CHAPTER VIII
THE BABES IN THE WOODS
Ever since David went forth and slew Goliath with his sling, youth hasset its puny lance to strike down giants; and history, making much ofthe hotspurs who won, draws a veil over the striplings who were slain.And yet all who know the stern conditions of life must recognize thatyouth is a handicap, and if David had but donned the heavy armor of KingSaul he too would have gone to his death. But instead he stepped forthuntrammeled by its weight, with nothing but a stone and a sling, andbecause the scoffing giant refused to raise his shield he was struckdown by the pebble of a child. But giant Judson Eells was in ababy-killing mood when he invited Wunpost and Wilhelmina to his den; andwhen they emerged, after signing articles of incorporation, he lickedhis chops and smiled.
It developed at the meeting that the sole function of a stockholder isto vote for the Directors of the Company; and, having elected Eells andLapham and John C. Calhoun Directors, the stockholders' meetingadjourned. Reconvening immediately as a, Board of Directors, JudsonEells was elected President, John C. Calhoun, Vice-President and PhillipF. Lapham Secretary-treasurer--after which an assessment of ten cents ashare was levied upon all the stock. Exit John C. Calhoun and WilhelminaCampbell, stripped of their stock and all faith in mankind. For even ifby some miracle they should raise the necessary sum Judson Eells andPhillip Lapham would immediately vote a second assessment, and so on,_ad finitum_. Holding a majority of the stock, Eells could controlthe Board of Directors, and through it the policies of the company; andany assessments which he himself might pay would but be transferred fromone pocket to the other. It was as neat a job of baby-killing as Eellshad ever accomplished, and he slew them both with a smile.
They had conspired in their innocence to gain stock in the company andto hawk it about the streets; but neither had thought to suggest thecustomary Article: "The stock of said company shall be non-assessable."The Articles of Incorporation had been drawn up by Phillip F. Lapham;and yet, after all his hard experiences, Wunpost was so awed by thelegal procedure that he forgot all about the fine print. Not that itmade any difference, they would have trimmed him anyway, but it wasthree times in the very same place! He cursed himself out loud for anignorant baboon and left Wilhelmina in tears.
She had come down with her mother, her father being busy, and they hadplanned to take in the town; but after this final misfortune Wilhelminalost all interest in the busy marts of trade. What to her were clothesand shoes when she had no money to buy them--and when overdressed women,none too chaste in their demeanor, stared after her in boorishamusement? Blackwater had become a great city, but it was not forher--the empty honor of having the Willie Meena named after her was allshe had won from her mine. John C. Calhoun had been right when he warnedher, long before, that the mining game was more like a dog fight than itwas like a Sunday school picnic; and yet--well, some people made moneyat it. Perhaps they were better at reading the fine print, and not soprecipitate about signing Articles of Incorporation, but as far as shewas concerned Wilhelmina made a vow never to trust a lawyer again.
She returned to the ranch, where the neglected garden soon showed signsof her changing mood; but after the weeds had been chopped out androuted she slipped back to her lookout on the hill. It was easier totear the weeds from a tangled garden than old memories from her lonelyheart; and she took up, against her will, the old watch for Wunpost, whohad departed from Blackwater in a fury. He had stood on the corner and,oblivious of her presence, had poured out the vials of his wrath; he hadcursed Eells for a swindler, and Lapham for his dog and Lynch for hisyellow hound. He had challenged them all, either individually orcollectively, to come forth and meet him in battle; and then he hadoffered to fight any man in Blackwater who would say a good word for anyof them. But Blackwater looked on in cynical amusement, for Eells wasthe making of the town; and when he had given off the worst of his venomWunpost had tied up his roll and departed.
He had left as he had come, a single-blanket tourist, packing hisworldly possessions on his back; and when last seen by Wilhelmina he washeaded east, up the wash that came down from the Panamints. Where he wasgoing, when he would return, if he ever would return, all were mysteriesto the girl who waited on; and if she watched for him it was becausethere was no one else whose coming would stir her heart. Far up thecanyon and over the divide there lived Hungry Bill and his family, butHungry was an Indian and when he dropped in it was always to getsomething to eat. He had two sons and two daughters, whom he keptenslaved, forbidding them to even think of marriage; and all histhoughts were of money and things to eat, for Hungry Bill was an Indianmiser.
He came through often now with his burros packed with fruit from theabandoned white-man's ranch that he had occupied; and even his wild-eyeddaughters had more variety than Billy, for they accompanied him toBlackwater and Willie Meena. There they sold their grapes and peaches atexorbitant prices and came back with coffee and flour, but neither wouldsay a word for fear of their old father, who watched them withintolerant eyes. They were evil, snaky eyes, for it was said that in hisday he had waylaid many a venturesome prospector, and while they gleamedingratiatingly when he was presented with food, at no time did they showgood will. He was still a renegade at heart, shunned and avoided by hisown kinsmen, the Shoshones who camped around Wild Rose; but it was fromhim, from this old tyrant that she despised so cordially, thatWilhelmina received her first news of Wunpost.
Hungry Bill came up grinning, on his way down from his ranch, and fixedher with his glittering black eyes.
"You savvy Wunpo?" he asked, "hi-ko man--busca gol'? Him sendum piece oflock!"
He produced a piece of rock from a knot in his shirt-tail and handed itover to her slowly. It was a small chunk of polished quartz, half green,half turquoise blue; and in the center, like a jewel, a crystal ofyellow gold gleamed out from its matrix of blue. Wilhelmina gazed at itblankly, then flushed and turned away as she felt Hungry Bill's eyesupon her. He was a disreputable old wretch, who imputed to others thebase motives which governed his own acts; and when she read his blackheart Wilhelmina straightened up and gave him back the stone.
"No, you keepum!" protested Hungry. "Hi-ko ketchum plenty mo'."
But Wilhelmina shook her head.
"No!" she said, "you give that to my mother. Are those your girls downthere? Well, why don't you let them come up to the house? You no good--Idon't like bad Indians!"
She turned away from him, still frowning angrily, and strode on down tothe creek; but the daughters of Hungry Bill, in their groveling way,seemed to share the low ideals of their father. They were tall andsturdy girls, clad in breezy calico dresses and with their hair downover their eyes; and as they gazed out from beneath their bangs a guiltysmile contorted their lips, a smile that made Wilhelmina writhe.
"What's the matter with you?" she snapped, and as the scared look cameback she turned on her heel and left them. What could one expect, ofcourse, from Hungry Bill's daughters after they had been guarded likethe slave-girls in a harem; but the joy of hearing from Wunpost wasquite lost in the fierce anger which the conduct of his messengersevoked. He was up there, somewhere, and he had made another strike--themost beautiful blue quartz in the world--but these renegade Shoshoneswith their understanding smiles had quite killed the pleasure of it forher. She returned to the house where Hungry Bill, in the kitchen, waswolfing down a great pan of beans; but the sight of the old glutton withhis mouth down to the plate quite sickened her and drove her away.Wunpost was up in the hills, and he had made a strike, but with that shemust remain content until he either came down himself or chose a morehighminded messenger.
Hungry Bill went on to Blackwater and came back with a load of supplies,which he claimed he was taking to "Wunpo"; and, after he had passed upthe canyon, Wilhelmina strolled along behind him. At the mouth ofCorkscrew Gorge there was a great pool of water, overshadowed by a rankgrowth of willows through whose tops the wild grapevines ran riot. Hereit had been her custom, during the heat of the day, to
paddle along theshallows or sit and enjoy the cool air. There was always a breeze at themouth of Corkscrew Gorge, and when it drew down, as it did on this day,it carried the odors of dank caverns. In the dark and gloomy depths ofthis gash through the hills the rocks were always damp and cold; andbeneath the great waterfalls, where the cloudbursts had scooped outpot-holes, there was a delicious mist and spray. She dawdled by thewillows, then splashed on up the slippery trail until, above the lastechoing waterfall, she stepped out into the world beyond.
The great canyon spread out again, once she had passed the waterwornGorge, and peak after peak rose up to right and left where yawning sidecanyons led in. But all were set on edge and reared up to dizzyingheights; and along their scarred flanks there lay huge slides of shaleyrock, ready to slip at the touch of a hand. Vivid stripes of red andgreen, alternating with layers of blue and white, painted the sides ofthe striated ridges; and odd seams here and there showed dull yellowsand chocolate browns like the edge of a crumbled layer-cake. Up thecanyon the walls shut in again, and then they opened out, and so on fornine miles until Old Panamint was reached and the open valley sloped upto the summit.
Many a time in the old days when they had lived in Panamint hadWilhelmina scaled those far heights; the huge white wall of granitedotted with ball-like pinons and junipers, which fenced them from DeathValley beyond. It opened up like a gulf, once the summit was reached,and below the jagged precipices stretched long ridges and fan-likewashes which lost themselves at last in the Sink. For a hundred miles tothe north and the south it lay, a writhing ribbon of white, pinchingdown to narrow strips, then broadening out in gleaming marshes; and onboth sides the mountains rose up black and forbidding, a bulwark againstthe sky. Wilhelmina had never entered it, she had been content to lookdown; and then she crept back to beautiful sheltered Panamint wherefather had his mine.
It was up on the ridge, where the white granite of the summit came intocontact with the burnt limestone and schist; and, of all the rich mines,the Homestake was the best, until the cloudburst came along and spoiledall of them. Wilhelmina still remembered how the great flood had passedthe town, moving boulders as if they were pebbles; but not until itreached the place where she stood had it done irretrievable damage. Theroadbed was washed out, but the streambed remained, and the banks fromwhich to fill in more dirt; but when the flood struck the Gorge itbacked up into a lake, for the narrow defile was choked. Trees and rocksand rumbling boulders had piled up against its entrance, holding thewaters back like a dam; and when they broke through they sluicedeverything before them, gouging the canyon down to the bedrock. Nowtwelve years had passed by and only a hazardous trail threaded the Gorgewhich had once been a highway.
Wilhelmina gazed up the valley and sighed again, for since that terrificcloudburst she had been stranded in Jail Canyon like a piece ofdriftwood tossed up by the flood. Nothing happened to her, any more thanto the pinon logs which the waters had wedged high above the stream, andas she returned home down the Gorge she almost wished for another flood,to float them and herself away. No one came by there any more, the trailwas so poor, and yet her father still clung to the mine; but a floodwould either fill up the Gorge with debris or make even him give uphope. She sank down by the cool pool and put her feet in the water,dabbling them about like a wilful child; but at a shout from below sherose up a grown woman, for she knew it was Dusty Rhodes.
He came on up the creekbed with his burros on the trot, hurling clubs atthe laggards as he ran; and when they stopped short at the sight ofWilhelmina he almost rushed them over her. But a burro is a creature oflively imagination, to whom the unknown is always terrible; and at afresh outburst from Dusty the whole outfit took to the brush, leavinghim face to face with his erstwhile partner.
"Oh, hello, hello!" he called out gruffly. "Say, did Hungry Bill gothrough here? He was jest down to Blackwater, buying some grub at thestore, and he paid for it with rock that was _half gold_! So gitout of the road, my little girl--I'm going up to prospect them hills!"
"Don't you call me your little girl!" called back Billy angrily. "AndHungry Bill hasn't got any mine!"
"Oh, he ain't, hey?" mocked Dusty, leaving his burros to browse while hestrode triumphantly up to her. "Then jest look at _that_, my--myfine young lady! I got it from the store-keeper myself!"
He handed her a piece of green and blue quartz, but she only glanced atit languidly. The memory of his perfidy on a previous occasion made herlong to puncture his pride, and she passed the gold ore back to him.
"I've seen that before," she said with a sniff, "so you can stop drivingthose burros so hard. It came from Wunpost's mine."
"Wunpost!" yelled Dusty Rhodes, his eyes getting big; and then he spatout an oath. "Who told ye?" he demanded, sticking his face into hers,and she stepped away disdainfully.
"Hungry Bill," she said, and watched him writhe as the bitter truth wenthome. "You think you're so smart," she taunted at last, "why don't yougo out and find one for yourself? I suppose you want to rush in andclaim a half interest in his strike and then sell out to old Eells. Ihope he kills you, if you try to do it--_I_ would, if I were him.What'd you do with that five thousand dollars?"
"Eh--eh--that's none of your business," bleated Dusty Rhodes, whose tripto Los Angeles had proved disastrous. "And if Wunpost gave Hungry thatsack of ore he stole it from some other feller's mine. I knowed allalong he'd locate that Black P'int if I ever let him stop--I've had myeye on it for years--and that's why I hurried by. I discovered itmyself, only I never told nobody--he must have heard me talking in mysleep!"
"Yes, or when you were drunk!" suggested Wilhelmina maliciously. "I hearyou got robbed in Los Angeles. And anyhow I'm glad, because you stolethat five thousand dollars, and no good ever came from stolen property."
"Oh, it didn't, hey?" sneered Dusty, who was recovering his poise,"well, I'll bet ye _this_ rock was stolen! And if that's the case,where does your young man git off, that you think the world and all of?But you've got to show me that he ever _saw_ this rock--I believeold Hungry was lying to you!"
"Well, don't let me keep you!" cried Billy, bowing mockingly. "Go onover and ask him yourself--but I'll bet you don't _dare_ to meetWunpost!"
"How come Hungry to tell you?" burst out Dusty Rhodes at last, andWilhelmina smiled mysteriously.
"That's none of your business, my busy little man," she mimicked inpatronizing tones, "but I've got a piece of that rock right up at thehouse. You go back there and mother will show it to you."
"I'm going on!" answered Dusty with instant decision; "can't stop tomake no visit today. They's a big rush coming--every burro-man inBlackwater--and some of them are legging it afoot. But that thieving sonof a goat, _he_ never found no mine! I know it--it can't bepossible!"
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