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Ebook has 930 lines and 71831 words, and 19 pages

WUNPOST

THE DEATH VALLEY TRAIL

The heat hung like smoke above Panamint Sink, it surged up against the hills like the waves of a great sea that boiled and seethed in the sun; and the mountains that walled it in gleamed and glistened like polished jet where the light was struck back from their sides. They rose up in solid ramparts, unbelievably steep and combed clean by the sluicings of cloudbursts; and where the black canyons had belched forth their floods a broad wash spread out, writhing and twisting like a snake-track, until at last it was lost in the Sink. For the Sink was the swallower-up of all that came from the hills and whatever it sucked in it buried beneath its sands or poisoned on its alkali flats. Yet the Death Valley trail led across its level floor--thirty miles from Wild Rose Springs to Blackwater and its saloons--and while the heat danced and quivered there was a dust in the north pass and a pack-train swung round the point.

It came on furiously, four burros with flat packs and an old man who ran cursing behind; and as he passed down into the Sink there was another dust in the north and a lone man followed as furiously after him. He was young and tall, a mountain of rude strength, and as he strode off down the trail he brandished a piece of quartz and swung his hat in the air. But the pack-train kept on, a column of swirling dust, a blotch of burro-gray in the heat; and as he emptied his canteen he hurled it to the ground and took after his partner on the run. He could see the twinkling feet, the heave of the white packs, the vindictive form dodging behind; and then his knees weakened, his throbbing brain seemed to burst and he fell down cursing in the trail. But the pack-train went on like a tireless automaton that no human power could stay and when he raised his head it was a streamer of dust, a speck on the far horizon.

He rose up slowly and looked around--at the empty trail, the waterless flats, the barren hills all about--and then he raised his fist, which still clutched the chunk of quartz, and shook it at the pillar of dust. His throat was dry and no words came, to carry the burden of his hate, but as he stumbled along his eyes were on the dust-cloud and he choked out gusty oaths. A demoniac strength took possession of his limbs and once more he broke into a run, the muttered oaths grew louder and gave way to savage shouts and then to delirious babblings; and when he awoke he was groveling in a sand-wash and the sun had sunk in the west.

Once more he rose up and looked down the empty trail and across the waterless flats; and then he raised his eyes to the eastern hills, burning red in the last rays of the sun. They were high, very high, with pines on their summits, and from the wash of a near canyon there lapped out a tongue of green, the promise of water beyond. But his strength had left him now and given place to a feverish weakness--the hills were far away, and he could only sit and wait, and if help did not come he would perish. The solemn twilight turned to night, a star glowed in the east; and then, on the high point above the mouth of the canyon, there leapt up a brighter glow. It was a fire, and as he gazed he saw a form passing before it and feeding the ruddy blaze. He rose up all a-tremble, crushed down a brittle salt-bush and touched it off with a match; and as the resinous wood flared up he snatched out a torch and carried the flame to another bush. It was the signal of the lost, two fires side by side, and he gave a hoarse cry when, from the point of the canyon, a second fire promised help. Then he sank down in the sand, feebly feeding his signal fire, until he was roused by galloping feet.

A half moon was in the sky, lighting the desert with ghostly radiance, and as he scrambled up to look he saw a boy on a white mule, riding in with a canteen held out. Not a word was spoken but as he gurgled down the water he rolled his eyes and gazed at his rescuer. The boy was slim and vigorous, stripped down to sandals and bib overalls; and conspicuously on his hip he carried a heavy pistol which he suddenly hitched to the front.

"That's enough, now," he said, "you give me back that canteen." And when the man refused he snatched it from his lips and whipped out his ready gun. "Don't you grab me," he warned, "or I'll fill you full of lead. You've had enough, I tell you!"

For a moment the man faced him as if crouching for a spring; and then his legs failed him and he sank to the ground, at which the boy dropped down and stooped over him.

"Lie still," he said, "and I'll bathe your face--I was afraid you were crazy with the heat."

"That's all right, kid," muttered the man, "you're right on the job. Say, gimme another drink."

"In a minute--well, just a little one! Now, lie down here in the sand and try to go to sleep." He moistened a big handkerchief and sopped water on his head and over his heaving chest, and after a few drinks the big frame relaxed and the man lay sleeping like a child. But in his dreams he was still lost and running across the desert, he started and twitched his arms; and then he began to mutter and fumble in the sand until at last he sat up with a jerk.

He felt about in the dirt and grabbed up the chunk of quartz, which he had lost in his last delirium.

"You bet I was, kid," the man answered gravely, "I reckon you saved my life. My name is John C. Calhoun."

He held out his hand and after a moment's hesitation the boy reached out and took it.

"My name is Billy Campbell and we live in Jail Canyon. My mother will be coming down soon--that is, if she can catch our other mule."

"Glad to meet her," replied Calhoun still shaking his hand, "you're a good kid, Billy; I like you. And when your mother comes, if it's agreeable to her, I'd like to take you along for my pardner. How would that suit you, now--I've just made a big strike and I'll put you right next to the discovery."

"I--I'd like it," stammered the boy hastily drawing his hand away, "only--only I'm afraid my mother won't let me. You see the boys are all gone, and there's lots of work to do, and--but I do get awful lonely."

He stopped and mopped his brow, then took another drink and laughed, deep down in his chest.

"What--Tellurium?" faltered the boy going over to the mule and rubbing his nose regretfully, "he's--he's a pet; I'd rather not."

"Aw come on now, I'll pay you well--I'll stake you the claim next to mine. That ought to be worth lots of money."

"Nope," returned Billy, "here's a lunch I brought along. I guess I'll be going home."

He untied a sack of food from the back of his saddle and mounted as if to go, but the stranger took the mule by the bit.

"Now listen, kid," he said. "Do you know who I am? Well, I'm John C. Calhoun, the man that discovered the Wunpost Mine and put Southern Nevada on the map. I'm no crazy man; I'm a prospector, as good as the best, if I am playing to a little hard luck. Yes sir, I located the Wunpost and started that first big rush--they came pouring into Keno by the thousands; but when I show 'em this rock there won't be anybody left--they'll come across Death Valley like a sandstorm. They'll come pouring down that wash like a cloudburst in July and the whole doggoned country will be located. Don't you want to be in on the strike? I'm giving you a chance, and you'll never have another one like it. All I ask is this mule, and your canteen and the grub, and I'll tell you what I'll do--I'll give you half my claim, and I'll bet it's worth millions, and I'll bring back your mule to boot!"

"Oh, will you?" exclaimed the boy and was scrambling swiftly down when he stopped with one hand on the horn. "Does--does it make any difference if I'm a girl?" he asked with a break in his voice, and John C. Calhoun started back. He looked again and in the desert moonlight the boyish face seemed to soften and change. Tears sprang into the dark eyes and as she hung her head a curl fell across her breast.

"Hell--no!" he burst out hardly knowing what he said, "not as long as I get the mule."

"Then write out that notice for Wilhelmina Campbell--I guess that's my legal name."

"It's a right pretty name," conceded Calhoun as he mounted, "but somehow I kinder liked Billy."

THE GATEWAY OF DREAMS

Standing alone in the desert, with her face bared to the moonlight and her curls shaken free to the wind, Wilhelmina smiled softly as she gazed after the stranger who already had won her heart. His language had been crude when he thought she was a boy, but that only proved the perfection of her disguise; and when she had asked if it made any difference, and confessed that she was a girl, he had bridged over the gap like a flash. "Hell--no!" he had said, as men oftentimes do to express the heartiest accord; and then he had added, with the gallantry due a lady, that Wilhelmina was a right pretty name. And tomorrow, as soon as he had staked out his claim--their claim--he was coming back to the ranch!

She started back up the long wash that led down from Jail Canyon, still musing on his masterful ways, but as she rounded the lower point and saw a light in the house a sudden doubt assailed her. Tellurium was her mule, to give to whom she chose, but he was matched to pull with Bodie when they needed a team and her father might not approve. And what would she say when she met her mother's eye and she questioned her about this strange man? Yet she knew as well as anything that he was going to make her rich--and tomorrow he would bring back the mule. All she needed was faith, and the patience to wait; and she took her scolding so meekly that her mother repented it and allowed her to sleep in the tunnel.

The Jail Canyon Ranch lay in a pocket among the hills, so shut in by high ridges and overhanging rimrock that it seemed like the bottom of a well; but where the point swung in that encircled the tiny farm a tunnel bored its way through the hill. It was the extension of a mine which in earlier days had gophered along the hillside after gold, but now that it was closed down and abandoned to the rats Wilhelmina had taken the tunnel for her own. It ran through the knife-blade ridge as straight as a die, and a trail led up to its mouth; and from the other side, where it broke out into the sun, there was a view of the outer world. Sitting within its cool portal she could look off across the Sink, to Blackwater and the Argus Range beyond; and by stepping outside she could see the whole valley, from South Pass to the Death Valley Trail.

The day came first in the west, galloping along the Argus Range and splashing its peaks with red; and then as the sun ascended it found gaps in the eastern rim and laid long bands of light across the Sink. It rose up higher and, as the desert stood forth bare, the dweller in the dream-house stepped out through its portals and gazed long at the Death Valley Trail. From the far north pass, where it came down from Wild Rose, to where Blackwater sent up its thin smoke, the trail crept like a serpent among the sandhills and washes, a long tenuous line through the Sink. Where the ground was white the trail stood out darker, and where it crossed the sun-burnt mesas it was white; but from one end to the other it was vacant and nothing emerged from north pass. Billy sighed and turned away, but when she came back there was a streak of dust to the south.

"Hello, Dusty!" she called running gayly down to meet him, "are you looking for Mr. Calhoun?"

"Oh, it's Mister, is it?" he yelled. "Well, have you seen the danged whelp? Whoo, boy--where is he, Billy?"

"He went back!" she cried, "I lent him my mule. He told me he'd made a rich strike!"

"Oh, no he hasn't," protested Billy confidently, running along the trail beside him, "he went back to stake out his claim. He found some rich ore right there at Black Point, and he's going to give me half of it."

"At Black P'int!" whooped Dusty Rhodes doubling up in a knot to squeeze out the last atom of his mirth, "w'y I've been past that p'int for twenty years--it's nothing but porphyry and burnt lava! He's crazy with the heat! Where's your father, my little girl? We'll have to go out and ketch him if we ever expect to git back that mule!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"'Wunpost Mine,'" he writes, "'John C. Calhoun owner. I claim fifteen hundred feet on this vein.'

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

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

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