Wunpost Part 3

"Never mind," said Wunpost, "that was nothing but jaw-bone. He just said it to get a share in our mine."

"No, but listen," protested Billy, "that isn't what I mean. Do you think it was right to deceive Eells?"

"Was it _right_, kid!" laughed Wunpost. "That ain't nothing to what I'm _going_ to do if I ever get the chance. Didn't he hire that black-leg lawyer to draw up a cinch contract with the purpose of grabbing all I found? Well then, that shows how honest _he_ was--and now I'm out after his scalp. I've got to raise a stake, so I can fight him dollar for dollar; and then, sure as shooting, I'm going to bust his bank and make him walk out of camp. Was it right--say, that's a good one--you ain't been around much, have you? Well, that's all right, Billy; I like you, all the same."

He nodded approvingly and Billy sat staring, for her world had gone topsy-turvy again. She had wanted to leave Jail Canyon and go out into the world, but was it possible that there existed a state of society where there was no right and wrong? She sat thinking a minute, her head in a whirl, and then she came back again.

"But when you covered up this mine and tried to keep it for yourself, he--had Mr. Eells ever done you any harm?"

"Well, not yet, kid--that is, I didn't know it--but believe me, his intentions were good. The time hadn't come, that's all."

"He was your friend, then," contended Billy, "because Dusty Rhodes said----"

"Dusty Rhodes!" bellowed Wunpost and then he paused. "Go on, let's get this off your chest."

"Well, he said," continued Billy, "that Mr. Eells gave you everything and that you lived off his grubstake for two years; so I don't think it was right, when you finally found a mine----"

"Say, listen," broke in Wunpost leaning over and tapping her on the knee while he fixed her with intolerant eyes, "who's your friend, now--Dusty Rhodes or me?"

"Why--you are," faltered Billy, "but I don't see----"

"All right then," p.r.o.nounced Wunpost, "if I'm your friend, _stay with me_. Don't tell me what Dusty Rhodes said!"

"That's all right," she defended, "didn't I make him apologize? But I'm _your_ friend, too, and I don't think it was right----"

"Right!" thundered Wunpost, "where do you get this 'right' stuff? Have you lived up this canyon all your life? Well, you wait until tomorrow, when the rush is on, and I'll show you how much _right_ there is in mining! You come down to the mine and I'll show you a bunch of mugs that would rob you of your claim like _that_! I'm going to be there, myself, and I'm going to borrow that pistol that you stuck in my ribs the other night; and the first yap that touches a corner or crosses my line I'll make him hard to catch. And then will come the promoters, with their diamonds and certified checks, and they'll offer you millions and millions; but you stay with me, kid, if they offer you the sub-treasury, because they'll clean you if you ever sign up. Don't sign nothing, see--and don't promise anything, either; and I'll tell you about _me_, I'll do anything for a friend--but that's as far as I go.

They ain't no right and wrong, as far as I'm concerned. I'm like a danged Injun, I'll keep my word to a friend no matter how the cards fall; but if that friend turns against me I'll scalp him like _that_, and hang his hide on the fence! So now you know right where you'll find me!"

"Well, all right," retorted Billy, whose Scotch blood was up, "and I'll tell you right where you'll find _me_. I'll stay with my friends whether they're right or wrong, but I'll never do anything dishonest.

And if you don't like that you can take back your claim because----"

"Sure I like it!" cried Wunpost, laughing and patting her hand, "that's just the kind of a friend I want. But all the same, Billy, this is no Sunday School picnic--it's more like a dog fight we're going to--and the only way to stand off that bunch of burglars is to hit 'em with anything you've got. You've got to grab with both hands and kick with both feet if you want to win in this mining game; and when you try to fight honest you're tying one hand behind you, because some of 'em won't stop at murder. Eells and Flip Flap and their kind don't pretend to be honest, they just get by with the law; and if you give 'em the edge they'll soak you in the jaw the first time you turn your head."

"Well, I don't care," returned Billy, "my father is honest and n.o.body ever robbed him of his claim!"

"Hooh! Who wants it?" jeered Wunpost arrogantly. "I'm talking about a real mine. Your old man's claims are stuck up in a canyon where a flying machine couldn't hardly go and about the time he gets his road built another cloudburst will come along and wash it away. Oh, don't talk to me, I _know_--I've been all along those peaks and right down past his mine--and I tell you it isn't worth stealing!"

"And I've been up there, too, and helped pack out the ore, and I tell you you don't know what you're talking about!"

Billy's eyes flashed dangerously as she sprang up to face him and for a minute they matched their wills; then Wunpost laughed shortly and stepped out into the open where the sun was just topping the mountains.

"Well all right, kid," he said, "have your own way about it. It makes no difference to me."

"No, I guess not," retorted Billy, "or you'd find out what you were talking about before you said that my father was a fool. His mine is just as good as it ever was--all it needs is another road."

"Yes, and then _another_ road," chimed in Wunpost mockingly, "as soon as the first cloudburst comes by. And the price of silver is just half what it was when Old Panamint was on the boom. But that makes no difference, of course?"

"Yes, it does," acknowledged Billy whose eyes were gray with rage, "but the flotation process is so much cheaper than milling that it more than evens things up. And there hasn't been a cloudburst in thirteen years--but that makes no difference, of course!"

She spat it out spitefully and Wunpost curbed his wit for he saw where his jesting was leading to. When it came to her father this unsophisticated child would stand up and fight like a wildcat. And he began to perceive too that she was not such a child--she was a woman, with the experience of a child. In the ways of the world she was a mere babe in the woods but in intellect and character she was far from being dwarfed and her honesty was positively embarra.s.sing. It crowded him into corners that were hard to get out of and forced him to make excuses for himself, whereas at the moment he was all lit up with joy over the miracle of his second big strike. He had discovered the Wunpost, and lost it on a fluke; but the Willie Meena was different--if he kept the peace with her they would both come out with a fortune.

"Never mind now, kid," he said at last, "your father is all right--I like him. And if he thinks he can get rich by building roads up the canyon, that's his privilege; it's nothing to me. But you string along with me on our mine down below and there'll be money and to spare for us both; and then you can take your share and build the old man a road that'll make 'em all take notice! About twenty thousand dollars ought to fix the matter up, but if we get to gee-hawing and Dusty Rhodes mixes in there won't be a dollar for any of us. We've got to stand together, see--you and me against old Dusty--and that will give us control."

"Well, I didn't start the quarrel," said Billy, beginning to blink, "but it makes me mad, just because father won't give up to have everybody saying he's crazy. But he isn't--he knows just exactly what he's doing--and some day he'll be a rich man when these Blackwater pocket-miners are dest.i.tute. The Homestake mine produced half a million dollars, the second time they opened it up, and if the road hadn't washed out it would be producing yet and my father would be rated a millionaire. If he would sell out his claims, or just organize a company and give outside capitalists control----"

"Don't you do it!" warned Wunpost, who made a very poor listener, "they'll skin you, every time. The party that has control can take over the property and exclude the minority stockholders from the ground, and all they can do is to sue for an accounting and demand a look at the books. But the books are nothing, it's what's underground that counts, and if you try to go down they can kill you. I learned that from Judson Eells when he put me out of Wunpost--and say, we can work that on Dusty!

We'll treat him white at first, but the minute he gets gay, it's the gate--we'll give him the gate!"

He pranced about joyously, vainly trying to make her smile, but Wilhelmina had lost her gaiety.

"No," she said, "let's not do that--because I made him apologize, you know. But don't you think it's possible that Judson Eells will follow after you and claim this mine too, under his contract?"

"He can't!" chuckled Wunpost starting to do a double-shuffle, "I fooled him--this isn't Nevada. And when I found the Wunpost I was eating his grub, but this time I was strictly on my own. I came to a country where I'd never been before, so he couldn't say I'd covered it up; and that contract was made out in the state of Nevada, but this is clear over in California. Not a chance, kid, we're rich, cheer up!"

He tried to grab her hand but she drew it away from him and an anxious look crept into her eyes.

"No," she said, "let's not be foolish." Already the great dream had sped.

CHAPTER V

THE WILLIE MEENA

The morning had scarcely dawned when Wilhelmina dashed up the trail and looked down on the Sink below; and Wunpost had been right, where before all was empty, now the Death Valley Trail was alive. From Blackwater to Wild Rose Wash the dust rose up in clouds, each streamer boring on towards the north; and already the first stampeders had pa.s.sed out of sight in their rush for the Black Point strike. It lay beyond North Pa.s.s, cut off from view by the shoulder of a long, low ridge; but there it was, and her claim and Wunpost's was already swarming with men. The whole town of Blackwater had risen up in the night and gone streaking across the Sink, and what was to keep those envious pocket-miners from claiming the find for their own? And Dusty Rhodes--he must have led the stampede--had he respected his partners' rights? She gazed a long moment, then darted back through the tunnel and bore the news to her father and Wunpost.

He had slept in the hay, this hardy desert animal, this shabby, penniless man with the loud voice of a demagogue and the profile of a bronze Greek G.o.d; and he came forth boldly, like Odysseus of old when, cast ash.o.r.e on a strange land, he roused from his sleep and beheld Nausicaa and her maidens at play. But as Nausicaa, the princess, withstood his advance when all her maidens had fled, so Wilhelmina faced him, for she knew full well now that he was not a G.o.d. He was a water-hole prospector who for two idle years had eaten the bread of Judson Eells; and then, when chance led him to a rich vein of ore, had covered up the hole and said nothing. Yet for all his human weaknesses he had one G.o.dlike quality, a regal disregard for wealth; for he had kept his plighted word and divided, half and half, this mine towards which all Blackwater now rushed. She looked at him again and her rosy lips parted--he had earned the meed of a smile.

The day had dawned auspiciously, as far as Billy was concerned, for she was back in her overalls and her father had consented to take her along to the mine. The claim was part hers and Wunpost had insisted that she accompany them back to the strike. Dusty Rhodes would be there, with his noisy demands and his hints at greater rights in the claim; and in the first wild rush complications might arise that would call for a speedy settlement. But with Billy at his side and Cole Campbell as a witness, every detail of their agreement could be proved on the instant and the Willie Meena started off right. So Wunpost smiled back when he beheld the make-believe boy who had come to his aid on her mule; and as they rode off down the canyon, driving four burros, two packed with water, he looked her over approvingly.

In skirts she had something of the conventional reserve which had always made him scared of women; but as a boy, as Billy, she was one partner in a thousand, and as carefree as the wind. Upon the back of her saddle, neatly tied up in a bag, she carried the dress that she would wear at the mine; but riding across the mesa on the lonely Indian trail she clung to the garb of utility. In overalls she had ridden up and down the corkscrew canyon that led to her father's mine; she had gone out to hunt for burros, dragged in wood and carried up water and done the daily duties of a man. Both her brothers were gone, off working in the mines, and their tasks descended to her; until in stride and manner and speech she was by instinct, a man and only by thought a woman.

The years had slipped by, even her mother had hardly noticed how she too had grown up like the rest; and now in one day she had stepped forth into their councils and claimed her place as a man. Yes, that was the place that she had instinctively claimed but they had given her the place of a woman. When it came to prospecting among the lonely peaks she could go as far as she chose; but in the presence of men, even as an owner in the great mine, she must confine her free limbs within skirts.

And, though she had come of age, she was still in tutelage--with two men along to do her thinking. Wunpost had made it easy, all she had to do was stand pat and agree to whatever he said; and her father was there to protect her in her rights and preserve the family honor from loose tongues.

They skirted the edge of the valley, keeping up above the Sink and crossing an endless series of rocky washes, until as they topped the last low ridge the Black Point lay before them, surrounded by a swarm of digging men. It jutted out from the ridge, a round volcanic cone sticking up through the shattered porphyry; and yet this point of rock, all but buried in the wash of centuries, held a treasure fit to ransom a king. It held the Willie Meena mine, which had lain there by the trail while thousands of adventurers hurried past; until at last Wunpost had stopped to examine it and had all but perished of thirst. But one there was who had seen him, and saved him from the Sink, and loaned him her mule to ride; and in honor of her, though he could not spell her name, he had called it the Willie Meena.

Billy sat on Tellurium and gazed with rapt wonder at the scene which stretched out below. Wagons and horses everywhere, and automobiles too, and dejected-looking burros and mules; and in the rough hills beyond men were climbing like goats as they staked the lava-crowned b.u.t.tes. A procession of Indian wagons was filing up the gulch to haul water from Wild Rose Spring and already the first tent of what would soon be a city was set up opposite the point. In a few hours there would be twenty up, in a few days a hundred, in a few months it would be a town; and all named for her, who had been given a half by Wunpost and yet had hardly murmured her thanks. She turned to him smiling but as she was about to speak her father caught her eye.

"Put on your dress," he said, and she retired, red with chagrin, to struggle into that accursed badge of servitude. It was hot, the sun boiled down as it does every day in that land where the rocks are burned black; and, once she was dressed, she could not mount her mule without seeming to be immodest. So she followed along behind them, leading Tellurium by his rope, and entered her city of dreams unnoticed. Calhoun strode on before her, while Campbell rounded up the burros, and the men from Blackwater stared at him. He was a stranger to them all, but evidently not to boom camps, for he headed for the solitary tent.

"Good morning to you, gentlemen," he called out in his great voice; "won't you join me--let's all have a drink!"

The crowd fell in behind him, another crowd opened up in front, and he stood against the bar, a board strewn thick with gla.s.ses and tottering bottles of whiskey. An old man stood behind it, wagging his beard as he chewed tobacco, and as he set out the gla.s.ses he glanced up at Wunpost with a curious, embittered smile. He was white-faced and white-bearded, stooped and gnarled like a wind-tortured tree, and the crook to his nose made one think instinctively of pictures of the Wandering Jew. Or perhaps it was the black skull-cap, set far back on his bent head, which gave him the Jewish cast; but his manner was that of the rough-and-ready barkeeper and he slapped one wet hand on the bar.

"Here's to her!" cried Wunpost, ignoring the hint to pay as he raised his gla.s.s to the crowd. "Here's to the Willie Meena--some mine!"