“Wall,” he said at last, almost as though he were speaking to an unseen presence, “I reckon Sven Pedersen wouldn’t want to hold me to secrecy no longer – thirty year back ’tis, sence he – ” suddenly he paused and held up a bony, shaky hand. “You didn’t hear no gun shot, did you?”
The girls had heard nothing. They glanced almost fearfully up at the boys. Jerry shook his head and put a finger to his lips.
The girls understood that he thought it wise that the old man continue to forget their presence.
“Wall, I reckon the wind’s risin’ an’ suthin’ loose banged. Thar’s plenty loose, that’s sartin.” Then, turning rather blankly toward Mary, he asked in a child-like manner, “What was we talkin’ about?”
Mary drew her chair closer and smiled confidingly at him. “You were going to tell us, Mr. Harvey, why Mr. Pedersen built that rock house and – ”
“Sho’! Sho’! So I was. It was forty year last Christmas he come to Gleeson. A tall, skinny fellar he was, not so very old nor so young neither. It was an awful blizzardy night an’ thar wa’n’t nobody at all out in the streets. I was jest reckonin’ as how I’d turn in, when the door bust open an’ the wind tore things offen the shelves. I had to help get it shet. Then I looked at what had blown in. He looked like a fellar that was most starved an’ more’n half crazy. His palish blue eyes was wild. I sot him down in this here chair by the fire an’ staked him to some hot grub. I’d seen half-starved critters eat. He snapped at the grub jest that-a-way. When he’d et till I reckoned as how he’d bust, he sank down in that chair an’ dod blast it, ef he didn’t start snorin’, an’ he hadn’t sed nothin’, nohow. Wall, I seen as how he wa’n’t goin’ to wake, so I lay down on my bunk wi’ my clothes on, sort o’ sleepin’ wi’ one eye open, not knowin’ what sort of a loon I was givin’ shelter to.
“The blizzard kep’ on all the next day an’ the next. Not a gol-darned soul come to the store, so me’n’ and him had plenty o’ time to get to knowin’ each other.
“Arter he’d drunk some hot coffee, he unloosed his tongue, though what he sed was so half-forrin, I wa’n’t quick to cotch onto his meanin’s.
“The heft o’ his yarn was like this. He an’ his little sister, Bodil, he named her, had come from Denmark to New York. Thar he’d picked up some o’ Ameriky’s way o’ talking, an’ enuf money to git West. Some Danish fellar had tol’ him about these here rich-quick mines, so he’d took a stage an’ fetched Bodil.”
The old man paused, and Mary, leaning forward, put her hand on his arm. “Oh, Mr. Harvey, tell us about that little girl. How old was she and what happened to her?”
The old man’s head shook sadly. “Bad enuf things happened to her, I reckon. She must o’ been a purty little critter. Chiny blue eyes, Sven Pedersen sed she had, an’ hair like yellar cornsilk when it fust comes out. She was the apple o’ his eye. The only livin’ thing he keered for. I sho’ was plumb sorry fer him.”
“But do tell us what happened to her?” Mary urged, fearing that the old man’s thought was wandering.
“Wall, ’pears like the stage was held up on a mount’in road nigh here; the wust road in the country hereabouts. Thar wa’n’t no passengers but Sven Pedersen an’ Little Bodil; the long journey bein’ about to an end. That thar blizzard was a threatenin’ an’ the stage driver was hurryin’ his hosses, hopin’ to get over the mountain afore it struck, when up rode three men. One of ’em shot the driver, another of ’em dragged out a bag of gold ore; then they fired over the hosses’ heads. Skeered and rarin’, them hosses plunged over the cliff, an’ down that stage crashed into the wust gulch thar is in these here parts.
“Sven saw his little sister throwed out into the road. Then, as the stage keeled over, he jumped an’ cotched onto some scrub tree growin’ out o’ the cliff. It tuk him a long spell to climb back to the road. He was loony wild wi’ worryin’ about Little Bodil. He ran to whar he’d seen her throwed out. She wa’n’t thar. He hunted an’ called, but thar wa’n’t no answer. Then he reckoned as how that thar third bandit had whirled back an’ carried her off.”
“Oh, Mr. Harvey, how terrible!” There were tears in Mary’s eyes. “Wasn’t she ever found?”
The old man shook his head sadly. “Sven Pedersen follered them bandits afoot all night an’ nex’ day but they was a horseback an’ he couldn’t even get sight o’ them. Then the blizzard struck an’ he staggered in here, bein’ as he saw my light. Arter that he went prospectin’ all around these here mount’ins an’ he struck it rich. That cliff, whar he built him a rock house, was one of his claims.”
“I suppose he never stopped hunting for poor Little Bodil.” Mary’s voice was tender with sympathy.
“Yo’ reckon right, little gal. Whenever Sven Pedersen heerd tell of a holdup anywhar in the state, he’d join the posse that was huntin’ ’em but it warn’t no use, nohow. Bodil was plumb gone. Sven Pedersen never made no friend but me. His palish blue eyes allays kept that wild look, an’, as time went on an’ he piled up gold an’ turquoise, he got to be dubbed ‘Lucky Loon.’”
The old man paused and started to nod his shaggy gray head so many times that Dora, fearing he would nod himself to sleep, asked, “Mr. Harvey, what was his Evil Eye Turquoise?”
“Hey?” The old man glanced up suspiciously. “So yo’d heerd tell about that.” Then he cackled his queer, cracked laugh. “I heerd about it, but I’d allays reckoned thar wa’n’t no sech thing. I cal’lated Sven Pedersen made up that thar yarn to keep folks from climbin’ up ter his rock house an’ stealin’ his gold an’ turquoise, if be that’s whar he kept it. I reckon as how that’s the heft o’ that yarn an’ yet, I dunno, I dunno. Mabbe thar was suthin’ to it. Mabbe thar was.”
“Oh, Mr. Harvey, we’d like awfully well to hear the story whether it’s true or not, unless,” Mary said solicitously, “unless you’re too sleepy to tell it.”
The old man sat up and opened his eyes wide. “Sleepy, me sleepy? Never was waked up more! Wall, this here is the heft of that tale.”
CHAPTER VI
THE EVIL-EYE TURQUOISE
The old man continued:
“Sven Pedersen hisself never tol’ me nothin’ about that Evil Eye Turquoise o’ his’n. That’s why I cal’late it was a yarn he used to skeer off onweloome visitors to his rock house, bein’ as thar was spells when he was away fer days, huntin’ fer Bodil.
“I heerd it was a big eye-shaped rock with a round center that was more green than it was blue. Hangers-on in the store here used to spec’late ’bout it. Some reckoned, ef ’twas true that Sven had found a green-blue turquoise big as a coffee cup, it’d be wurth a lot o’ money, but I dunno, I dunno!”
Dora recalled Mr. Harvey’s wandering thoughts by asking, “It must have been very beautiful, but why was it called ‘Evil Eye?’”
The old man shook his head. “Thar was folks who’d believe onythin’ in them days,” he said. “I reckon thar still is. Superstitious, yo’d call it, so, when Sven Pedersen tol’ yarns ’bout that green-blue eye o’ his’n, thar was them as swallowed ’em whule.”
“Tell us one of the yarns,” Mary urged.
“Wall, Lucky Loon tol’ ’round at the camps, as how he’d put that thar turquoise eye into the inside wall o’ his house jest whar it could keep watchin’ the door, an’ ef onyone tried to climb in, that thar eye’d see ’em!”
“But what if it did,” Dora laughed. “Was there ever anyone superstitious enough to believe that the eye could hurt them?”
The old man nodded, looking at her solemnly. “Sven Pedersen