Wunpost

“He’s working up the canyon,” answered Billy sulkily, “but never you mind about my mule. He’s mine, I guess, and I loaned him to that man in exchange for a half interest in his mine!”

“Oh, it’s a mine now, is it?” mocked Dusty Rhodes, “next thing it’ll be a mine and mill. And he borrowed your mule, eh, that your father give ye, and sent ye back home on foot!”

“I don’t care!” pouted Billy, “I’ll bet you change your tune when you see him coming back with my mule. You went off and left him, and if I hadn’t gone down and helped him he would have died in the desert of thirst.”

“Eh–eh! Went off and left him!” bleated Dusty in a fury, “the poor fool went off and left me! I picked him up at Furnace Crick, over in the middle of Death Valley, and jest took him along out of pity; and all the way over he was looking at every rock when a prospector wouldn’t spit on the place! He was eating my grub and packing his bed on my jacks; and then, by the gods, he wants me to stop at Black P’int while he looks at that hungry bull-quartz! I warned him distinctly that I don’t wait for no man–did he say I went off and left him?”

“Yes, he did,” answered Billy, “and he says he’s going to kill you, because you went off and took all his water!”

“Hoo, hoo!” jeered Dusty Rhodes, “that big bag of wind?” But he ignored what she said about the water.

They spattered through the creek, where it flowed out to sink in the sand, and passed around the point of the canyon; and then the green valley spread out before them until it was cut off by the gorge above. This was the treacherous Corkscrew Bend, where the fury of countless cloudbursts had polished the granite walls like a tombstone; but Dusty Rhodes recalled the time when a fine stage-road had threaded its curves and led on up the canyon to old Panamint. But the flood which had destroyed the road had left the town marooned and the inhabitants had gone out over the rocks; until now only Cole Campbell, the owner of the Homestake, stayed on to do the work on his claims. In this valley far below he had made his home for years, diverting the creek to water his scanty crops; while in season and out he labored on the road which was to connect up his mine with the world.

His house stood against the hill, around the point from Corkscrew Bend, old and rambling and overgrown with vines; and along the road that led up to it there were rows of peaches and figs, fenced off by stone walls from the creek. Dusty rode past the trees slowly, feasting his eyes on their lush greenness and the rank growth of alfalfa beyond; until from the house ahead a screen door slammed and a woman gazed anxiously down.

“Oh, is that you, Mr. Rhodes?” she called out at last, “I thought it was the man who got lost! Come up to the house and tell me about him–do you think he will bring back our mule?”

He dismounted with a flourish and dropped his reins at the gate; then, while Billy hung back and petted the lathered horse, he strode up the flower-entangled walk.

“Don’t think nothing, Mrs. Campbell,” he announced with decision, “that boy has stole ’em before. He’ll trade off that mule fer anything he can git and pull his freight fer Nevada.”

He paced up to the porch and shook hands ceremoniously, after which he accepted a drink and a basketful of figs and proceeded to retail the news.

“Do you know who that feller is?” he inquired mysteriously, as Billy crept resentfully near, “he’s the man that discovered the Wunpost mine and tried to keep it dark. Yes, that big mine over in Keno that they thought was worth millions, only it pinched right out at depth; but it showed up the nicest specimens of jewelry gold that has ever been seen in these parts. Well, this Wunpost, as they call him, was working on a grubstake for a banker named Judson Eells. He’d been out for two years, just sitting around the water-holes or playing coon-can with the Injuns, when he comes across this mine, or was led to it by some Injun, and he tries to cover it up. He puts up one post, to kinder hold it down in case some prospector should happen along; and then he writes his notice, leaving out the date– and everything else, you might say.

“‘Wunpost Mine,’” he writes, “‘John C. Calhoun owner. I claim fifteen hundred feet on this vein.’

“And jest to show you, Mrs. Campbell, what an ignorant fool he is–he spelled One Post, W-u-n! That’s where he got his name!”

“I think that’s a pretty name!” spoke up Billy loyally, as her mother joined in on the laugh. “And anyhow, just because a man can’t spell, that’s no reason for calling him a fool!”

“Well, he is a fool!” burst out Dusty Rhodes spitefully, “and more than that, he’s a crook! Now that is what he done–he covered up that find and went back to the man that had grubstaked him. But this banker was no sucker, if he did have the name of staking every bum in Nevada. He was generous with his men and he give ’em all they asked for, but before he planked down a dollar he made ’em sign a contract that a corporation lawyer couldn’t break. Well, when Wunpost said he’d quit, Mr. Eells says all right–no hard feeling–better luck next time. But when Wunpost went back and opened up this vein Mr. Eells was Johnny-on-the-spot. He steps up to that hole and shows his contract, giving him an equal share of whatever Wunpost finds–and then he reads a clause giving him the right to take possession and to work the mine according to his judgment. And the first thing Wunpost knowed the mine was worked out and he was left holding the sack. But served him right, sez I, for trying to beat his outfitter, after eating his grub for two years!”

“But didn’t he receive anything?” inquired Mrs. Campbell. “That seems to me pretty sharp practice.”

She was a prim little woman, with honest blue eyes that sometimes made men think of their sins, and when Dusty Rhodes perceived that he had gone a bit too far he endeavored to justify his spleen.

“He received some!” he cried, “but what good did it do him? Eells give him five hundred dollars when he demanded an accounting and he blowed it all in in one night. He was buying the drinks for every man in camp–your money was all counterfeit with him–and the next morning he woke up without a shirt to his back, having had it torn off in a fight. What kind of a man is that to be managing a mine or to be partners with a big banker like Eells? No, he walked out of camp without a cent to his name and I picked him up Tuesday over at Furnace Crick. All he had was his bed and a couple of canteens and a little jerked beef in a sack, but to hear the poor boob talk you’d think he was a millionaire–he had the world by the tail. And then, at the end of it, he’d be borrying your tobacco–or anything else you’d got. But I never would’ve thought that he’d steal Billy’s mule–that’s gitting pretty low, it strikes me.”

“He never stole my mule!” burst out Wilhelmina angrily. “I expect him back here any time. And when he does come, and you hear about his mine, I’ll bet you change your tune!”

“Ho! Ho!” shouted Rhodes, nodding and winking at Mrs. Campbell, “she’s getting to be growed-up, ain’t she? Last time I come through here she was a little girl in pigtails but now it’s done up in curls. And I can’t say a word against this no-account Wunpost till she calls me a liar to my face!”

“Billy is almost nineteen,” answered Mrs. Campbell quietly, “but I’m surprised to hear her contradict.”

“Well, I didn’t mean that,” apologized Wilhelmina hastily, “but–well anyhow, I know he’s got a mine! Because he showed me a piece of quartz that he’d carried all the way, and he must have had a reason for that. It was just moonlight, of course, and I couldn’t see the gold, but I know that it was quartz.”

“Ah, Billy, my little girl,” returned Dusty indulgently, “you don’t know the boy like I do. And the world is full of quartz but you don’t find a mine right next to a well-worn trail. Have you got that piece of rock? Well now you see the p’int–he took it away! Would he do that if his mine was on the square?”

“Well, I don’t know why not,” answered Billy at last and then she bowed her head and turned away. They gazed after her pityingly as she ran along the ditch and up to the mouth of her tunnel, but Billy did not stop till she had threaded its murky passageway and come out at her gate of dreams. It was from there that she had seen him when he was lost in the Sink, and she knew her dream of dreams would come true. He was going to come back, he was going to bring her mule, and make her his partner in the mine. She looked out–and there was his dust!

CHAPTER III

DUSTY RHODES EATS DIRT

Billy gazed away in ecstasy at the dust cloud in the distance, and at the white spot that was Tellurium, her mule; and when the rider came closer she skipped back through the tunnel and danced along the trail to the house. Dusty Rhodes was still there, describing in windy detail Wunpost’s encounter with one Pisen-face Lynch, but as she stood before them smiling he sensed the mischief in her eye and interrupted himself with a question.

“He’s coming,” announced Billy, showing the dimples in both cheeks and Dusty Rhodes let his jaw drop.

“Who’s coming?” he asked but she dimpled enigmatically and jerked her curly head towards the road. They started up to look and as the white mule rounded the point Dusty Rhodes blinked his eyes uncertainly. After all his talk about the faithless and cowardly Wunpost here he was, coming up the road; and the memory of a canteen which he had left strapped upon a pack, rose up and left him cold. Talk as much as he would he could never escape the fact that he had gone off with Wunpost’s big canteen, and the one subject he had avoided–why he had not stopped to wait for him–was now likely to be thoroughly discussed. He glanced about furtively, but there was no avenue of escape and he started off down to the gate.

“Where you been all the time?” he shouted in accusing accents, “I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

“Yes, you have!” thundered Wunpost dropping down off his mule and striding swiftly towards him. “You’ve been lapping up the booze, over at Blackwater! I’ve a good mind to kill you, you old dastard!”

“Didn’t I tell you not to stop?” yelled Rhodes in a feigned fury. “You brought it all on yourself! I thought you’d gone back─”

“You did not!” shouted Wunpost waving his fists in the air, “you saw me behind you all the time. And if I’d ever caught up with you I’d have bashed your danged brains out, but now I’m going to let you live! I’m going to let you live so I can have a good laugh every time I see you go by–Old Dusty Rhodes, the Speed King, the Wild Ass of the Desert, the man that couldn’t stop to get rich! I was running along behind you trying to make you a millionaire but you wouldn’t even give me a drink! Look at that, what I was trying to show you!”

He whipped out a rock and slapped it into Rhodes’ hand but Dusty was blind with rage.

“No good!” he said, and chucked it in the dirt at which Wunpost stooped down and picked it up.

“You’re a peach of a prospector,” he said with biting scorn and stored it away in his pocket.

“Let me look at that again,” spoke up Dusty Rhodes querulously but Wunpost had spied the ladies. He advanced to the porch, his big black hat in one hand, while he smoothed his towsled hair with the other, and the smile which he flashed Billy made her flush and then go pale, for she had neglected to change back to skirts. Every Sunday morning, and when they had visitors, she was required to don the true habiliments of her sex; but her joy at his return had left no room for thoughts of dress and she found herself in the overalls of a boy. So she stepped behind her mother and as Wunpost observed her blushes he addressed his remarks to Mrs. Campbell.

“Glad to meet you,” he exclaimed with a gallantry quite surprising in a man who could not even spell “one.” “I hope you’ll excuse my few words with Mr. Rhodes. It’s been a long time since I’ve had the pleasure of meeting ladies and I forgot myself for the moment. I met your daughter yesterday–good morning, Miss Wilhelmina–and I formed a high opinion of you both; because a young lady of her breeding must have a mother to be proud of, and she certainly showed she was game. She saved my life with that water and lunch, and then she loaned me her mule!”

He paused and Dusty Rhodes brought his bushy eyebrows down and stabbed him to the heart with his stare.

“Lemme look at that rock!” he demanded importantly and John C. Calhoun returned his glare.

“Mr. Rhodes,” he said, “after the way you have treated me I don’t feel that I owe you any courtesies. You have seen the rock once and that’s enough. Please excuse me, I was talking with these ladies.”

“Aw, you can’t fool me,” burst out Dusty Rhodes vindictively, “you ain’t sech a winner as you think. I’ve jest give Mrs. Campbell a bird’s-eye view of your career, so you’re coppered on that bet from the start.”

“What do you mean?” demanded Wunpost drawing himself up arrogantly while his beetle-browed eyes flashed fire; but the challenge in his voice did not ring absolutely true and Dusty Rhodes grinned at him wickedly.

“You’d better learn to spell Wunpost,” he said with a hectoring laugh, “before you put on any more dog with the ladies. But I asked you for that rock and I intend to git a look at it–I claim an interest in anything you’ve found.”

“Oh, you do, eh?” returned Wunpost, now suddenly calm. “Well, let me tell you something, Mr. Rhodes. You wasn’t in my company when I found this chunk of rock, so you haven’t got any interest–see? But rather than have an argument in the presence of these ladies I’ll show you the quartz again.”

He drew out the piece of rock and handed it to Rhodes who stared at it with sun-blinded eyes–then suddenly he whipped out a case and focussed a pair of magnifying glasses meanwhile mumbling to himself in broken accents.

“Where’d you git that rock?” he asked, looking up, and Wunpost threw out his chest.

“Right there at Black Point,” he answered carelessly, “you’ve been chasing along by it for years.”