Wunpost
“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,” pronounced 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 nobody 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 embarrassing. 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 destitute. 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 passed out of sight in their rush for the Black Point strike. It lay beyond North Pass, 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 god; and he came forth boldly, like Odysseus of old when, cast ashore 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 god. 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 godlike 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 buttes. 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 glasses and tottering bottles of whiskey. An old man stood behind it, wagging his beard as he chewed tobacco, and as he set out the glasses 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 glass to the crowd. “Here’s to the Willie Meena–some mine!”
He tossed off the drink, but when he looked for the chaser the barkeeper shook his head.
“No chasers,” he said, “water is too blasted scarce–that’ll be three dollars and twenty-five cents.”
“Charge it to ground-rent!” grinned Wunpost. “I’m the man that owns this claim. See you later–where’s Dusty Rhodes?”
“No–cash!” demanded the barkeeper, looking him coldly in the eye. “I’m in on this claim myself.”
“Since when?” inquired Wunpost. “Maybe you don’t know who I am? I am John C. Calhoun, the man that discovered Wunpost; and unless I’m greatly mistaken you’re not in on anything–who gave you any title to this ground?”
“Dusty Rhodes,” croaked the saloon-keeper, and a curse slipped past Wunpost’s lips, though he knew that a lady was near.
“Well, damn Dusty Rhodes!” he cried in a passion. “Where is the crazy fool?”
He burst from the crowd just as Dusty came hurrying across from where he had been digging out ore; and for a minute they stood clamoring, both shouting at once, until at last Wunpost seized him by the throat.
“Who’s this old stiff with whiskers?” he yelled into his ear, “that thinks he owns the whole claim? Speak up, or I’ll wring your neck!”
He released his hold and Dusty Rhodes staggered back, while the crowd looked on in alarm.
“W’y, that’s Whiskers,” explained Dusty, “the saloon-keeper down in Blackwater. I guess I didn’t tell you but he give me a grubstake and so he gits half my claim.”
“Your claim!” echoed Wunpost. “Since when was this your claim? You doddering old tarrapin, you only own one-third of it–and that ain’t yours, by rights. How much do you claim, I say?”
“W’y–I only claim one third,” responded Dusty weakly, “but Whiskers, he claims that I’m entitled to a half─”
“A half!” raged Wunpost, starting back towards the saloon. “I’ll show the old billygoat what he owns!”
He kicked over the bar with savage destructiveness, jerking up a tent-peg with each brawny hand, and as the old man cowered he dragged the tent forward until it threatened every moment to come down.
“Git out of here!” he ordered, “git off of my ground! I discovered this claim and it’s located in my name–now git, before I break you in two!”
“Here, here!” broke in Cole Campbell, laying a hand on Wunpost’s arm as the saloon-keeper began suddenly to beg, “let’s not have any violence. What’s the trouble?”
“Why, this old spittoon-trammer,” began Wunpost in a fury, “has got the nerve to claim half my ground. I’ve been beat out of one claim, but this time it’s different–I’ll show him who owns this ground!”
“I just claim a quarter of it!” snapped old Whiskers vindictively. “I claim half of Dusty Rhodes’ share. He was working on my grubstake–and he was with you when you made your strike.”
“He was not!” denied Wunpost, “he went off and left me. Did you find his name on the notice? No, you found John C. Calhoun and Williemeena Campbell, the girl that loaned me her mule. We’re the locators of this property, and, just to keep the peace, we agreed to give Dusty one third; but that ain’t a half and if you say it is again, out you go–I’ll throw you off my claim!”
“Well, a third, then,” screeched Old Whiskers, holding his hands about his ears, “but for cripes’ sake quit jerking that tent! Ain’t a third enough to give me a right to put up my tent on the ground?”
“It is if I say so,” replied Wunpost authoritatively, “and if Williemeena Campbell consents. But git it straight now–we’re running this property and you and Dusty are nothing. You’re the minority, see, and if you make a crooked move we’ll put you both off the claim. Can you git that through your head?”
“Well, I guess so,” grumbled Whiskers, stooping to straighten up his bar, and Wunpost winked at the crowd.
“Set ’em up again!” he commanded regally and all Blackwater drank on the house.
CHAPTER VI
CINCHED
Having established his rights beyond the peradventure of a doubt, the imperious Wunpost left Old Whiskers to recoup his losses and turned to the wide-eyed Wilhelmina. She had been standing, rooted to the earth, while he assaulted Old Whiskers and Rhodes; and as she glanced up at him doubtfully he winked and grinned back at her and spoke from behind the cover of his hand.
“That’s the system!” he said. “Git the jump on ’em–treat ’em rough! Come on, let’s go look at our mine!”
He led the way to Black Point, where the bonanza vein of quartz came down and was buried in the sand; and while the crowd gazed from afar they looked over their property, though Billy moved like one in a dream. Her father was engaged in placating Dusty Rhodes and in explaining their agreement to the rest, and she still felt surprised that she had ever consented to accompany so desperate a ruffian. Yet as he knocked off a chunk of ore and showed her the specks of gold, scattered through it with such prodigal richness, she felt her old sense of security return; for he had never been rough with her. It was only with Old Whiskers, the grasping Blackwater saloon-keeper, and with the equally avaricious Dusty Rhodes–who had been trying to steal more than their share of the prospect and to beat her out of her third. They had thought to ignore her, to brush her aside and usurp her share in the claim; but Wunpost had defended her and protected her rights and put them back where they belonged. And it was for this that he had seized Dusty Rhodes by the throat and kicked down the saloon-keeper’s bar. But she wondered what would happen if, at some future time, she should venture to oppose his will.
The vein of quartz which had caught Wunpost’s eye was enclosed within another, not so rich, and a third mighty ledge of low-grade ore encased the two of them within its walls. This big dyke it was which formed the backbone of the point, thrusting up through the half-eroded porphyry; and as it ran up towards its apex it was swallowed and overcapped by the lava from the old volcanic cone.
“Look at that!” exclaimed Wunpost, knocking off chunk after chunk; and as a crowd began to gather he dug down on the richest streak, giving the specimens to the first person who asked. The heat beat down upon them and Campbell called Wilhelmina to the shelter of his makeshift tent, but on the ledge Wunpost dug on untiringly while the pocket-miners gathered about. They knew, if he did not, the value of those rocks which he dispensed like so much dirt, and when he was not looking they gathered up the leavings and even knocked off more for themselves. There had been hungry times in the Blackwater district, and some of this quartz was half gold.
An Indian wood-hauler came down from Wild Rose Spring with his wagon filled with casks of water, and as he peddled his load at two-bits a bucket the camp took on a new lease of life. Old Whiskers served a chaser with each drink of whiskey; coffee was boiled and cooking began; and all the drooping horses were banded together and driven up the canyon to the spring. It was only nine miles, and the Indians would keep on hauling, but already Wunpost had planned to put in a pipe-line and make Willie Meena a town. He stood by Campbell’s tent while the crowd gathered about and related the history of his strike, and then he went on with his plans for the mine and his predictions of boom times to come.
“Just you wait,” he said, bulking big in the moonlight; “you wait till them Nevada boomers come. Things are dead over there–Keno and Wunpost are worked out; they’ll hit for this camp to a man. And when they come, gentlemen, you want to be on your ground, because they’ll jump anything that ain’t held down. Just wait till they see this ore and then watch their dust–they’ll stake the whole country for miles–but I’ve only got one claim, and I’m going to stay on it, and the first man that jumps it will get this.”
He slapped the big pistol that he had borrowed from Wilhelmina and nodded impressively to the crowd; and the next morning early he was over at the hole, getting ready for the rush that was to come. For the news of the strike had gone out from Blackwater on the stage of the evening before, and the moment it reached the railroad it would be wired to Keno and to Tonopah and Goldfield beyond. Then the stampede would begin, over the hills and down into Death Valley and up Emigrant Wash to the springs; and from there the first automobiles would burn up the ground till they struck Wild Rose Canyon and came down. Wunpost got out a hammer and drill, and as he watched for the rush he dug out more specimens to show. Wilhelmina stood beside him, putting the best of them into an ore-sack and piling the rest on the dump; and as he met her glad smile he laid down his tools and nodded at her wisely.
“Big doings, kid,” he said. “There’s some rock that’ll make ’em scream. D’ye remember what I said about Dusty Rhodes? Well, maybe I didn’t call the turn–he did just exactly what I said. When he got to Blackwater he claimed the strike was his and framed it up with Whiskers to freeze us out. They thought they had us jumped–somebody knocked down my monument, and that’s a State Prison offense–but I came back at ’em so quick they were whipped before they knew it. They acknowledged that the claim was mine. Well, all right, kid, let’s keep it; you tag right along with me and back up any play that I make, and if any of these boomers from Nevada get funny we’ll give ’em the gate, the gate!”