Old Man Haley's shack stood back from a branch road that wound down from Antelope across the foothills to Pine Flat. Commercial travelers, staging it from camp to camp, could see his roof over the trees, and sometimes the driver would point to it with his whip and tell how the old man—a survival of the early days—lived there alone cultivating his vegetable patch. In the last four or five years people said he had gone "nutty," had taken to wandering down the stream beds with his pickax and pan, but he was a harmless old body and seemed able to get along. He said he had a son somewhere who sent him money now and again, and he always had enough to keep himself in groceries and tobacco, which he bought at the general store in Pine Flat. Maybe you'd see him straying along, sort o' kind and simple, with his pick over his shoulder, smilin' up at the folks in the stage.
On that Sunday when Mayer had made his last trip to Sacramento Old Man Haley had risen with the sun. While the rest of the world was slumbering on its pillow he was out among his vegetables, hoe in hand.
It was one of those mornings that deck with a splendor of blue and gold the foothill spring. The air was balmy, the sky a fleckless vault, where bird shapes floated on aerial currents or sped in jubilant flight. From the chaparral came the scents of sun-warmed foliage, the pungent odor of bay, the aromatic breath of pine, and the sweet, frail perfume of the chaparral flower. This flecked the hillside with its powdery blossom, a white blur among the glittering enamel of madrona leaves.
Old Man Haley, an ancient figure in his rusty overalls, paused in his labor to survey the sea of green from which he had wrested his garden. His eye traveled slowly, for he loved it, and had grown to regard it as his own. Leaning on his hoe he looked upward over its tufted density and suddenly his glance lost its complacent vagueness and became sharp and fixed. Through the close-packed vegetation a zigzag movement descended as if a fissure of earth disturbance was stirring along the roots. After a moment's scrutiny he turned and sent a look, singularly alert, over the shack and the road beyond. Then, pursing his lips, he emitted a whistled bar of bird notes.
The commotion in the chaparral stopped, and from it rose a wild figure. It looked more ape than man, hairy, bearded to the cheekbones, sunken-eyed and staggering. It started forward at a run, branches crashing under its blundering feet, and as it came it sent up a hoarse cry for food.
Some years before Old Man Haley had built a woodshed behind the cabin. When he bought the planks he had told "the boys" in Pine Flat that he was getting too old to forage for his wood in winter, and was going to cut it in summer, and have it handy when the rains came. He had built the shed well and lined it with tar paper. Adventurous youngsters, going past one day, had peeped in and seen a blanket spread over the stacked logs as if the old man might have been sleeping there; which, being reported, was set down to his craziness.
Here Garland now hid, ate like a famished wolf, and slept. Then when night came, and all wayfarers were safe indoors, stole to the shack, and with only the red eye of the stove to light their conference, exchanged the news with his confederate. Hunger had driven him back to the settlements; four days before his last cartridge had been spent, and he had lived since then on berries and roots. Old Man Haley, squatting in the rocking-chair made from a barrel, whispered cheering intelligence: they'd about given up the hunt, thought he had died in the chaparral. Someone had seen birds circling round a spot off toward the hills behind Angels.
The next day when Garland told his intention of moving on to San Francisco, the old man was uneasy. He was the only associate of the bandit who knew of the daughter there, and he urged patience and caution. He was even averse to taking a letter to her when he went into Pine Flat for supplies. The post office was the resort of loungers. If they saw Old Man Haley coming in to mail a letter, they'd get curious; you couldn't tell but what they might wrastle with him and grab the letter. In a day or two maybe he could get into Mormons Landing, where he wasn't so well known, and mail it there. To placate Garland he promised him a paper; the man at the store would give him one.
When he came back in the rosy end of the evening he was exultant. A woman, hearing him ask the storekeeper for a paper, had told him to stop at her house and she would give him a roll of them. There they were, a big bundle, and not local ones, but the _San Francisco Despatch _almost to date. He left Garland in the woodshed, reading by the light that fell in through the open door, and went to the shack to cook supper.
Presently a reek of blue smoke was issuing from the crook of pipe above the roof, and wood was crackling in the stove. Old Man Haley, mindful of his guest's dignities and claims upon himself, set about the preparation of a goodly meal, part drawn from his own garden, part from the packages he had carried back from Pine Flat. He was engrossed in it, when, through the sizzling of frying grease, he heard the sound of footsteps and the doorway was darkened by Garland's bulk. In his hand he held a paper, and even the age-dimmed eyes of the old man could see the pallid agitation of his face.