Wunpost Part 19

Wunpost mulled this over, too, as he rode on up Jail Canyon and when he sighted the house he took Manuel Apache's scalp-lock and hid it inside his pack. After risking his life to bring his love this token he thought better of it and brought only himself. He would come back a friend, one who had seen trouble as they had but was not boasting of what he had done--and if anyone asked him what he had done to Lynch he would pa.s.s it off with some joke. So he talked too much, did he? All right, he would show them; he would close his trap and say nothing; and in a week Wilhelmina would be following him around everywhere, just begging to know about his arm. But no, he would tell her it was just a sad accident, which no one regretted more than he did; and rather than seem to boast he would say in a general way that it would never happen again.

And that would be the truth, because from what Eells had said he was satisfied the Apaches had buried Lynch.

But how, now, was he to approach this matter of the money which he was determined to advance for the road? That would call for diplomacy and he would have to stick around a while before Billy would listen to reason.

But once she was won over the whole family would be converted; for she was the boss, after all. She wore the overalls at the Jail Canyon Ranch and in spite of her pretty ways she had a will of her own that would not be denied. And when she saw him come back, like a man from the dead--he paused and blinked his eyes. But what would _he_ say--would he tell her what had happened? No, there he was again, right back where he had started from--the thing for him to do was to _keep still_. Say nothing about Lynch and catching Apaches in bear-traps, just look happy and listen to her talk.

It was morning and the sun had just touched the house which hung like driftwood against the side of the hill. The mud of the cloudburst had turned to hard pudding-stone, which resounded beneath his mule's feet.

The orchard was half buried, the garden in ruins, the corral still smothered with muck; but as he rode up the new trail a streak of white quit the house and came bounding down to meet him. It was Wilhelmina, still dressed in women's clothes but quite forgetful of everything but her joy; and when he dismounted she threw both arms about his neck, and cried when he gave her a kiss.

CHAPTER XXIV

SOMETHING NEW

There are compensations for everything, even for being given up for dead, and as he was welcomed back to life by a sweet kiss from Wilhelmina, Wunpost was actually glad he had been shot. He was glad he was hungry, for now she would feed him; glad he was wounded, for she would be his nurse; and when Cole Campbell and his wife took him in and made much of him he lost his last bitterness against Lynch. In the first place, Lynch was dead, and not up on the ridge waiting to pot him for what money he had; and in the second place Lynch had shot right past his heart and yet had barely wounded him at all. But the sight of that crease across his breast and the punctured hole through his arm quite disarmed the Campbells and turned their former disapproval to a hovering admiration and solicitude.

If the hand of Divine Providence had loosed the waterspout down their canyon to punish him for his overweening pride, perhaps it had now saved him and turned the bullet aside to make him meet for repentance. It was something like that which lay in their minds as they installed him in their best front room, and when they found that his hardships had left him chastened and silent they even consented to accept payment for his horse-feed. If they did not, he declared, he would pack up forthwith and take his whole outfit to Blackwater; and the fact was the Campbells were so reduced by their misfortunes that they had run up a big bill at the store. Only occasional contributions from their miner sons in Nevada kept them from facing actual want, and Campbell was engaged in packing down his picked ore in order to make a small shipment. But if he figured his own time in he was not making day's wages and the future held out no hope.

Without a road the Homestake Mine was worthless, for it could never be profitably worked; but Cole Campbell was like Eells in one respect at least, and that was he never knew when he was whipped. A guarded suggestion had come from Judson Eells that he might still be persuaded to buy his mine, but Campbell would not even name a price; and now the store-keeper had sent him notice that he had discounted his bill at the bank. That was a polite way of saying that Eells had bought in the account, which const.i.tuted a lien against the mine; and the Campbells were vaguely worried lest Eells should try his well-known tactics and suddenly deprive them of their treasure. For the Homestake Mine, in Cole Campbell's eyes, was the greatest silver property in the West; and yet even in this emergency, which threatened daily to become desperate, he refused resolutely to accept tainted money. For not only was Wunpost's money placed under the ban, but so much had been said of Judson Eells and his sharp practises that his money was also barred.

This much Wunpost gathered on the first day of his home-coming, when, still dazed by his welcome, he yet had the sense to look happy and say almost nothing. He sat back in an easy chair with Wilhelmina at his side and the Campbells hovering benevolently in the distance, and to all attempts to draw him out he responded with a cryptic smile.

"Oh, we were so worried!" exclaimed Wilhelmina, looking up at him anxiously, "because there was blood all over the saddle; and when the trailers got to Wild Rose they found your pack-mule, and Good Luck with the rope still fast about his neck. But they just couldn't find you anywhere, and the tracks all disappeared; and when it became known that Mr. Lynch was missing--oh, _do_ you think they killed him?"

"Search me," shrugged Wunpost. "I was too busy getting out of there to do any worrying about Lynch. But I'll tell you one thing, about those tracks disappearing--them Apaches must have smoothed 'em out, sure."

"Yes, but why should they kill _him_? Weren't they supposed to be working for him? That's what Mr. Eells gave us to understand. But wasn't it kind of him, when he heard you were missing, to send all those search-parties out? It must have cost him several hundred dollars. And it shows that even the men we like the least are capable of generous impulses. He told Father he wouldn't have it happen for anything--I mean, for you to come to any harm. All he wanted, he said, was the mine."

"Yes," nodded Wunpost, and she ran on unheeding as he drew down the corners of his mouth. But he could agree to that quite readily, for he knew from his own experience that all Eells wanted was the mine. It was only a question now of what move he would make next to bring about the consummation of that wish. For it was Eells' next move, since, according to Wunpost's reasoning, the magnate was already whipped. His plans for tracing Wunpost to the source of his wealth had ended in absolute disaster and the only other move he could possibly make would be along the line of compromise. Wunpost had told him flat that he would not go near his mine, no one else knew even its probable location; and yet, when he had gone to him and suggested some compromise, Eells had refused even to consider it. Therefore he must have other plans in view.

But all this was far away and almost academic to the lovelorn John C.

Calhoun, and if Eells never approached him on the matter of the Sockdolager it would be soon enough for him. What he wanted was the privilege of helping Billy feed the chickens and throw down hay to his mules, and then to wander off up the trail to the tunnel that opened out on the sordid world below. There the restless money-grabbers were rushing to and fro in their fight for what treasures they knew, but one kiss from Wilhelmina meant more to him now than all the gold in the world. But her kisses, like gold, came when least expected and were denied when he had hoped for them most; and the spell he held over her seemed once more near to breaking, for on the third day he forgot himself and talked. No, it was not just talk--he boasted of his mine, and there for the first time they jarred.

"Well, I don't care," declared Wilhelmina, "if you have got a rich mine!

That's no reason for saying that Father's is no good; because it is, if it only had a road."

Now here, if ever, was the golden opportunity for remaining silent and looking intelligent; but Wunpost forgot his early resolve and gave way to an ill-timed jest.

"Yes," he said, "that's like the gag the Texas land-boomer pulled off when he woke up and found himself in h.e.l.l. 'If it only had a little more rain and good society----'"

"Now you hush up!" she cried, her lips beginning to tremble. "I guess we've got enough trouble, without your making fun of it----"

"No. I'm not making fun of you!" protested Wunpost stoutly. "Haven't I offered to build you a road? Well, what's the use of fiddling around, packing silver ore down on burros, when you know from the start it won't pay? First thing you folks know Judson Eells will come down on you and grab the whole mine for nothing. Why not take some of my money that I've buried under a rock and put in that aerial tramway?"

"Because we don't want to!" answered Wilhelmina tearfully; "my father wants a _road_. And I don't think it's very kind of you, after all we have suffered, to speak as if we were _fools_. If it wasn't for that waterspout that washed away our road we'd be richer than you are, today!"

"Oh, I don't know!" drawled Wunpost; "you don't know how rich I am. I can take my mules and be back here in three days with ten thousand dollars worth of ore!"

"You cannot!" she contradicted, and Wunpost's eyes began to bulge--he was not used to lovely woman and her ways.

"Well, I'll just bet you I can," he responded deliberately. "What'll you bet that I can't turn the trick?"

"I haven't got anything to bet," retorted Wilhelmina angrily, "but if I did have, and it was right, I'd bet every cent I had--you're always making big brags!"

"Yes, so you say," replied Wunpost evenly, "but I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll put up a mule-load of ore against another sweet kiss--like you give me when I first came in."

Wilhelmina bowed her head and blushed painfully beneath her curls and then she turned away.

"I don't sell kisses," she said, and when he saw she was offended he put aside his arrogant ways.

"No, I know, kid," he said, "you were just glad to see me--but why can't you be glad all the time? Ain't I the same man? Well, you ought to be glad then, if you see me coming back again."

"But somebody might kill you!" she answered quickly, "and then I'd be to blame."

"They're scared to try it!" he boasted. "I've got 'em bluffed out. They ain't a man left in the hills. And besides, I told Eells I wouldn't go near the mine until he came through and sold me that contract. They's n.o.body watching me now. And you can take the ore, if you should happen to win, and build your father a road."

She straightened up and gazed at him with her honest brown eyes, and at last the look in them changed.

"Well, _I_ don't care," she burst out recklessly, "and besides, you're not going to win."

"Yes I am," he said, "and I want that kiss, too. Here, pup!" and he whistled to his dog.

"Oh, you can't take Good Luck!" she objected quickly. "He's my dog now, and I want him!"

She pouted and tossed her pretty head to one side, and Wunpost smiled at her tyranny. It was something new in their relations with each other and it struck him as quite piquant and charming.

"Well, all right," he a.s.sented, and Billy hid her face; because treachery was new to her too.

CHAPTER XXV

THE CHALLENGE

If love begets love and deceit begets deceit, then Wunpost was repaid according to his merits when Wilhelmina laid claim to his dog. She did it in a way that was almost coquettish, for coquetry is a form of deceit; but in the morning, when he was gone, she put his dog on his trail and followed along behind on her mule. And this, of course, was rank treachery no less, for her purpose was to discover his mine. If she found it, she had decided in the small hours of the night, she would locate it and claim it all; and that would teach him not to make fun of honest poverty or to try to buy kisses with gold. Because kisses, as she knew, could never be true unless they were given for love; and love itself calls for respect, first of all--and who can respect a boaster?

She reasoned in circles, as the best of us will when trying to justify doubtful acts; but she traveled in a straight line when she picked up Wunpost's trail and followed him over the rocks. He had ridden out in the night, turning straight up the ridge where the mountain-sheep trail came down; and Good Luck bounded ahead of her, his nose to the ground, his bobbed tail working like mad. There was a dew on the ground, for the nights had turned cold and, though he was no hound, Good Luck could follow the scent, which was only a few hours old. Wunpost had slept till after midnight and then silently departed, taking only Old Walker and his mate; and the trail of their sharp-shod shoes was easily discernible except where they went over smooth rocks. It was here that Wunpost circled, to throw off possible pursuit; but busy little Good Luck was frantic to come up to him, and he smelled out the tracks and led on.

Wunpost had traveled in the night, and, after circling a few times, his trail straightened out and fell into a dim path which had been traversed by mules once before. Up and up it led, until Tellurium was exhausted and Wilhelmina had to get off and walk; and at last, when it was almost at the summit of the range, it entered a great stone patch and was lost.

But the stone-patch was not limitless, and Wilhelmina was determined--she rode out around it, and soon Good Luck dropped his nose and set out straight to the south. To the south! That would take him into the canyon above Blackwater, where the pocket-miners had their claims; but surely the great Sockdolager was not over there, for the district had been worked for years.

Wilhelmina's heart stopped as she looked out the country from the high ridge beyond the stone-patch--could it be that his mine was close? Was it possible that his great strike was right there at their door while they had been searching for it clear across Death Valley? It was like the crafty Wunpost always to head north when his mine was hidden safely to the south; and yet how had it escaped the eyes of the prospectors who had been combing the hills for months? Where was it possible for a mine to be hid in all that expanse of peaks? She sat down on the summit and considered.

Happy Canyon lay below her, leading off to the west towards Blackwater and the Sink, and beyond and to the south there was a jumble of sharp-peaked hills painted with stripes of red and yellow and white. It was a rough country, and bone dry; perhaps the prospectors had avoided it and so failed to find his lost mine. Or perhaps he was throwing a circle out through this broken ground to come back by Hungry Bill's ranch. Wilhelmina sat and meditated, searching the country with the very gla.s.ses which Wunpost himself had given her; and Good Luck came back and whined. He had found his master's trail, it led on to the south, and now Wilhelmina would not come. She did not even take notice of him, and after watching her face Good Luck turned and ran resolutely on. He knew whose dog he was, even if she did not; and after calling to him perfunctorily Wilhelmina let him go, for even this defection might be used.