CHAPTER XX
THE WAR EAGLE
Since a bullet from nowhere had shot him through the leg, Wunpost hadlearned a new fear of the hills. Before, they had been hisstamping-ground, the "high places" he was so boastful of; but now theybecame imbued with a malign personality, all the more fearful because itwas unknown. With painstaking care he had checked up on Pisen-faceLynch, to determine if it was he who had ambushed him; but Lynch hadestablished a perfect alibi--in fact, it was almost too good. He hadbeen right in Blackwater during all the trouble, although now he was outin the hills; and an Indian whom Wunpost had sent on a scout reportedthat the Shoshones had no knowledge of the shooting. They, too, hadbecome aware of the strange presence in the hills, though none of themhad really seen it, and their women were afraid to go out after thepinon-nuts for fear of being caught and stolen.
The prowler was no renegade Shoshone, for his kinsmen would know abouthim, and yet Wunpost had a feeling it was an Indian. And he had anotherhunch--that the Indian was employed by Eels and Pisen-face Lynch. For,despite Wilhelmina's statement, there was one man in Blackwater who didnot consider him a bag of hot air. Judson Eells took him seriously, soseriously, in fact, that he was spending thousands of dollars ondetectives; and Wunpost knew for a certainty that there was a party inthe hills, waiting and watching to trail him to his mine. His departurefrom Los Angeles had been promptly reported, and Lynch and severalothers had left town--which was yet another reason why Wunpost quit thehills and went north over the Death Valley Trail.
Life had suddenly become a serious affair to the man who had discoveredthe Willie Meena, and as he neared that mine he veered off to the rightand took the high ground to Wild Rose. Yet he could not but observe thatthe mine was looking dead, and rumor had it that the paystreak hadfailed. 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 hardlybe expected to pay. No, Judson Eells was desperate, for he saw histreasure slipping as the Wunpost had slipped away before; it wasslipping through his fingers and he grasped at any straw which mighthelp him to find the Sockdolager. It was the curse of the Panamints thatthe veins all pinched out or ran into hungry ore; and for the secondtime, when he had esteemed himself rich, he had found the bottom of thehole. He had built roads and piped water and set up a mill and settleddown to make his pile; and then, with that strange fatality which seemedto pursue him, he had seen his profits fail. The assays had shown thathis pay-ore was limited and that soon the Willie Meena must close, andnow he was taking the last of his surplus and making a desperate fightfor the Sockdolager.
Half the new mine was his, according to law, and since Wunpost had daredhim to do his worst he was taking him at his word. And Wunpost at lastwas getting scared, though not exactly of Eells. For, since he aloneknew 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 tohis agents to kill. But what those agents were doing while they were outin the field, and how far they would respect his wishes, was somethingabout which Eells knew no more than Wunpost, if, in fact, he knew asmuch. For Wunpost had a limp in his good right leg which partiallyconveyed the answer, and it was his private opinion that Lynch had gonebad and was out in the hills to kill him. Hence his avoidance of thepeaks, and even the open trail; and the way he rode into water afterdark.
There were Indians at Wild Rose, Shooshon Johnny and his family on theirway to Furnace Creek for the winter; but though they were friendlyWunpost left in the night and camped far out on the plain. It was thesame sandy plain over which he had fled when he had led Lynch to PoisonSpring, and as he went on at dawn Wunpost felt the first vaguemisgivings for his part in that unfortunate affair. It had lost him alot of friends and steeled his enemies against him--Lynch no longer wasworking 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 thedesert. And besides he had made his boast to Wilhelmina that he wouldcome back with his assailant's back hair.
It was a matter of pride with John C. Calhoun that, for all his wildtalk, he never made his brag without trying to live up to his word. Hehad stated in public that he was going to break Eells, and he fullyintended to do so; and his promise to get Lynch and Phillip F. Laphamwas never out of his mind; but this assassin, this murderer, who hadshot him without cause and then crawled off through the boulders like asnake--Wunpost had schemed night and day from the moment he was hit tobring the sneaking miscreant to book. He had some steel-traps in hispacks which might serve to good purpose if he could once get theman-hunter on his trail; and he still fondly hoped to lure him over intoDeath Valley, where he would have to come out of the hills.
No man could cross that Valley without leaving his tracks, for therewere alkali flats for miles; and when, in turn, Wunpost wished to coverhis own trail, there was always the Devil's Playground. There, wheneverthe wind blew, the great sandhills were on the move, covering up and atthe same time laying bare; and when a sand storm came on he could losehis tracks half an hour after they were made. It was a big country, andwild, no man lived there for sixty miles--they could fight it out,alone.
From Emigrant Spring, where he camped after dark, Wunpost rode outbefore dawn and was well clear of the hills before it was light enoughto 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 withEmigrant Wash straight ahead and Death Valley lying white beyond. Andover beyond that, like a wall of layer cake, rose the striatedbuttresses of the Grapevines. Wunpost passed down over the road up whichthe Nevada rush had come when he had made his great strike at BlackPoint; and as he rollicked along on his fast-walking mule, with the twopack-animals following behind, something rose up within him to tell himthe world was good and that a lucky star was leading him on.
He was heading across the Valley to the Grapevine Range, and the hatefulimp of evil which had dogged him through the Panamints would have tocome down and leave a trail. And once he found his tracks Wunpost wouldknow who he was fighting, and he could govern himself accordingly. If itwas an Indian, well and good; if it was Lynch, still well and good; butno man can be brave when he is fighting in the dark or fleeing from anunseen hand. From their lookouts on the heights his enemies could seehim traveling and trace him with their glasses all day; but when nightfell they would lose him, and then someone would have to descend andpick up his trail in the sands.
Wunpost camped that evening at Surveyor's Well, a trench-hole dug downinto the Sink, and after his mules had eaten their fill of salt-grass hepacked up again and pushed on to the east. From the stinking alkali flatwith its mesquite clumps and sacaton, he passed on up an interminablewash; and at daylight he was hidden in the depths of a black canyonwhich ended abruptly behind him. There was no way to reach him, or evensee where he was hid, except by following up the canyon; and before hewent to sleep Wunpost got out his two bear-traps and planted themhurriedly in the trail. Then, retiring into a cave, he left Good Luck onguard and slept until late in the day. But nothing stirred down thetrail, 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 beartraps again, but not even a prowling fox came along in the night tospring their cruel jaws. The canyon was deserted and the water-holewhere he drank was unvisited except by his mules. These he had penned inabove him by a fence of brush and ropes and hobbled them to make doublysure; but in the morning they were there, waiting to receive their baitof grain as if Tank Canyon was their customary home. Another day draggedby and Wunpost began to fidget and to watch the unscalable peaks, but noIndian's head appeared to draw a slug from his rifle and again the nightpassed uneventfully. He spent the third day in a fury, pacing up anddown 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 theheights and,
now that he thought of it, he was taking a great deal forgranted when he set his big traps in the trail. In the first place, hewas assuming that the man was still there, after a lapse of six weeksand more; and in the second place that he was bold enough, or soobsessed by blood-lust, that he would follow him across Death Valley;whereas as a matter of fact, he knew nothing whatever about him exceptthat he had shot him in the leg. His aim had been good but a little toolow, which is unusual when shooting down hill, and that might argue hima 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 takingtoo much for granted to think that he would walk into a trap. WhatWunpost wanted to know, and what he was about to find out, was whetherhis tracks had been followed.
He left Tank Canyon after dark, driving his pack-mules before him todetect any possible ambush; and in his nest on the front pack Good Luckstood up like a sentinel, eager to scent out the lurking foe. For thepast day and night Good Luck had been uneasy, snuffing the wind andgrowling in his throat, but the actions of his master had been causeenough for that, for he responded to Wunpost's every mood. And Wunpostwas as jumpy as a cat that has been chased by a dog, he practised forhours on the draw-and-shoot; and whenever he dismounted he dragged hisrifle with him to make sure he would do it in a pinch. He was worriedbut not frightened and when he came free from the canyon he headed forSurveyor's Well.
Someone had been there before him, perhaps even that very night, forwater had been splashed about the hole; but whoever it was, was gone.Wunpost studied the unshod horse-track, then he began to cut circles inthe snow-white alkali and at last he sat down to await the dawn. Therewas something eerie about this pursuit, if pursuit it was, for while thehorse had been watered from the bucket at the well, its rider had notleft a track. Not a heel-mark, not a nail-point, and the last of thewater had been dropped craftily on the spot where he had mounted. Thatwas enough--Wunpost knew he had met his match. He watered his mulesagain, rode west into the mesquite brush and at sun-up he was hid forthe day.
Where three giant mesquite trees, their tops reared high in the air andtheir trunks banked up with sand, sprawled together to make a naturalbarricade, Wunpost unpacked his mules and tied them there to browsewhile he climbed to the top of a mound. The desert was quite bare as faras he could see--no horseman came or went, every distant trail wasempty, the way to Tank Canyon was untrod. And yet somewhere there mustbe a man and a horse--a very ordinary horse, such as any man might have,and a man who wiped out his tracks. Wunpost lay there a long time,sweeping the washes with his glasses, and then a shadow passed over himand was gone. He jumped and a glossy raven, his head turned to one side,gave vent to a loud, throaty _quawk_! His mate followed behind him,her wings rustling noisily, her beady eye fixed on his camp, and Wunpostlooked up and cursed back at them.
If the ravens on the mountain had made out his hiding-place and comedown from their crags to look, what was to prevent this man who smoothedout his tracks from detecting his hidden retreat? Wunpost knew theravens well, for no man ever crossed Death Valley without hearing thewhish of black wings, but he wondered now if this early morning visitdid not presage disaster to come. What the ravens really sought for heknew all too well, for he had seen their knotted tracks by dead forms;yet somehow their passage conjured up thoughts in his brain which hadnever disturbed him before. They were birds of death, rapacious andevil-bringing, and they had cast their boding shadows upon him.
The dank coolness of the morning gave place to ardent midday before hecrept down and gave up his watch, but as he crouched beneath the treesanother shadow passed over him and cast a slow circle through the brush.It was a pair of black eagles, come down from the Panamints to throw afateful circle above _him_, and in all his wanderings it had neverhappened before that an eagle had circled his camp. A superstitiouschill made Wunpost shudder and draw back, for the Shoshones had told himthat the eagles loved men's battles and came from afar to watch. Theyhad learned in the old days that when one war-party followed anotherthere would later be feasting and blood; and now, when one man followedanother across the desert, they came down from their high cliffs tolook. Wunpost scrambled to his hillock and watched their effortlessflight; and they swung to the north, where they circled again, not farfrom the spot where he was hid. Here was an omen indeed, a sign withoutfail, for below where they circled his enemy was hiding--or slipping upthrough the brush to shoot.
We can all stand so much of superstitious fear and then the best nervesmust crack--Wunpost saddled his mules and struck out due south, turningoff into the "self-rising ground." Here in bloated bubbles of salt andpoisonous niter the ground had boiled up and formed a brittle crust,like dough made of self-rising flour. It was a dangerous place to go,for at uncertain intervals his mules caved through to their hocks, butWunpost did not stop till he had crossed to the other side and put tenmiles of salt-flats behind him. He was haunted by a fear of something hecould not name, of a presence which pursued him like a devil; but as hestopped and looked back the hot curses rushed to his lips and he headedboldly for the mouth of Tank Canyon.