CHAPTER VII
MORE DREAMS
In four days time Wunpost had seen his interest dwindle from fullownership to a mere sixth of the Willie Meena. First he had given Billyhalf, then they had each given Rhodes a sixth; and now Judson Eells hadstepped in with his contract and trimmed their holdings by a half. Inanother day or so, if the ratio kept up, Wunpost's sixth would bereduced to a twelfth, a twenty-fourth, a forty-eighth, aninety-sixth--and he had discovered the mine himself! What philosophy orsophistry can reconcile a man to such buffets from the hand of Fate?Wunpost cursed and turned to raw whiskey. It was the infamy of it all;the humiliation, the disgrace, the insult of being trimmed by alawyer--twice! Yes, twice in the same place, with the same contract, thesame system; and now this same Flip Flappum was busy as a hunting dogtrying to hire one of his partners to sell him out!
Wunpost towered above Old Whiskers, and so terrible was his presencethat the saloon-keeper never hinted at pay. He poured out drink afterdrink of the vitriolic whiskey, which Whiskers made in the secrecy ofhis back-room; and as Wunpost drank and shuddered the waspish Phillip F.Lapham set about his complete undoing. First he went to Dusty Rhodes,who still claimed a full half, and browbeat him until he fell back to athird; and then, when Dusty priced his third at one million, he turnedto the disillusioned Billy. Her ideas were more moderate, as far asvalues were concerned, but her loyalty to Wunpost was still unshaken andshe refused to even consider a sale. Back and forth went the lawyer likea shuttle in its socket, from Dusty Rhodes to Wilhelmina and then backonce more to Rhodes; but Dusty would sign nothing, sell nothing, agreeto nothing, and Billy was almost as bad. She placed a cash value oftwenty thousand dollars on her interest in the Willie Meena Mine, butthe sale was contingent upon the consent of John C. Calhoun, who haddrowned his sorrows at last. So they waited until morning and Billy laidthe matter before him when her father brought the drunken man to theirtent.
Wunpost was more than drunk, he was drugged and robbed of reason by thepoison which Old Whiskers had brewed; but even with this handicap hismind leapt straight to the point and he replied with an emphatic "No!"
"Twenty thousand!" he repeated, "twenty thousand devils--twenty thousandlittle demons from hell! What do you want to sell me out for--didn't Igive you your interest? Well, listen, kid--you ever been to school? Thenhow much is one-sixth and one-third--add 'em together! Makes_three_-sixths, don't it--well, ain't that a half? I ain'teducated, that's all right; but I can _think_, kid, can't I? FlipFlappum he wants to get control. Give him a half, under my contract, andhe can take possession--and then where do _I_ git off? I git off atthe same place I got off over at Wunpost; he's trying to freeze me out.So if you want to do me dirt, kid, when I've always been your friend, goto it and sell him your share. Take your paltry twenty thousand and letold Wunpost rustle--serves him right, the poor, ignorant fool!"
He swayed about and Billy drew away from him, but her answer to Laphamwas final. She would not sell out, at any price, without the consent ofWunpost. Lapham nodded and darted off--he was a man who dealt with factsand not with the moonshine of sentiment--and this time he fairly flew atDusty Rhodes. He took him off to one side, where no one could listen in,and at the end of half an hour Mr. Rhodes had signed a paper giving aquit-claim to his interest in the mine. Old Whiskers was summoned fromhis attendance on the bottles, the lawyer presented his case; and,whatever the arguments, they prevailed also with the saloon-keeper, whosigned up and took his check. Presumably they had to do with threats ofexpensive litigation and appeals to the higher courts, with a learnedexposition of the weakness of their case and the air-tight position ofJudson Eells; the point is, they prevailed, and Eells took possession ofthe mine, placing Pisen-face Lynch in charge.
Old Whiskers folded his tent and returned to Blackwater, where many ofthe stampeders had preceded him; and Dusty Rhodes, with a guilty grin,folded his check and started for the railroad. Cole Campbell and hisdaughter, when they heard the news and found themselves debarred fromthe property, packed up and took the trail home, and when John C.Calhoun came out of his coma he was left without a friend in the world.The rush had passed on, across the Sink to Blackwater and to the gulchesin the mountains beyond; for the men from Nevada had not been slow tocomprehend that the Willie Meena held no promise for them.
It was a single rich blow-out in a country otherwise barren; and thetales of the pocket miners, who held claims back of Blackwater, had ledto a second stampede. The Willie Meena was a prophecy of what might beexpected if a similar formation could be found, but it was no more thanthe throat of an extinct volcano, filled up with gold-bearing quartz.There was no fissure-vein, no great mother lode leading off through thecountry for miles; only a hogback of black quartz and then worlds andworlds of desert as barren as wash boulders could make it. So they roseand went on, like birds in full flight after they have settled for amoment on the plain, and when Wunpost rose up and rubbed his eyes hisgreat camp had passed away like a dream.
Two days later he walked wearily across the desert from Blackwater, witha two gallon canteen under his arm, and at the entrance to Jail Canyonhe paused and looked in doubtfully before he shambled up to the house.He was broke, and he knew it, and added to that shame was the greatershame that comes from drink. Old Whiskers' poisonous whiskey had sappedhis self-respect, and yet he came on boldly. There was a fever in hiseye like that of the gambler who has lost all, yet still watches thefall of the cards; and as Wilhelmina came out he winked at hermysteriously and beckoned her away from the house.
"I've got something good," he told her confidentially; "can you get offto go down to Blackwater?"
"Why, I might," she said. "Father's working up the canyon. Is itsomething about the mine?"
"Yes, it is," he answered. "Say, what d'ye think of Dusty? He sold usout for five thousand dollars! Five thousand--that's all--and OldWhiskers took the same, giving Judson Eells full control. They cleanedus, Billy, but we'll get our cut yet--do you know what they're trying todo? Eells is going to organize a company and sell a few shares in orderto finance the mine; and if we want to, kid, we can turn in our thirdinterest and get the pro rata in stock. We might as well do it, becausethey've got the control and otherwise we won't get anything. They'vebarred us off the property and we'll never get a cent if it produces amillion dollars. But look, here's the idea--Judson Eells is badly benton account of what he lost at Wunpost, and he's crazy to organize acompany and market the treasury stock. We'll go in with him, see, and assoon as we get our stock we'll peddle it for what we can get. That'llnet us a few thousand and you can take your share and help the old manbuild his road."
The stubborn look on Billy's face suddenly gave place to one of doubtand then to one of swift decision.
"I'll do it," she said. "We don't need to see Father--just tell themthat I've agreed. And when the time comes, send an Indian up to notifyme and I'll ride down and sign the papers."
"Good enough!" exclaimed Wunpost with a hint of his old smile. "I'llcome up and tell you myself. Have you heard the news from below? Well,every house in Blackwater is plumb full of boomers--and thempocket-miners are all selling out. The whole country's staked, cleanback to the peaks, and old Eells says he's going to start a bank.There's three new saloons, a couple more restaurants, and she sure lookslike a good live camp--and me, the man that started it and made thewhole country, I can't even bum a drink!"
"I'm glad of it," returned Billy, and regarded him so intently that hehastened to change the subject.
"But you wait!" he thundered. "I'll show 'em who's who! I ain't down, byno manner of means. I've got a mine or two hid out that would make 'emfairly scream if I'd show 'em a piece of the rock. All I need is alittle capital, just a few thousand dollars to get me a good outfit ofmules, and I'll come back into Blackwater with a pack-load of orethat'll make 'em _all_ sit up and take notice."
He swung his fist into his hand with oratorical fervor and Mrs. Campbellappeared suddenly at the door. Her first favorable impression of thegallant you
ng Southerner had been changed by the course of events andshe was now morally certain that the envious Dusty Rhodes had comenearer the unvarnished truth. To be sure he had apologized, but Wunposthimself had said that it was only to gain a share in the mine--and howlamentably had Wunpost failed, after all his windy boasts, when it cameto a conflict with Judson Eells. He had weakened like a schoolboy, allhis arguments had been puerile; and even her husband, who was far fromcensorious, had stated that the whole affair was badly handled. And nowhere he was, after a secret conference with her daughter, suddenlybursting into vehement protestations and hinting at still other hiddenmines. Well, his mines might be as rich as he declared them to be, butMrs. Campbell herself was dubious.
"Wilhelmina," she called, "don't stand out in the sun! Why don't youinvite Mr. Calhoun to the house?"
The hint was sufficient, Mr. Calhoun excused himself hastily and wentstriding away down the canyon; and Wilhelmina, after a perfunctoryreturn to the house, slipped out and ran up to her lookout. Not a wordthat he had said about the rush to Blackwater was in any way startlingto her; she had seen every dust-cloud, marked each automobile as itrushed past, and even noted the stampede from the west. For the naturalway to Blackwater was not across Death Valley from the distant Nevadacamps, but from the railroad which lay only forty miles to the west andwas reached by an automobile stage. The road came down throughSheep-herder Canyon, on the other side of the Sink, and every day as shelooked across its vastness she saw the long trailers of dust. She knewthat the autos were rushing in with men and the slow freighters werehauling in supplies--all the real news for her was the number of saloonsand restaurants, and that Eells was starting a bank.
A bank! And in Blackwater! The only bank that Blackwater had ever had orneeded was the safe in Old Whiskers' saloon; and now this rich schemer,this iron-handed robber, was going to start a bank! Billy lay inside theportal of her gate of dreams and watched Wunpost as he plodded acrossthe plain, and she resolved to join with him and do her level best tobring Eells' plans to naught. If he was counting on the sale of histreasury stock to fill up the vaults of his bank he would find others inthe market with stock in both hands, peddling it out to the highestbidder. And even if the mine was worth into the millions, she, for one,would sell every share. It was best, after all, since Eells owned thecontrol, to sell out for what they could get; and if this was merely adeep-laid scheme to buy in their stock for almost nothing they would atleast have a little ready cash.
The Campbells were poor; her father even lacked the money to buy powderto blast out his road, and so he struggled on, grading up the easyplaces and leaving Corkscrew Gorge untouched. That would call for heavyblasting and crews of hardy men to climb up and shoot down the walls,and even after that the jagged rock-bed must be covered and leveled tothe semblance of a road. Now nothing but a trail led up through the darkpassageway, where grinding boulders had polished the walls like glass;and until that gateway was opened Cole Campbell's road was useless; itmight as well be all trail. But with five thousand dollars, or evenless--with whatever she received from her stock--the gateway could beconquered, her father's dream would come true and all their life wouldbe changed.
There would be a road, right past their house, where great trucks wouldlumber forth loaded down with ore from their mine, and return ladenedwith machinery from the railroad. There would be miners going by andstopping for a drink, and someone to talk to every day, and theloneliness which oppressed her like a physical pain would give place togaiety and peace. Her father would be happy and stop working so hard,and her mother would not have to worry--all if she, Wilhelmina, couldjust sell her stock and salvage a pittance from the wreck.
She knew now what Wunpost had meant when he had described the outsideworld and the men they would meet at the rush, yet for all his hard-wonknowledge he had gone down once more before Judson Eells and his gang.But he had spoken true when he said they would resort to murder to gainpossession of their mine, and though he had yielded at last to the lureof strong drink, in her heart she could not blame him too much. It wasnot by wrongdoing that he had wrecked their high hopes, but by signing acontract long years before without reading what he called the fineprint. He was just a boy, after all, in spite of his boasting and hisvaunted knowledge of the world; and now in his trouble he had come backto her, to the one person he knew he could trust. She gazed a long timeat the dwindling form till it was lost in the immensity of the plain;and then she gazed on, for dreams were all she had to comfort her lonelyheart