could watch the spy in the branches of the digger pine. For that he was in turn spying on the man who was watching Oliver's cabin Oliver did not for a moment doubt. But why? That was another matter! He was quite aware of his own unprotected position; and with Tommy My-Ma now hidden in the brush scarce fifty feet away from him, he dared not get out of his hole and try to crawl away. The situation struck him as ridiculous in the extreme. Foss trying to spy on him; Tommy My-Ma spying on Foss--the object of all this intrigue, Oliver himself, spying on both of them! And how long must it continue? The only sounds now were the soft moaning of the wind through the needles of the pines, and from afar, occasionally, the clear, cool call of a valley quail: "Cut that out! Cut that out!" The sun was hot on the resinous needles of the pines, and the smell of them filled the air. CHAPTER XIX CONTENTIONS Two horsemen met on the backbone of the ridge that separated Clinker Creek and the green American.