Great timbers still lay where they had been dumped from the trucks, there was a concrete foundation for the engine; and a double-compartment shaft, sunk on the salted vein, showed what great expectations had been blasted. With the Willie Meena still sinking on high-grade ore, Judson Eells had taken a good deal for granted when he had set out to develop the Stinging Lizard. He had squared out his shaft and sunk on the vein only as far as the muckers could throw out the waste; and then, instead of installing a windlass or a whim, he had decided upon a gallows-frame and hoist. But to bring in his machinery he must first have a road, for the trail was all but impassable; and so, without sinking, he had blasted his way up the canyon, only to find his efforts wasted. The ore had been dug out before his engine was installed, thus saving him even greater loss; but every dollar that he had put into the work had been absolutely thrown away. Wunpost camped there and gloated and then, shortly after midnight, he set off with his tongue in his cheek.

The time had now come when he was to match wits with Lynch in the old game of follow-my-leader and, even with the Indian to do Lynch's tracking, he had no fears for the outcome. There were places on those peaks where a man could travel for miles without placing his foot on soft ground, and other places in Death Valley where he could travel in sand that was so powdery it would bog a butterfly. First the high places, to wear them out and make Pisen-face Lynch get quarrelsome; and then the desolate Valley, with its heat and poison springs, to put the final touch to his revenge. For it was revenge that Wunpost sought, revenge on Pisen-face Lynch, who had driven him from two claims with a gun; and this chase over the hills, which had started so casually, had really been planned for months. It was part of that "system" which he had developed so belatedly, by which his enemies were all to be confounded; and, knowing that Lynch would follow wherever he led, Wunpost had made his plans accordingly. He was leading the way into a trap, long set, which was sure to enmesh its prey.

At daylight Wunpost paused in his steady, plunging climb and looked back over the rock-slides and boulders; and while his mules munched their grain well back out of sight he focussed his new field glasses and watched. From the knife-blade ridge up which he had spurred and scrambled the whole country lay before him like a relief map, and in the particular gash-like canyon where he had located the Stinging Lizard he made out his furtive pursuers. The Indian was ahead, leaning over in his saddle as he kept his eyes on the trail; and Lynch rode behind, a heavy rifle beneath his knee, scanning the ridges to prevent a surprise. But neither led a pack-horse and when Wunpost had looked his fill he put up his glasses and smiled.

In the country where he was going there was no grass for those horses, no browse that even an Indian pony could travel on; and if they wanted to keep up with him and his grain-fed mules they would have to use quirt and spurs. And the man who feeds his horse on buckskin alone is due to walk back to camp. So reasoned John C. Calhoun from his cow-puncher days, when he had tried out the weaknesses of horseflesh; and as he returned to the grassy swale where his mules were hid he looked them over proudly. His riding mule, Old Walker, was still in his prime, a big-bellied animal with the long reach in its fore-shoulders which made it by nature a fast walker; and his pack-mule, equally round-bellied to store away food, was short-bodied as well so that he bore his pack easily without any tendency to give down. He had been raised with Old Walker and would follow him anywhere, without being dragged by a rope, so that Wunpost had both hands for any emergency which might arise and could keep his eyes on the trail.

And to think that these noble animals, big and black and beautifully gaited, had been bought with Judson Eells' own money; while he, poor fool, sent Lynch out after him on a miserable Indian cayuse. Wunpost's road was always plain, for where he went they must follow, but at every rocky point or granite-strewn flat they must circle and cut for his trail. As he rode on now to the north he did not double and twist, for the Indian would know the old trail; but the tracks he had left behind him before he mounted to the ridge were as aimless as it was possible to make them. They did not strike out boldly up some hogback or canyon but at every fork and bend they turned this way and that, as if he were hopelessly lost. And now as he rode on, unobserved by his pursuers, over the well-worn Indian trail along the summit, Lynch and his tracker were far behind, tracing his mule-tracks to and fro, up and down the broiling hot canyons.

On the summit it was cool and the grass was still green, for the snow had held late on the peaks, and the junipers and pinons had given place to oaks and limber pines which stood up along the steep slopes like switches. The air was sweet and pure, all the world lay below him; but, as the heat came on, the abyss of Death Valley was lost in a pall of black haze. It gathered from nowhere, smoke-like and yet not smoke; a haze, a murk, a mass of writhing heat like the fumes from a witches' cauldron. Wunpost had simmered in that cauldron, and he would simmer again soon; but gladly, if he had Lynch for company. It was follow-my-leader and, since there were no long wharves to jump off of, Wunpost had decided upon the Valley of Death. And if, in following after him to rob him of his mine, Pisen-face Lynch should succumb to the heat, that might justly be considered a visitation of Providence to punish him for his misspent life. Or at least so Wunpost reasoned and, remembering the gun under Lynch's knee, he decided to keep well in the lead.

Wunpost camped that night at the upper water in Wild Rose Canyon, letting his mules get a last feed of grass; and the next morning at daylight he was up and away on the long trail that led down to Death Valley. But first it led north over a broad, sandy plain, where Indian ponies were grazing in stray bands; and then, after ten miles, it swung off to the east where it broke through the hills and turned down. After that it was a jump-off for six thousand feet, from the mountain-top to down below sea-level; and, before he lost himself in the gap between the hills, Wunpost paused and looked back across the plain.

This was the door to his trap, for at the edge of the rim the trail split in twain; the Wet Trail leading past water while the Dry Trail was shorter, but dry. And as live bait is best he unpacked and waited patiently until he spied his pursuers in the pass. They were not five miles away, coming down the narrow draw which marked the turn in the trail, and after a long look Wunpost put up his glasses and saddled and packed to go. Yet still he lingered on, looking back through the shimmering heat that seemed to make the yellow earth blaze; until at last they were so near that he could see them point ahead and bring their tired horses to a stop. Then he whipped out his pistol and shot back at them defiantly, turning off up the Dry Trail at a trot.

They followed, but cautiously, as if anxious to avoid a conflict and Wunpost swung off between the points of two hills and led them on down the dry canyon. If they took the Wet Trail, which the Indian knew, he might double back and give them the slip; but now there was no water till they had descended to sea level and crossed the treacherous corduroy to Furnace Creek. The trap was sprung, they were committed to the adventure, to follow him wherever he might lead; and Wunpost never stopped spurring until he had descended the steep canyon and led them out in the dry wash below. It was like climbing down a wall into a sink-hole of boiling heat, but Lynch did not weaken and Wunpost bowed his head and took the main trail to the ranch.

The sun swung low behind the rim of the Panamints, throwing a shadow across the broad canyon below; ten miles to the east, under the heat and haze, lay Furnace Creek Ranch and rest; but as his pursuers came on, just keeping within sight of him, Wunpost turned off sharply to the north. He quit the trail and struck out across the boulder-patches towards the point of Tucki Mountain, and if they followed him there it would be into a country that even the Indians were afraid of. It was there that Death Valley had earned its name, when a party of Mormon emigrants had died beside their ox-teams after drinking the water at Salt Creek. There was Stove-pipe Hole, with the grave close by of the man who had not stopped to bail the hole; and, nearest of all, was Poison Spring, the worst water in all Death Valley. Wunpost turned out and started north, daring his enemies to follow, and Lynch accept the challenge—alone.

The Indian rode on, leaving the white man to his fate and heading for Furnace Creek Ranch; and Wunpost, sweating streams and cursing to himself, flogged on toward Poison Spring. It was a hideous thing to do, but Lynch had chosen to follow him and his blood would be upon his own head. Wunpost had given him the trail, to go on to the ranch while he turned back the way they had come; but no, Lynch was bull-headed, or perhaps the heat had warped his judgment—in any case he had elected to follow. The last courtesies were past, Wunpost had given him his chance, and Lynch had taken his trail like a bloodhound; he could not claim now that he was going in the same direction—he was following along after him like a murderer. Perhaps the slow fever of the terrible heat had turned his anger into an obsession to kill, for Wunpost himself was beginning to feel the desert madness and he set out deliberately to lure him.

Where the black and frowning ramparts of Tucki Mountain thrust out towards the edge of the Sink a spring of stinking water rises up from the ground and runs off into the marsh. From the peaks above, it is a bright strip of green at which the wary mountain sheep gaze longingly; but down in that rank grass there are bones and curling horns that have taught the survivors to beware. It is Poison Spring, the Poison Spring in a land where all water is bad; and in many a long day Wunpost was the only human being who had gazed into its crystal depths. For the water was clear, too clear to be good, without even a green scum along its edge; and the rank, deceiving grass which grew up below could not tempt him to more than taste it. But, being trailed at the time by some men from Nevada who had seen the Sockdolager ore, he had conceived a possible use for the spring; and, coming back later, he had buried two cans of good water where he could find them when occasion demanded. This was the trap, in fact, toward which for four days he had been leading his vindictive pursuers; it was poisoned bait, laid out by Nature herself, to strike down such coyotes as Lynch.

Wunpost arrived at Poison Spring well along in the evening, the desert night being almost turned to day by the splendor of a waning moon. He rode in across the flat and down the salt-encrusted bank, still sweltering in the smothering heat; and the pounding blood in his brain had brought on a kind of fury—a death-anger at Pisen-face Lynch. He dug into the sand and drew out the cans of water, holding his mules away from the spring; and then, from a bucket, he gave each a small drink after taking a large one himself. There were two five-gallon cans, and after he had finished he lashed the full one on the pack; the other one, which sloshed faintly if one shook it up and down, he tossed mockingly down by the spring. And then he rode on, wiping the sweat from his brow and gazing back grimly into the night.



CHAPTER XV

WUNPOST TAKES THEM ALL ON

The morning found Wunpost at Salt Creek Crossing, where the bones of a hundred emigrants lie buried in the sand without even a cross to mark their resting place. It was a place well calculated to bring up thoughts of death, but Wunpost faced the coming day calmly. At the first flush of dawn the sand was still hot from the sun of the evening before; the low air seemed to suffocate him with its below-sea-level pressure, and the salt marshes to give off stinking gases; it was a hell-hole, even then, and the day was yet to come, when the Valley would make life a torment.

The white borax-flats would reflect a blinding light, the briny marshes would seethe in the sun; and every rock, every sand-dune, would radiate more heat to add to the flame in the sky. Wunpost knew it well, the long-enduring agony which would be his lot that day; but he moved about briskly, bailing the slime from the well and sinking it deeper into the sand. He doused his body into the water and let his pores drink, and threw buckets of it on his beseeching mules; but only after the well-hole had been scraped and bailed twice would he permit them to drink the brackish water. Then he tied them in the shade of the wilting mesquite trees and strode to the top of the hill.

A man, perforce, takes on the color of his surroundings, and Wunpost was coated white from the crystallized salt and baked black underneath by the glare; but the look in his eyes was as savage and implacable as that of a devil from hell. He sat down on the point and focussed his glasses on Poison Spring, and then on the trail beyond; and at last, out on the marshes, he saw an object that moved—it was Pisen-face Lynch and his horse. The horse was in the lead, picking his way along a trail which led across the Sink towards the Ranch; and Lynch was behind, following feebly and sinking down, then springing up again and struggling on. His way led over hummocks of solid salt, across mud-holes and borax-encrusted flats; and far to the south another form moved towards him—it was the Indian, riding out to bring him in.

The sun swung up high, striking through Wunpost's thin shirt like the blast from a furnace door; sweat rolled down his face, to be sopped up by the bath-towel which he wore draped about his neck; but he sat on his hilltop, grim as a gargoyle on Notre Dame, gloating down on the suffering man. This was Pisen-face Lynch, the bad man from Bodie, who was going to trail him to his mine; this was Eells' hired man-killer and professional claim-jumper who had robbed him of the Wunpost and Willie Meena—and now he was a derelict, lost on the desert he claimed to know, following along behind his half-dead horse; and but for the Indian who was coming out to meet him he would go to his just reward. Wunpost put up his glasses and turned back with a grin—it was hell, but he was getting his revenge.

Wunpost spent the heat of the day in the bottom of the well, floating about like a frog in the brine, but as evening came on he crawled out dripping and saddled up and packed in haste. Every cinch-ring was searing hot, even the wood and leather burned him, and as he threw on the packs he lifted one foot after the other in a devil's dance over the hot sands. It was hot even for Death Valley, the hottest place in North America, but there was no use in waiting for it to cool. Wunpost soused himself and mounted, and the next morning at dawn he looked down from the rim of the Panamints.

The great sink-hole was beginning to seethe, to give off its poisonous vapors and fill up like a bowl with its own heat; but he had escaped it and fled to the heights while Pisen-face Lynch stayed below. He was still at the ranch, gasping for breath before the water-fan which served to keep the men there alive; and as he breathed that bone-dry air and felt the day's heat coming on, he was cursing the name of Calhoun. Yes, cursing long and loud, or deep and low, and vowing to wreak his revenge; for before he had worked for hire, but now he had a grievance of his own. He would take up Wunpost's trail like an Indian on the warpath, like a warrior who had been robbed of his medicine-bag; he would come on the run and with blood in his eye—that is, if the heat had not killed him. For his pride was involved, and his name as a trailer and an all-around desert-man; he had been led into a trap by a boy in his twenties, and it was up to him to demonstrate or quit.

Wunpost went his way tranquilly, for there was no one to pursue him; and ten days later he rode down Jail Canyon with his pack-mule loaded with ore. It had been his boast that he would return in two weeks with a mule-load of Sockdolager gold; but Billy, as usual, had taken his boast lightly and came running with news of her own.

"Hello!" she called. "Say, you can't guess what I've done—I've taught Red and Good Luck to be friends. They eat their supper together!"

"Good!" observed Wunpost, "and not to change the subject, what's the chances for a white man to eat? I've been living on jerky for three days."

"Why, they're good," returned Billy, suddenly quieted by his manner. "What's the matter—have you had any trouble?"

"Oh, no!" blustered Wunpost, "nah, nothing like that—the other fellow had all the trouble. Did Pisen-face Lynch and that Injun come back? Well, I'll bet they were dragging their tracks out!"

"They didn't come through here, but I saw them on the trail—it must have been a week ago. But what's all that that you've got in your pack-sacks—have you been out and got some more ore?"

"Why, sure," answered Wunpost, deftly easing off his kyacks and lowering the load to the ground. "Didn't I tell you I was going to get some?"

"Yes, but——"

"But what?" he demanded, looking down on her arrogantly, and Wilhelmina became interested in the dog.

"You have such a funny way of talking," she said at last, "and besides—would you mind letting me look at it?"

"I sure would!" replied Wunpost; "you leave them sacks alone. And any time my word ain't as good as gold——"

"Oh, of course it's good!" she protested, and he took her at her word.

"All right, then—I've got the gold."

"Oh, have you really?" she cried, and as he rolled his eyes accusingly she laughed and bit her lip. "That's just my way of talking," she explained, rather lamely. "I mean I'm glad—and surprised."

"Well, you'll be more surprised," he said, nodding grimly, "when I show you a piece of the ore. I sold that last lot to a jeweler in Los Angeles for twenty-four dollars an ounce, quartz and all—and pure gold is worth a little over twenty. Talk about your jewelry ore! Wait till I show this in Blackwater and watch them saloon-bums come through here. Too lazy to go out and find anything for themselves—all they know is to follow some poor guy like me and rob him of what he finds. What's the news from down below?"

"Oh, nothing," answered Billy, and stood watching him doubtfully as he unsaddled and turned out his gaunted mules. His new black hat was sweated through already and his clothes were salt-stained and worn, but it was the look in his eye even more than his clothes which convinced her he had had a hard trip. He was close-mouthed and grim and the old rollicking smile seemed to have been lost beneath a two weeks' growth of beard. Perhaps she had done wrong to speak of the dog first, but she knew there was something behind.

"Did you have a fight with Mr. Lynch?" she asked at last, and he darted a quick glance and said nothing. "Because when he went through here," she went on finally, "he seemed to be awful quarrelsome."

"Yes, he's quarrelsome," admitted Wunpost, "but so am I. You wait till I tangle with him, sometime."

"You're hungry!" she declared, still gazing at him fixedly, and he gave way to a twisted grin.

"How'd you guess it?" he inquired; but she did not tell him, for of course they were supposed to be friends. Yes, good friends, and more—she had let him kiss her once, but now he seemed to have forgotten it. He ate supper greedily and went back to the corral to sleep, and in the morning he was gone.

The early-risers at Blackwater, out to look for their burros or to get a little eye-opener at the saloon, were astonished to see his mules in the adobe corral and Wunpost himself on the street. He was reputed to be in hiding from Pisen-face Lynch, who had been inquiring for him for over a week; and the news was soon passed to Lynch himself, for Blackwater had a grudge against Wunpost. He had made the town, yes, in a manner of speaking—for of course he had discovered the Willie Meena Mine and brought in Eells and the boomers—but never to their knowledge had he spoken a good word of them, or of anything else in town. He came swaggering down their streets as if he owned the place, or had enough money to buy it—and besides, he had led them on two disastrous stampedes in which no one had even located a claim. And the Stinging Lizard Mine was salted! Hence their haste to tell Lynch and the malevolent zeal with which they maneuvered to bring them together.

Wunpost was standing before the Express office, waiting for the agent to open up and receive his ore-sacks for shipment, when he espied his enemy advancing, closely followed by an expectant crowd. Lynch was still haggard and emaciated from his hard trip through Death Valley, and his face had the pallor of indoors; but his small, hateful eyes seemed to burn in their sockets and he walked with venomous quickness. But Wunpost stood waiting, his head thrust out and his gun pulled well to the front, and Lynch came to a sudden halt.

"So there you are!" he burst out accusingly, "you low-down, poisoning whelp! You poisoned that water, you know you did, and I've a danged good mind to kill ye!"

"Hop to it!" invited Wunpost, "just git them rubbernecks away. I ain't scared of you or nobody!"

He paused, and the rubbernecks betook themselves away, but Pisen-face Lynch did not shoot. He stood in the street, shifting his feet uneasily, and Wunpost opened the vials of scorn.

"You're bad, ain't you?" he taunted. "You're so bad your face hurts you, but you can't run no blazer on me. And just because you chased me clean down into Death Valley you don't need to think I'm afraid. I was just showing you up as a desert-man, et cetery, but if any man had told me you'd drink that poisoned water I'd've said he was crazy with the heat. You're a lovely looking specimen of humanity! What's the matter—didn't you like them Epsom salts?"

"There was arsenic in that water!" charged Pisen-face fiercely. "I had it analyzed—you were trying to kill me!"

"Why, sure there was arsenic," returned Wunpost mockingly, "don't you know that rank, fishy smell? But don't blame me—it was God Almighty that threw the mixture together. And didn't I leave you a drink in that empty can? Well, where is your proper gratitude?"

He ogled him sarcastically and Lynch took a step forward, only to halt as Wunpost stepped to meet him.

"That's all right!" threatened Lynch, his voice tremulous with rage and weakness. "You wait till I git back my strength. I'll fix you for this, you dirty, poisoning coward—you led me to that spring on purpose!"

"Yes, and you followed, you sucker!" returned Wunpost insultingly; "even your Injun had better sense than that. What did you expect me to do—leave you a canteen of good water so you could trail me up and pot me? No, you can consider yourself lucky I didn't shoot you like a dog for following me off the trail. I gave you the road—what did you want to follow me for? By grab, it looked danged bad!"

"I'll go where I please!" declared Lynch defiantly. "You're hiding a mine that belongs to Mr. Eells and my instructions were to follow you and find it."

"Well, if you'd followed your instructions," returned Wunpost easily, "you sure would have found a mine. Do you see these two bags? Plum full of ore that I dug since I gave you the shake. Go back and report that to your boss."

"You're a liar!" snarled Lynch, but his eyes were on the ore-sacks and now they were gleaming with envy. And other eyes also were suddenly focussed on the gold, at which Wunpost surveyed the crowd intolerantly.

"You're a prize bunch of prospectors," he announced as from the housetops. "Why don't you get out in the hills and rustle? That's the way I got my start. But you Blackwater stiffs want to hang around town and let somebody else do the work. All you want is a chance to stake an extension on some big strike, so you can sell it to some promoter from Los!"

He grunted contemptuously and picked up the two big sacks while the citizens of Blackwater sneered back at him.

"Aw, bull!" scoffed one, "you ain't got no gold! And if you have, by grab, you stole it. What about the Stinging Lizard?"

"Well, what about it?" retorted Wunpost, giving his bags to the Express agent, "——put down the value on that at seven thousand dollars." This last was aside to the inquiring Express agent, but the crowd heard it and burst out hooting.

"Seven thousands cents!" yelled a voice; "you never saw seven thousand dollars! You're a bull-shover and your mine was salted!"

"Sure it was salted!" agreed Wunpost, laughing exultantly, "but you Blackwater stiffs will bite at anything. Did I ever claim it was a mine? I'm a bull-shover, am I? Well, when did I ever come here and try to sell somebody a mine? No; I came into town with some Sockdolager ore, and you dastards all tried to get me drunk; and I finally made a deal with the barkeep at The Mint to show him the place for a thousand dollar bill. Well, didn't I show him the place—and didn't he come back more than satisfied with his pockets bursting out with the gold? He never had no kick—I met him in Los Angeles and he told me he had sold the rock for thirteen hundred dollars to a jeweler. But say, my friends, don't you think I knew where he would go to get that thousand dollar bill? Do you think I was so drunk I expected a barkeeper to have thousand dollar bills in his pocket? No; I knowed who he would go to, and Eells gave him the bill and a pocket full of Boston beans; but he lost them on the road, so I brought him down Jail Canyon and old-scout Lynch here, he followed my tracks!

"Wasn't that wonderful, now? He followed our tracks back and he found the Stinging Lizard Mine—and then, of course, he jumped it! That's his job, when he ain't licking old Judson Eells' boots or framing up some crooked deal with Flappum; and then he went back and told Eells. And then Eells—you know him—being as he'd stole the mine from me, like all crooks he thought it was valuable. Was it up to me then to go to Mr. Eells and tell him that the mine was salted? Would you have done it—would anybody? Well, he thought he had me cinched, and I sold out for twenty thousand dollars. And now, my friend, you said a moment ago that I'd never seen seven thousand dollars. All right, I say you never did! But just, by grab, to show you who's four-flushing I'll put you out of your misery—I'll show you seven thousand, savvy?"

He stuck out his head and gazed insolently into the man's face and then drew out his wad of bills. They were badly sweated, but the numbers were there—he peeled off seven bills and waved them airily, then laughed and shoved them into his overalls.

"Tuh hell with you!" he burst out defiantly, consigning all Blackwater to perdition with one grand, oratorical flourish. "You think you're so smart," he went on tauntingly, "now come and trail me to my mine. If you find it you can have it—it ain't even staked—but they ain't one of you dares to follow me. I ain't afraid of Eells and his hired yaller dog, and I ain't afraid of you! I'll take you all on—old Eells and all the rest of you—and I ain't afraid to show you the ore!"

He strode into the Express office and grabbed up a sack, which he cut open with a slash of his knife; and then he reached in and took out a great chunk that bulged and gleamed with gold.

"Am I four-flushing?" he inquired, and when no one answered he grunted and tied up the hole. There was a silence, and the crowd began to filter away—all but Lynch, who stood staring like an Indian. Then he too turned away, his haggard eyes blinking fast, like a woman on the verge of bitter tears.



CHAPTER XVI

DIVINE PROVIDENCE

The thundercaps were gleaming like silver in the heat when Wunpost rode back to Jail Canyon; but he came on almost merrily, a sopping bath-towel about his neck and his shirt pulled out, like a Chinaman's. These were the last days of September when the clouds which had gathered for months at last were giving down their rain; and the air, now it was humid, seemed to open every pore and make the sweat run in rivulets. Wunpost perspired, but he was happy, and as he neared the silent house he whistled shrilly for his dog. Good Luck came out for a moment, looked down at him reproachfully, and crawled back under the house, Yes, it was hot in the canyon, for the ridge cut off the wind and the rimrock reflected yet more heat, but Wunpost was happy through it all. He had told Blackwater where it could go.

Not Eells and Lynch alone, but the citizens at large, collectively and as individuals; and he had planted the seeds of envy and rage to rankle in their hairy breasts. He had shown them his gold, to make them yearn to find it, and his money to make them envy him his wealth; and then he had left them to stew in their own juice, for Blackwater was as hot as Jail Canyon. He was riding a horse now, and, in addition to Old Walker, he had a third mule, heavily packed; and he was headed for the hills to hide still more food and water against the chase that was sure to come. Sooner or later they would follow on his trail, those petty, hateful souls who now sat in the barrooms and gasped like fish for breath; but they were waiting, forsooth, for the weather to cool down and the cloudbursts to finish their destruction. And that was the very reason why they would never find his mine—they were afraid to take his chances.

Mrs. Campbell and Wilhelmina were out on the back porch, which had been sprinkled until it was almost cool; and when Wunpost had unpacked and put his mules in the corral he came up the hill and joined them. Wilhelmina had returned to her proper sphere, being clothed in the filmiest of gowns; and poor Mrs. Campbell, who was nearly prostrated by the heat, allowed her to entertain the company. They sat in the dense shade of the umbrella trees and creepers, within easy reach of a dripping olla; and after taking a huge drink, which started the sweat again, Wunpost sank down on the cool dirt floor.

"It ain't so hot here!" he began encouragingly; "you ought to be down in Blackwater. Say, the wind off that Sink would make your hair curl. I scared a lizard out of the shade and he hadn't run ten feet till he disappeared in a puff of smoke. His pardner turned over and started to lick his toes——"

"Yes, it does look like rain," observed Billy with a twinkle. "How long since you started to herd lizards?"

"Who—me?" inquired Wunpost. "W'y, I'm telling you the truth. But say, it does look like rain. If they'd only spread it out, instead of dumping it all in one place, it'd suit me better, personally. There was a cloudburst last week hit into the canyon above me and I just made my getaway in time, and where that water landed you'd think a hydraulic sluice had been washing down the hill for a year. It all struck in one place and gouged clean down to bedrock, and when she came by me there was so much brush pushed ahead that it looked like a big, moving dam. Where's your father—up getting out ore?"

"Yes, he's up at the mine," spoke up Mrs. Campbell, "although I've begged him not to work so hard. The heat is almost killing him, but he's so thankful to have his road done that he won't delay a minute. He's used up all his sacks, but he's still sorting the ore so that he can load it right onto the trucks."

"Yes, that's good," commented Wunpost, glancing furtively at Billy, "I hope he makes a million. He deserves it—he's sure worked hard."

"Yes, he has," responded Mrs. Campbell, "and I've always had faith in him, but others have tried to discourage him. I believe I've heard you say that his work was all wasted, but now everybody is envying him his success. It all goes to show that the Lord cares for his own, and that the righteous are not forgotten; because Cole has always said he would rather be poor and honest than to own the greatest fortune in the land. And now it seems as if the hand of Providence has just reached down and given us our road—the Lord provides for his own."

"Looks that way," agreed Wunpost; "sure treating me fine, too. There was a time, back there, when He seemed to have a copper on every bet I played, but now luck is coming my way. Of course I don't deserve it—and for that matter, I don't ask no odds—but this last mine I found is a Sockdolager right, and Eells or none of 'em can't find it. I took down one mule-load that was worth ten thousand dollars, and when I was shipping it you should have seen them Blackwater bums looking on with tears in their eyes. That's all right about the Lord providing for his own, but I tell you hard work has got something to do with it, whether you believe in religion or not. I'm a rustler, I'll say that, and I work for what I get, just as hard as your husband or anyone——"

"Ah, but Mister Calhoun," broke in Mrs. Campbell reproachfully, "we've heard evil stories of your dealings with Eells. Not that we like him, for we don't; but, so we are informed, the mine that you sold him was salted."

"Why, mother!" exclaimed Billy, but the fat was in the fire, for Wunpost had nodded shamelessly.

"Yes," he said, "the mine was salted, but don't let that keep you awake nights. I didn't sell him the mine—he took it away from me and gave me twenty thousand for a quit-claim. And the twenty thousand dollars was nothing to what I lost when he robbed me and Billy of our mine."

"Why—why, Mr. Calhoun!" cried Mrs. Campbell in a shocked voice, "did you salt that mine on purpose?"

"You'd have thought so," he returned, "if you'd seen me packing the ore. It took me nigh onto two weeks."

Mrs. Campbell paused and gasped, but Wunpost met her gaze with a cold, unblinking stare. Her nice Scotch scruples were not for such as he, and if she crowded him too far he had an answer to her reproaches which would effectually reduce her to silence. But Billy knew that answer, and the reason for the gleam which played like heat-lightning in his eyes, and she hastened to stave off disaster.

"Oh, mother!" she protested, "now please don't talk seriously to him or he'll confess to almost anything. He told me a lot of stuff and I was dreadfully worried about it, but I found out he only did it to tease me. And besides, you know yourself that Mr. Eells did take advantage of us and trick us out of our mine—and if it hadn't been for that we could have built the road ourselves without being beholden to anybody."

"But Billy, child!" she chided, "just think what you're saying. Is it any excuse that others are dishonest? Well, I must say I'm surprised!"

"Oh, you're surprised, are you?" spoke up Wunpost, rising ponderously to his feet. "Well, if you don't like my style, just say so."

He reached for his hat and stood waiting for the answer, but Mrs. Campbell avoided the issue.

"It is not for us to judge our neighbors—the Bible says: Judge not, lest ye be judged—but I'm sorry, Mr. Calhoun, that you think so poorly of us as to boast of the deception you practised. He's no friend of us, this Judson Eells, but surely you cannot think it was aught but dishonest to sell him a salted mine. Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, and because he took your property is no excuse for committing a crime."

"A crime!" repeated Wunpost, and turned to look at Billy, who hung her head regretfully. "Did you hear that?" he asked. "She says I'm a criminal! Well, I won't bother you folks any more. But before I go, Mrs. Campbell, I might as well tell you that these criminals sometimes come in danged handy. Suppose I'd buried that ore in Happy Canyon, for instance, or over the summit in Hanaupah—where would the Campbell family be for a road? They wouldn't have one, would they? And this here Providence that you talk about would be distributing its rewards to others. But there's too many good people for the rewards to go around—that's why some of us get out and rustle. No, you want to be thankful that a criminal came along and took a flyer at being Providence himself; otherwise you'd be stuck with your mine on your hands—because I gave you that road, myself."

He started for the door and Mrs. Campbell let him go, for the revelation had left her thunderstruck. Never for a moment had she doubted that the sterling integrity of her husband had brought a special dispensation of Providence, and while her faith in Divine Providence was by no means shaken, she did begin to doubt the miracle. Perhaps, after all, this loud and boastful Wunpost had been more than an instrument of Providence—he might, in fact, have been a kindly but misguided friend, who had shaped his vengeance to serve their special needs. For he knew they needed the road and, since he could salt a crevice anywhere, he had located his mine up their canyon. And then Eells had jumped the mine and built the road, and——Well, really, after all, it was no more than right to go out and thank him for his kindness. He was wrong, of course, and led astray by angry passions; but Wilhelmina and he were friends and——She rose up and hurried out after him.

The blazing light in the heavens almost blinded her sight as she stepped out into the sun; and high up above the peaks, like cones of burnished metal, she saw two thundercaps, turning black at the base and mounting on the superheated air. There was the hush in the air which she had learned to associate with an explosion such as was about to take place, and she looked back anxiously, for her husband was up the canyon and the downpour might strike above Panamint. It was clouds such as these that had come together before to form the cloudburst which had isolated their mine, and though they now appeared daily she could never escape the fear that once more they would send down their floods. Every day they struck somewhere, and one more bone-dry canyon ran bank-high and spewed its refuse across the plain, and each time she had the feeling that their sins might be punished by another visitation from on high. But she only glanced back once, for Wunpost was packing and Billy was looking on hopelessly.

"Oh, Mr. Calhoun!" she called, "please don't go up the canyon now—there's a cloudburst forming above the peaks."

"I'll make it," he grumbled, cocking his eye at the clouds—and then he stopped and looked again. "There went lightning," he said; "that's a mighty bad sign—they're stabbing out towards each other."

"Yes, I'm sure you'd better stay," she went on apologetically, "and please don't think you're not welcome. But oh! this heat is terrible—I'll have to go back—but Billy will stop and help you."

She raised her sunshade as if she were fleeing from a rain-storm and hastened back out of the sun; and Wunpost, after a minute of careful scrutiny, unpacked and squatted down in the shade.

"They're moving together," he said to Billy, "and see that lightning reaching out? This is going to bust the world open, somewhere. That's no cloudburst that's shaping up, it's a regular old waterspout; I know by the way she acts."

He settled back on his heels to await the outcome, and as the thunder began to roll he turned to his companion and shook his head in ominous silence. There were but two clouds in the sky, all the rest was blazing light; and these two clouds were moving slowly together, or rather, towards a common center. One came on from the southeast, the other from the west, and some invisible force seemed to be drawing them towards the peaks which marked the summit of the Panamints. The play of the lightning became almost constant, the rumbling rose to a tumult; and then, as if caught by resistless hands, the two clouds rushed together. There was a flash of white light, a sudden blackening of the mass, and as Wunpost leapt up shouting a writhing funnel reached down as if feeling for the palpitating earth.

"There she goes!" he cried; "it's a waterspout, all right—but it ain't going to land near here."

He talked on, half to himself, as the great spiral reached and lengthened; and then he shouted again, for it had struck the ground, though where it was impossible to tell. The high rim of the canyon cut off all but the high peaks, and they could see nothing but the waterspout now; and it, as if stabilized by its contact with the earth, had turned into a long line of black. It was a column of falling water, and the two clouds, which had joined, seemed to be discharging their contents down a hole. They were sucked into the vortex, now turned an inky black, and their millions of tons of water were precipitated upon one spot, while all about the ground was left dry.

Wunpost knew what was happening, for he had seen it once before, and as he watched the rain descend he imagined the spot where it fell and the wreck which would follow its flood. For the Panamints are set on edge and shed rain like a roof, the water all flowing off at once; and when they strike a canyon, after rushing down the converging gulches, there is nothing that can withstand their violence. Every canyon in the range, and in the Funeral Range beyond, and in Tin Mountain and the Grapevines to the north—every one of them had been swept by the floods from the heights and ripped out as clean as a sand-wash. And this waterspout, which had turned into a mighty cloudburst, would sweep one of them clean again. The question was—which one?

A breeze, rising suddenly, came up from the Sink and was sucked into the vortex above; the black line of the downfall turned lead-color and broadened out until it merged into the clouds above; and at last, as Wunpost lingered, the storm disappeared and the canyon took on the hush of heavy waiting. The sun blazed out as before, the fig-leaves hung down wilted; but the humidity was gone and the dry, oven-heat almost created the illusion of coolness.

"Well, I'm going," announced Wunpost, for the third or fourth time. "She must have come down away north."

"No—wait!" protested Billy, "why are you always in such a hurry? And perhaps the flood hasn't come yet."

"It'd be here," he answered, "been an hour, by my watch; and believe me, that old boy would be coming some. Excuse me, if it should hit into one end of a box canyon while I was coming up the other. My friends could omit the flowers."

"Well, why not stay, then?" she pouted anxiously; "you know Mother didn't mean anything. And perhaps Father will be down, to see if there was any damage done, and we could catch him first and explain."

"No explaining for me!" returned Wunpost, beginning to pack; "you can tell them whatever you want. And if your folks are too religious to use my old road maybe the Lord will send a cloudburst and destroy it. That's the way He always did in them old Bible stories——"

"You oughten to talk that way!" warned Wilhelmina soberly, "and besides, that's what made Mother angry. She isn't feeling well, and when you spoke slightingly of Divine Providence——"

"Well, I'm going," he said again, "before I begin to quarrel with you. But, oh say, I want to get that dog."

"Oh, it's too hot!" she protested, "let him stay under the house. He and Red are sleeping there together."

"No, I need him," he grumbled, "liable to be bushwhacked now, any time; and I want a dog to guard camp at night."

He started towards the house, still looking up the canyon, and at the gate he stopped dead and listened.

"What's that?" he asked, and glanced about wildly, but Billy only shook her head.

"I don't hear anything," she replied, turning listlessly away, "but I wish you wouldn't go."

"Well, maybe I won't," he answered grimly, "don't you hear that kind of rumble, up the canyon?"

She listened again, then rushed towards the house while Wunpost made a dash for the corral. The cloudburst was coming down their canyon.



CHAPTER XVII

THE ANSWER

The rumbling up the canyon was hardly a noise; it was a tremulous shudder of earth and air like the grinding that accompanies an earthquake. But Wunpost knew, and the Campbells knew, what it meant and what was to follow; and as it increased to a growl they threw down the corral bars and rushed the stock up to the high ground. They waited, and Wunpost ran back to get his dog, and then the dammed waters broke loose. A great spray of yellow mud splashed out from Corkscrew Gorge and a pinon-trunk was snapped high into the air; and while all the earth trembled the dam of mud burst forth, forced on by the weight of backed-up waters. Then more trees came smashing through, followed by muddy tides of driftwood, and as suddenly the debacle ceased.

There was quiet, except for the hoarse rumble of boulders as they ground their way down through the Gorge; and for the muffled crack of submerged tree-trunks, straining and breaking beneath the ever-mounting jamb. It rose up and overflowed in a gush of turbid waters, rose still higher and overflowed again; and then it broke loose in a crash like imminent thunder—the cloudburst had conquered the Gorge. It went through it and over it, spreading out on its sloping sides; and when the worst crush seemed over it washed higher yet and came through with an all-devouring surge. In a flash the whole creekbed was a mass of mud and driftwood, which swashed about and swayed drunkenly on; and, as great tree-boles came battering through, the jamb broke abruptly and spewed out a sea of yellow water.

The fugitives climbed up higher, followed by the cat and dog, and the burros which had been left in the corrals; but the flood bore swiftly on, leaving the ranch unsullied by its burden of brush and mud. The jamb broke down again, letting out a second gush of water which crept up among the lower trees, but just as the Gorge opened up for the third time the flood-crest struck the lower gorge and stopped. Once more the trees and logs which had formed the jamb above bobbed and floated on the surface of a pond; and while the Campbells gazed and wept the turbid flood swung back swiftly, inundating their ranch with its mud.

First the orchard was overflowed, then the garden above the road, then the corrals and the flowers by the gate; and as they ran about distracted the water crept up towards the house and out over the verdant alfalfa. But just when it seemed as if the whole ranch would be destroyed there was a smash from the lower point; the jamb went out, draining the waters quickly away and rushing on towards the Sink. The great mass of mud and boulders which had been brought down by the flood ceased to spread out and cover their fields, and as the millrace of waters continued to pour down the canyon it began to dig a new streambed in the debris. Then the thunder of its roaring subsided by degrees and by sundown the cloudburst was past.

Where the creek had been before there was a wider and deeper creek, its sides cumbered with huge boulders and tree-trunks; and the mixture of silt and gravel which formed its cut banks already had set like cement. It was cement, the same natural concrete which Nature combines everywhere on the desert—gravel and lime and bone-dry clay, sluiced and mixed by the passing cloudburst and piled up to set into pudding-stone. And all the mud which had overlaid the garden and orchard was setting like a concrete pavement. The ancient figs and peach-trees, half buried in the slime, rose up stiffly from the fertile soil beneath; and the Jail Canyon Ranch, once so flamboyantly green, was now shore-lined with a blotch of dirty gray. Only the alfalfa patch remained, and the house on the hill—everything else was either washed away or covered with gravel and dirt. And the road—it was washed away too.

Wunpost worked late and hard, shoveling the muck away from the trees and clearing a section of the corral; but not until Cole Campbell came down the next day was the Stinging Lizard road even mentioned. It was gone, they all knew that, and all their prayers and tears could not bring back one rock from its grade; and yet somehow Wunpost felt guilty, as if his impious words had brought down this disaster upon his friends. He rushed feverishly about in the blazing sun, trying to undo the most imminent damage; and Billy and Mrs. Campbell, half divining his futile regrets, went about their own tasks in silence. But when Campbell came down over the mountain-sheep trail and beheld what the cloudburst had done he spoke what came first into his mind.

"Ah, my road," he moaned, talking half to himself after the manner of the lonely and deaf, "and I let it lie idle six weeks! All my ore still sacked and waiting on the dump, and now my road is gone."

He bowed his head and gave way to tears, for he had lost ten years' work in a day, and then Mrs. Campbell forgot. She had remained silent before, not wishing to seem unkind, but now she spoke from her heart.

"It's a visitation!" she wailed; "the Lord has punished us for our sins. We should never have used the road."

"And why not?" demanded Campbell, rousing up from his brooding, and he saw Wunpost turning guiltily away. "Ah, I knew it!" he burst out; "I misdoubted it all the time, but you thought you could keep it from me. But when I came down from Panamint, to see where the waterspout had struck, and found it tearing in from Woodpecker Canyon, I said: 'It is the hand of God!' We had not come by our road quite honestly."

"No," sobbed Mrs. Campbell, "and I hate to say it, but I'm glad the road is destroyed. What you built we came by honestly, but the rest was obtained by fraud, and now it has all been destroyed. You have worked long and hard, Cole, and I'm sorry this had to happen; but God is not mocked, we know that. I tried to keep it from you, and to keep myself from knowing; but he told me himself that he salted the mine on purpose, so that Eells would build us a road!"

"Aha!" nodded Campbell, and looked out from under his eyebrows at the man who had befriended him by fraud. But he was a man of few words, and his silence spoke for him—Wunpost scuffled his feet and withdrew.

"Well I'm going," he announced to Billy as he threw on his packs; "this is getting too rough for me. So I crabbed the whole play, eh, and fetched that cloudburst down Woodpecker? And it washed out your father's road! It's a wonder Divine Providence didn't ketch me up the canyon, and wipe me off the footstool, too!"

"Perhaps He spared you," suggested Billy, whose eyes were big with awe, "so you could repent and be forgiven of your sins."

"I bet ye!" scoffed Wunpost; "but you can't tell me that God Almighty was steering that waterspout. It just hit in Woodpecker Canyon, same as one hit Hanaupah last week and another one washed out down below. They're falling every day, but I'm going up into them hills, and do you reckon one will drop on me? Don't you think it—God Almighty has got more important business than following me around through the hills. I'm going to take my little dog, so I'll be sure to have Good Luck; and if I don't come back you'll know somebody has got me, that's all."

He tightened his lash ropes viciously, mounted his horse and took the lead, followed by Old Walker and the other mules, packed; and when he whistled for Good Luck, to Billy's surprise the little terrier went bounding off after him. She waved at him furtively and tried to toll him back, but his devotion to his master was still just as strong as it had been when he had adopted him in Los Angeles. When he had been prostrated by the heat he had stayed with Billy gladly, but now that he was strong and accustomed to the climate he raced along after the mules. Wunpost looked back and grinned, then he reached down a hand and swooped his dog up into the saddle.

"You can't steal him!" he hooted, and Billy bit her lip, for she thought she had weaned him from his master. And Wunpost—she had thought he was tamed to her hand, but he too had gone off and left her. He was still as wild and ruthless as on the day they had first met, when he had been chasing Dusty Rhodes with a stone; and now he was heading off into the high places he was so fond of, to play hide-and-seek with his pursuers. Several had come up already, ostensibly to view the ruin but undoubtedly to keep Wunpost in sight; and if he continued his lawless strife she doubted if the good Lord would preserve him, as He had from the cloudburst.

Time and again he had mounted to go and each time she had held him back, for she had sensed some imminent disaster; and now, as he rode off, she felt the prompting again to run after him and call him back. But he would not come back, he was headstrong and unrepentant, making light of what others held sacred; and as she watched him out of sight something told her again that he was going out to meet his doom. Some great punishment was hanging over him, to chastise him for his sins and bring him, perhaps, to repentance; but she could no more stop his going, or turn him aside from his purpose, than she could control the rush of a cloudburst. He was like a force of nature—a rude, fighting creature who beat down opposition as the flood struck down bushes, rushing on to seek new worlds to conquer.



CHAPTER XVIII

A LESSON

The heat-wave, which had made even the desert-dwellers pant, came to an end with the Jail Canyon waterspout; the nights became bearable, the rocks cooled off and the sun ceased to strike through men's clothes. But there was one, still clinging to her faded bib-overalls, who took no joy in the blessed release. Wilhelmina was worried, for the sightseers from Blackwater had disappeared as soon as Wunpost rode away; and now, two days later, his dog had come back, meeching and whining and licking its feet. Good Luck had left Wunpost and returned to the ranch, where he was sure of food and a friend; but now that he was fed he begged and whimpered uneasily and watched every move that she made. And every time that she started towards the trail where Wunpost had ridden away he barked and ran eagerly ahead. Billy stood it until noon, then she caught up Tellurium and rode off after the dog.

He led up the trail, where he had run so often before, but over the ridge he turned abruptly downhill and Billy refused to follow. Wunpost certainly had taken the upper trail, for there were his tracks leading on; and the dog, after all, had no notion of leading her to his master. He was still young and inexperienced, though with that thoroughbred smartness which set him apart from the ordinary cur; but when she made as though to follow he cut circles with delight and ran along enticingly in front of her. So Billy rode after him, and at the foot of the hill she found mule-tracks heading off north. Wunpost had made a wide detour and come back, probably at night, to throw off his pursuers and start fresh; but as she followed the tracks she found where several horse tracks had circled and cut into his trail. She picked up Good Luck, who was beginning to get footsore, and followed the mule-tracks at a lope.

Near the mouth of the canyon they struck out over the mud, which the cloudburst had spread out for miles, but now they were across and going down the slope which a thousand previous floods had laid. Ahead lay Warm Springs, where the Indians sometimes camped; but the trail cut out around them and headed for Fall Canyon, the next big valley to the north. She rode on steadily, her big pistol that Wunpost had once borrowed now back in its accustomed place; and the fact that she had failed to tell her parents of her intentions did not keep her from taking up the hunt. Wunpost was in trouble, and she knew it; and now she was on her way, either to find him or to make sure he was safe.

The trail up Fall Canyon twists and winds among wash boulders, over cut-banks and up sandy gulches; but at the mouth of the canyon it plunges abruptly into willow-brush and leads on up the bed of a dry creek. Once more the steep ridges closed in and made deep gorges, the hillsides were striped with blues and reds; and along the ancient trail there were tunnels and dumps of rock where prospectors had dug in for gold. There were dog tracks in the mud showing where Good Luck had come down, and she knew Wunpost must be up there somewhere; but when she came upon a mule, lying down under his pack, she started and clutched at her gun. The mule jumped up noisily and ran smashing through the willows, then turned with a terrifying snort; and as she drew rein and stopped Good Luck sprang to the ground and rushed silently off up the canyon.

Billy followed along cautiously, driving the snorting mule before her and looking for something she feared to find. A buzzard rose up slowly, flopping awkwardly to clear the canyon wall, and her heart leapt once and stood still. There in the open lay Wunpost's horse, its sharp-shod feet in the air, and there was a bullet-hole through its side. She stopped and looked about, at the ridge, at the sky, at the knife-like gash ahead; and then she set her teeth and spurred up the canyon to where the dog had set up a yapping.

He was standing by a tunnel at the edge of the creek, wagging his tail and waiting expectantly; and when she came in sight he dashed half-way to meet her and turned back to the hole in the hill. She rode up to its mouth, her eyes straining into the darkness, her breath coming in short, quick gasps; and Tellurium, advancing slowly, suddenly flew back and snorted as a voice came out from the depths.

"Hello, there!" it hailed; "say, bring me a drink of water. This is Calhoun—I'm shot in the leg."

"Well, what are you hiding in there for?" burst out Billy as she dismounted; "why don't you crawl out and get some yourself?"

Now that she knew he was alive a swift impatience swept over her, an unreasoning anger that he had caused her such a fright, and as she unslung her canteen and started for the tunnel her stride was almost vixenish. But when she found him stretched out on the bare, uneven rocks with one bloody leg done up in bandages, she knelt down suddenly and held out the canteen, which he seized and almost drained at one drink.

"Fine! Fine!" he smacked; "began to think you wasn't coming—did you bring along that medicine I wrote for?"

"Why, what medicine?" exclaimed Billy. "No, I didn't find a note—Good Luck must have lost it on the way."

"Well, never mind," he said; "just catch one of my mules and we'll go back to the ranch after dark."

"But who shot you?" clamored Billy, "and what are you in here for? We'll start back home right now!"

"No we won't!" he vetoed; "there's some Injuns up above there and they're doing their best to git me. You can't see 'em—they're hid—but when I showed myself this noon some dastard took a crack at me with his Winchester. Did you happen to bring along a little grub?"

"Why, yes," assented Billy, and went out in a kind of trance—it was so unreasonable, so utterly absurd. Why should Indians be watching to shoot down Wunpost when he had always been friendly with them all? And for that matter, why should anyone desire to kill him—that certainly could never lead them to his mine. The men who had come to the ranch were Blackwater prospectors—she knew them all by sight—and if it was they who had followed him she was absolutely sure that Wunpost had started the fight. She stepped out into the dazzling sunshine and looked up at the ridges that rose tier by tier above her, but she had no fear either of white men or Indians, for she had done nothing to make them her enemies. Whoever they were, she knew she was safe—but Wunpost was hiding in a cave. All his bravado gone, he was afraid to venture out even to wet his parched throat at the creek.

"What were you doing?" she demanded when she had given him her lunch, and Wunpost reared up at the challenge.

"I was riding along that trail," he answered defiantly, "and I wasn't doing a thing. And then a bullet came down and got me through the leg—I didn't even hear the shot. All I know is I was riding and the next thing I knew I was down and my horse was laying on my leg. I got out from under him somehow and jumped over into the brush, and I've been hiding here ever since. But it's Lynch that's behind it—I know that for a certainty—he's hired some of these Injuns to bushwhack me."

"Have you seen them?" she asked unbelievingly.

"No, and I don't need to," he retorted. "I guess I know Injuns by this time. That's just the way they work—hide out on some ridge and pot a man when he goes by. But they're up there, I know it, because one of them took a shot at me this noon—and anyhow I can just feel 'em!"

"Well, I can't," returned Billy, "and I don't believe they're there; and if they are they won't hurt me. They all know me too well, and we've always been good to them. I'm going up to catch your mules."

"No, look out!" warned Wunpost; "them devils are treacherous, and I wouldn't put it past 'em to shoot you. But you wait till I get this leg of mine fixed and I'll make some of 'em hard to ketch!"

"Now you see what you get," burst out Billy heartlessly, "for taking Mr. Lynch to Poison Spring. I'm sorry you're shot, but when you get well I hope this will be a lesson to you. Because if it wasn't for your dog, and me running away from home, you never would get away from here alive."

"Well, for cripes' sake!" roared Wunpost, "don't you think I know that now? What's the use of rubbing it in? And you're dead right it'll be a lesson—I'll ride the ridges, after this, and the next time I'll try to shoot first. But you go up the canyon and throw the packs off them mules and bring me Old Walker to ride. I ain't crippled; I'm all right, but this leg is sure hurting me and I believe I'll take a chance. Saddle him up and we'll start for the ranch."

Billy stepped out briskly, half smiling at his rage and at the straits to which his anger had brought him; but when she heard his heavy groaning as she helped him into the saddle her woman's heart was touched. After all he was just a child, a big reckless boy, still learning the hard lessons of life; and it had certainly been treacherous for the assassin to shoot him without even giving him a chance. She rode close beside him as they went down the canyon, to protect him from possible bullets; and if Wunpost divined her purpose it did not prevent him from keeping her between him and the ridge. The wound and the long wait had shattered his nerves and made him weak and querulous, and he cursed softly whenever he hit his sore leg; but back at the ranch his spirits revived and he insisted upon going on to Blackwater.

Cole Campbell had cleaned his wound and drenched it well with dilute carbolic, but though it was clean and would heal in a few days, Wunpost demanded to be taken to town. He was restless and uneasy in the presence of these people, whose standards were so different from his own; but behind it all there was some hidden purpose which urged him on to Los Angeles. It was shown in the set lips, the stern brooding stare and his impatience with his motion-impeding leg; but to Billy it was shown most by his oblivious glances and the absence of all proper gratitude. She had done a brave deed in following his dog back and in rescuing him from the bullets of his enemies, but when she drew near and tried to engage him in conversation his answers were mostly in monosyllables. Only once did he rouse up, and that was when she said that Lynch was even with him now, and the look in his eyes gave Billy to understand that he was not even with Lynch. That was it—he was unrepentant, he was brooding revenge, he was planning even more desperate deeds; but he would not tell her, or even admit that he was worried about anything but his leg. It was hurting him, he said, and he wanted a good doctor to see it before it grew worse; but when he went away he avoided her eye and Billy ran off and wept.



CHAPTER XIX

TAINTED MONEY

A month passed by and the haze above the Sink lifted its shroud and revealed the mountains beyond; the soft blues and pinks crept back into the distance and the shadowy canyons were filled with royal purple. At dawn a silver radiance rose and glowed along the east and the sunsets stained the west with orange and gold; there was wine in the cool air, and when the night wind came up the prospectors crouched over their fires. The first October storm put a crown on Telescope Peak and tipped the lesser Panamints with snow, but still Wilhelmina waited and Wunpost did not return from his mysterious trip "inside."

The time was not ripe for his notable revenge and he had forgotten Jail Canyon and her. Yet at last she saw his dust, and as she watched him through her glasses something told her that his thoughts were not of her. He was on his way, either seeking after gold or searching out the means of revenge; and if he came that way it was to find his dog and mules and not to make love to her. Their ranch was merely his half-way house, a place to feed his animals and leave them when he went away; and she was only a child, to be noticed like a fond dog, but not to be taken seriously. Billy put up her glasses and went back to the house, and when he arrived she was a woman. Her hair was done up gracefully, her nimble limbs were confined in skirts; and she smiled at him demurely, as if her mind was far away and he had recalled her from maidenly dreams.

"Well, well!" exclaimed Wunpost as he limped up to the house and discovered her on the shady front porch; "where's the trusty bib-overalls and all? What's the matter—is it Sunday, or did you see my dust? Say, you don't look right without them curls!"

"We're thinking of moving away," she explained quite truthfully, "and I can't wear overalls then."

"Moving away!" cried Wunpost; "why, where were you thinking of going to? Has your father given up on his road?"

"Well, no—or that is, he's working on a trail to pack down the ore he had sacked. And after that's shipped, if it pays him what it ought, we're going to move inside."

"Oh," observed Wunpost and sat down on the porch, where he rumpled his hair reflectively. "Say," he said at last, "I've got a little roll—what's the matter if I build the road?"

"Shh!" she hissed, moving over and speaking low; "don't you know that Mother wouldn't hear to it? And poor Father, he feels awful bad."

"No, but look," he protested, "you folks have been my friends, and I owe you for taking care of my mules. I'd be glad to advance the money to put in an aerial tramway and you could pay it back out of the ore. That's the kind of road you want, one that will never wash out, and I know where you can get one cheap. There's one down by Goler that you can buy for almost nothing—I stopped and looked it over, coming up. And all you have to do, after you once get it installed, is to feed your ore into the buckets and send them down the canyon and the empties will come up with your supplies. It's automatic—works itself, and can't get out of order—just a long, double cable, swinging down from point to point and supplying its own power by gravity. Some class to that, and I tell you what I'll do—I'll lend the money to you!"

"No!" she said as he reached down into his pocket, and she gazed at him reproachfully.

"What do you mean?" he asked after a minute of puzzled silence, and she shook her head and pointed towards the house. Then she rose up quietly and led off down the path where the hollyhocks were still in full bloom.

"You know what I mean," she said at the gate; "have you forgotten about the cloudburst?"

"Why, no," he returned; "you don't mean to say——"

"Yes, I do," she replied, "they think your money is accursed. Father says you didn't come by it honestly."

"Oh, he does, eh?" sulked Wunpost; "and what do you think about it?"

"I think the same," she answered promptly and looked him straight in the eye.

"Well, well," he began with a sardonic smile, and then he thrust out his lip. "All right, kid," he said, "excuse me for living, but I wouldn't be that good if I could. It takes all the roar out of life. Now here I came back with some money in my pocket, to make you a little present, and the first thing you hand me is this: 'My money ain't come by honestly.' Well, that's the end of the present."

He shrugged his shoulders and waited, but Billy made no reply.

"I went up into the hills," he went on at last, "and discovered a vein of gold—nobody had ever owned it before. And I dug it out and showed the ore to Eells and asked him if he thought it was his. No, he said he couldn't claim it. Well, I took it to Los Angeles and sold it to a jeweler and here's the money he paid me for it—don't you think that money is honest?"

He drew out a sheaf of bills and flicked the ends temptingly, but Billy shook her head.

"No," she said, "because you don't dare to show the place where you claim you dug up that gold—and you told Mr. Eells you stole it!"

"Heh, heh!" chuckled Wunpost, "you keep right up with me, kid. Don't reckon I can give you any present. I was just thinking you might like to take a trip to Los Angeles, and see the bright lights and all—taking your mother along, and so forth—but it's Jail Canyon for you, for life. If this thousand dollar bill that you earned by saving my life is nothing but tainted money, all I can do is to tender a vote of thanks. It must be fierce to have a Scotch conscience."

"You mind your own business," answered Billy shortly, and brushed away a furtive tear. A trip to Los Angeles—and new clothes and everything—and she really had earned the money! Yes, she had saved his life and enabled him to come back to dig up some more hidden gold. But it was stolen, and there was an end to it—she turned away abruptly, but he caught her by the hand.

"Say, listen, kid," he said; "I may not be an angel, but I never go back on a friend. Now you tell me what you want and, no matter what it is, I'll go out and get it for you—honestly. You're the best friend I've got—and you sure look swell, dressed up in them women's clothes—but I want you to have a good time. I want you to go inside and see the world, and go to the theaters and all, but how'm I going to slip you the money?"

Billy laughed, rather hysterically, and then she turned grave and her eyes looked far away.

"All I want," she said at last, "is a road up Father's canyon—and I know he won't accept it from you. So let's talk about something else. Are you going back to your mine?"

He sighed, then glanced up at the ridge and nodded his head mysteriously.

"There's somebody after me," he said at last. "They follow me up now, every place. In town it's detectives, and out here on the desert it's Pisen-face Lynch and his gang. But I don't mind them—I'm looking for that feller that shot me in the leg last month. It wasn't Lynch—I've had him traced—and it wasn't none of those Shooshonnies; but there's some feller in these hills that's out after my scalp and I've come back to get him. And when I find him, kid, I'll light a fire under him that'll burn 'im off the face of the earth. I'm going to kill him, by grab, the same as I would a rattlesnake; I'm going to——"

"Oh, please don't talk that way!" broke in Wilhelmina impatiently, "it gives people a bad impression. There isn't a man in Blackwater that isn't firmly convinced that you're nothing but a bag of hot air. Well, I don't care—that's just what they said!"

"Ahhr!" scoffed Wunpost, "them Blackwater stiffs. They're jealous, that's what's the matter."

"No, but don't talk that way," she pleaded. "It turns folks against you. Even Father and Mother have noticed it. You're always telling of the big things you're going to do——"

"Well, don't I do 'em?" he demanded. "What did I ever say I'd do that I didn't make good, in the end? Don't you think I'm going to get this bad hombre—this feller that's following me through the hills? Well, I'll tell you what I'll do. If I don't bring you his hair inside of a month—you can have my mine and everything. But I'm going to git him, see? I'm going to toll him across the Valley, where he'll have to come out into the open, and when I ketch him I'm going to scalp him. He's nothing but a low-down, murdering assassin that old Eells or somebody has hired——"

"Oh, please!" she protested and his eyes opened big before they closed down in a sudden scowl.

"Well, I'll show you," he said and packed and rode off in silence.



CHAPTER XX

THE WAR EAGLE

Since a bullet from nowhere had shot him through the leg, Wunpost had learned a new fear of the hills. Before, they had been his stamping-ground, the "high places" he was so boastful of; but now they became imbued with a malign personality, all the more fearful because it was unknown. With painstaking care he had checked up on Pisen-face Lynch, to determine if it was he who had ambushed him; but Lynch had established a perfect alibi—in fact, it was almost too good. He had been right in Blackwater during all the trouble, although now he was out in the hills; and an Indian whom Wunpost had sent on a scout reported that the Shoshones had no knowledge of the shooting. They, too, had become aware of the strange presence in the hills, though none of them had really seen it, and their women were afraid to go out after the pinon-nuts for fear of being caught and stolen.

The prowler was no renegade Shoshone, for his kinsmen would know about him, and yet Wunpost had a feeling it was an Indian. And he had another hunch—that the Indian was employed by Eels and Pisen-face Lynch. For, despite Wilhelmina's statement, there was one man in Blackwater who did not consider him a bag of hot air. Judson Eells took him seriously, so seriously, in fact, that he was spending thousands of dollars on detectives; and Wunpost knew for a certainty that there was a party in the hills, waiting and watching to trail him to his mine. His departure from Los Angeles had been promptly reported, and Lynch and several others had left town—which was yet another reason why Wunpost quit the hills and went north over the Death Valley Trail.

Life had suddenly become a serious affair to the man who had discovered the Willie Meena, and as he neared that mine he veered off to the right and took the high ground to Wild Rose. Yet he could not but observe that the mine was looking dead, and rumor had it that the paystreak had failed. The low-grade was still there and Eells was still working it; but out on the desert and sixty miles from the railroad it could hardly be expected to pay. No, Judson Eells was desperate, for he saw his treasure slipping as the Wunpost had slipped away before; it was slipping through his fingers and he grasped at any straw which might help him to find the Sockdolager. It was the curse of the Panamints that the veins all pinched out or ran into hungry ore; and for the second time, when he had esteemed himself rich, he had found the bottom of the hole. He had built roads and piped water and set up a mill and settled down to make his pile; and then, with that strange fatality which seemed to pursue him, he had seen his profits fail. The assays had shown that his pay-ore was limited and that soon the Willie Meena must close, and now he was taking the last of his surplus and making a desperate fight for the Sockdolager.

Half the new mine was his, according to law, and since Wunpost had dared him to do his worst he was taking him at his word. And Wunpost at last was getting scared, though not exactly of Eells. For, since he alone knew the location of his mine, and no one could find it if he were dead, it stood to reason that Eells would never kill him, or give orders to his agents to kill. But what those agents were doing while they were out in the field, and how far they would respect his wishes, was something about which Eells knew no more than Wunpost, if, in fact, he knew as much. For Wunpost had a limp in his good right leg which partially conveyed the answer, and it was his private opinion that Lynch had gone bad and was out in the hills to kill him. Hence his avoidance of the peaks, and even the open trail; and the way he rode into water after dark.

There were Indians at Wild Rose, Shooshon Johnny and his family on their way to Furnace Creek for the winter; but though they were friendly Wunpost left in the night and camped far out on the plain. It was the same sandy plain over which he had fled when he had led Lynch to Poison Spring, and as he went on at dawn Wunpost felt the first vague misgivings for his part in that unfortunate affair. It had lost him a lot of friends and steeled his enemies against him—Lynch no longer was working by the day—and sooner or later it was likely to cost him dear, for no man can win all the time. Yet he had thrown down the gauntlet, and if he weakened now and quit his name would be a byword on the desert. And besides he had made his boast to Wilhelmina that he would come back with his assailant's back hair.

It was a matter of pride with John C. Calhoun that, for all his wild talk, he never made his brag without trying to live up to his word. He had stated in public that he was going to break Eells, and he fully intended to do so; and his promise to get Lynch and Phillip F. Lapham was never out of his mind; but this assassin, this murderer, who had shot him without cause and then crawled off through the boulders like a snake—Wunpost had schemed night and day from the moment he was hit to bring the sneaking miscreant to book. He had some steel-traps in his packs which might serve to good purpose if he could once get the man-hunter on his trail; and he still fondly hoped to lure him over into Death Valley, where he would have to come out of the hills.

No man could cross that Valley without leaving his tracks, for there were alkali flats for miles; and when, in turn, Wunpost wished to cover his own trail, there was always the Devil's Playground. There, whenever the wind blew, the great sandhills were on the move, covering up and at the same time laying bare; and when a sand storm came on he could lose his tracks half an hour after they were made. It was a big country, and wild, no man lived there for sixty miles—they could fight it out, alone.

From Emigrant Spring, where he camped after dark, Wunpost rode out before dawn and was well clear of the hills before it was light enough to shoot. The broad bulwark of Tucki Mountain, rising up on his right, might give a last shelter to his enemy; but now he was in the open with Emigrant Wash straight ahead and Death Valley lying white beyond. And over beyond that, like a wall of layer cake, rose the striated buttresses of the Grapevines. Wunpost passed down over the road up which the Nevada rush had come when he had made his great strike at Black Point; and as he rollicked along on his fast-walking mule, with the two pack-animals following behind, something rose up within him to tell him the world was good and that a lucky star was leading him on.

He was heading across the Valley to the Grapevine Range, and the hateful imp of evil which had dogged him through the Panamints would have to come down and leave a trail. And once he found his tracks Wunpost would know who he was fighting, and he could govern himself accordingly. If it was an Indian, well and good; if it was Lynch, still well and good; but no man can be brave when he is fighting in the dark or fleeing from an unseen hand. From their lookouts on the heights his enemies could see him traveling and trace him with their glasses all day; but when night fell they would lose him, and then someone would have to descend and pick up his trail in the sands.

Wunpost camped that evening at Surveyor's Well, a trench-hole dug down into the Sink, and after his mules had eaten their fill of salt-grass he packed up again and pushed on to the east. From the stinking alkali flat with its mesquite clumps and sacaton, he passed on up an interminable wash; and at daylight he was hidden in the depths of a black canyon which ended abruptly behind him. There was no way to reach him, or even see where he was hid, except by following up the canyon; and before he went to sleep Wunpost got out his two bear-traps and planted them hurriedly in the trail. Then, retiring into a cave, he left Good Luck on guard and slept until late in the day. But nothing stirred down the trail, his watch-dog was silent—he was hidden from all the world.

That evening just at dusk he went back down the trail and set his bear traps again, but not even a prowling fox came along in the night to spring their cruel jaws. The canyon was deserted and the water-hole where he drank was unvisited except by his mules. These he had penned in above him by a fence of brush and ropes and hobbled them to make doubly sure; but in the morning they were there, waiting to receive their bait of grain as if Tank Canyon was their customary home. Another day dragged by and Wunpost began to fidget and to watch the unscalable peaks, but no Indian's head appeared to draw a slug from his rifle and again the night passed uneventfully. He spent the third day in a fury, pacing up and down his cave, and at nightfall he packed up and was gone.

Three days was enough to wait on the man who had shot him down from the heights and, now that he thought of it, he was taking a great deal for granted when he set his big traps in the trail. In the first place, he was assuming that the man was still there, after a lapse of six weeks and more; and in the second place that he was bold enough, or so obsessed by blood-lust, that he would follow him across Death Valley; whereas as a matter of fact, he knew nothing whatever about him except that he had shot him in the leg. His aim had been good but a little too low, which is unusual when shooting down hill, and that might argue him a white man; but his hiding had been better, and his absolute patience, and that looked more like an Indian. But whoever he was, it was taking too much for granted to think that he would walk into a trap. What Wunpost wanted to know, and what he was about to find out, was whether his tracks had been followed.

He left Tank Canyon after dark, driving his pack-mules before him to detect any possible ambush; and in his nest on the front pack Good Luck stood up like a sentinel, eager to scent out the lurking foe. For the past day and night Good Luck had been uneasy, snuffing the wind and growling in his throat, but the actions of his master had been cause enough for that, for he responded to Wunpost's every mood. And Wunpost was as jumpy as a cat that has been chased by a dog, he practised for hours on the draw-and-shoot; and whenever he dismounted he dragged his rifle with him to make sure he would do it in a pinch. He was worried but not frightened and when he came free from the canyon he headed for Surveyor's Well.

Someone had been there before him, perhaps even that very night, for water had been splashed about the hole; but whoever it was, was gone. Wunpost studied the unshod horse-track, then he began to cut circles in the snow-white alkali and at last he sat down to await the dawn. There was something eerie about this pursuit, if pursuit it was, for while the horse had been watered from the bucket at the well, its rider had not left a track. Not a heel-mark, not a nail-point, and the last of the water had been dropped craftily on the spot where he had mounted. That was enough—Wunpost knew he had met his match. He watered his mules again, rode west into the mesquite brush and at sun-up he was hid for the day.