Wunpost

by Dane Coolidge

  CHAPTER XXIX

  IN TRUST

  There was cursing and wailing and gnashing of teeth in Blackwater'ssaloons that night, and some were for hanging Wunpost; but in themorning, when they woke up and found Eells and Lapham gone, theytransferred their rage to them. A committee composed of the dummydirectors, who had allowed Eells to do what he would, discovered fromthe books that the bank had been looted and that Eells was a fugitivefrom justice. He had diverted the bank's funds to his own private uses,leaving only his unsecured notes; and Lapham, the shrewd fox, had leviedblackmail on his chief by charging huge sums for legal service. And nowthey were both gone and the Blackwater depositors had been left withouta cent.

  It was galling to their pride to see Wunpost stalking about andexhibiting his dream-restored wealth; but no one could say that he hadnot warned them, and he was loser by two thousand dollars himself. Buteven at that they considered it poor taste when he hung a piece of crepeon the door. As for the God-given dream which he professed to havereceived, there were those who questioned its authenticity; but whateverhis hunch was, it had saved him forty-odd thousand dollars, which he haddeposited with Wells Fargo and Company. They had never gone broke yet,as far as he knew, and they had started as a Pony Express.

  But there was one painful feature about his bank-wrecking triumph whichWunpost had failed to anticipate, and as poor people who had lost theirall came and stood before the bank he hung his head and moved on. It wasall right for Old Whiskers and men of his stripe, whose profession waspredatory itself; but when the hard-rock miners and road-makers came inthe heady wine of triumph lost its bead. There are no palms of victorywithout the dust of vain regrets to mar their gleaming leaves, and whenhe saw Wilhelmina riding in from Jail Canyon he retreated to a doorwayand winced. This was to have been his high spot, his magnum of victory;but somehow he sensed that no great joy would come from it, although ofcourse she had it coming to her. And Wilhelmina simply stared at thesign "Bank Closed" and leaned against the door and cried.

  That was too much for Wunpost, who had been handing out five dollars toall of the workingmen who were broke, and he strode across the streetand approached her.

  "What _you_ crying about?" he asked, and when she shook her head heshuffled his feet and stood silent. "Come on up to the office," he saidat last, and she followed him to the bare little room. There a shorttime before he had interceded to save her when she had all but signedthe contract with Eells; but now at one blow he had destroyed what wasbuilt up and left her without a cent.

  "What you crying about?" he repeated, as she sank down by the desk andfixed him with her sad, reproachful eyes, "you ought to be tickled todeath."

  "Because I've lost all my money," she answered dejectedly, "and we owethe contractors for the road."

  "Oh, that's all right," he said, "I'll get you some more money. But say,didn't you do what I said? Why, I told you the last thing before I wentaway to git that first payment money _out_!"

  "You did not!" she denied, "you told me to draw a few hundred. And thenyou turned around and deposited all you had, so I thought the bank mustbe safe."

  "What--safe with Judson Eells? Safe with Lapham behind the scenes? Say,you'll never do at all. Have you heard the big news? Well, they've bothskipped to Mexico and the depositors won't get a cent."

  "Then what about my contract?" she burst out tearfully, "I've sold himmy mine and now he's run away, so who's going to make the next payment?"

  "They ain't nobody," grinned Wunpost, "and that's just the point--I toldyou I'd come back with his scalp!"

  "Yes, but what about _us_?" she clamored accusingly, "who's goingto pay for the road and all? Oh, I knew all the time that you'd neverforgive me, and now you've just ruined everything."

  "Never asked me to forgive you," defended Wunpost stoutly, "but I don'tmind admitting I was sore. It's all right, of course, if you think youcan play the game--but I never thought you'd rob a _friend_!"

  "But you dared me to!" she cried, "and didn't I offer it for almostnothing, just to keep you from getting killed? And then, after I'd doneeverything to get back your contract you didn't even say 'Thanks!'"

  "No, sure not," he agreed, "what should I be thanking _you_ for?Did I ask you to get back my grubstake? Not by a long shot Ididn't--what I wanted was my mine, and you turned around and sold it toEells. Well, where's your friend now, and his yeller dog, Lapham?Skally-hooting across the desert for Mexico!"

  "And isn't my contract any good? Won't the bank take it, or anybody? Oh,I think you're just--just hateful!"

  "You bet I am, kid!" he announced with a swagger, "that's my long suit,savvy--hate! I never forgive an enemy and I never forget a friend, andthe man don't live that can _do_ me! I'll git him, if it takes athousand years!"

  "Oh, there you go," she sighed, dusting her desk off petulantly, andthen she bowed her head in thought. "But I must say," she admitted, "youhave done what you said. But I thought you were just bragging at thetime."

  "They _all_ did!" he beamed, "but I've showed 'em, by grab--theyain't calling me a blow-hard now. These Blackwater stiffs that wanted torun me out of town are coming around now to borrow five. They took upwith a crook, just because he boosted for their town, and now they'releft holding the sack. But if they'd listened to me they wouldn't beleft flat, because I told 'em I was after his hide. And say, youshould've seen him, when I came into his bank and shoved that big checkunder his nose! He knowed what I was thinking and he never said: 'Boo!'I showed him whether I knew how to write!"

  He laid back and grinned broadly and Wilhelmina smiled, though a wistfullook had crept into her eyes.

  "Then I suppose," she said, "you're always going to hate _me_,because of course I did steal your mine. But now I'm glad it's gone,because I wasn't happy a minute--do you think you can forgive me,sometime?"

  She glanced up appealingly but his brows had come down and he wasstaring at her fiercely.

  "Gone!" he roared, "your mine ain't gone! Ain't you ever read thatcontract we framed up? Well, the mine reverts to you the first time apayment isn't made or _if the buyer becomes a fugitive fromjustice_! Yeh, my friend slipped that in along with the rest of it,about death or an Act of God. Say, that's what you might call headwork!"

  He jerked his chin and grinned admiringly but Wilhelmina did notrespond.

  "Yes," she objected, "but how do I get the money to pay the men forbuilding the road? Because the twenty-five thousand dollars that I hadin the bank----"

  "Get it?" cried Wunpost, "why you go up to your mine and dig out somebig chunks of gold, and then you send it out and sell it at the mint andstart a little bank of your own. But say, kid, you're all right--I likeyou and all that--but something tells me you ain't cut out for business.Now you'd better just turn this mine over to me----"

  "Oh, _will_ you take it back?" she cried out impulsively, leapingup and beginning to smile. "I've just _wanted_ to give it to youbut--well, of course I did steal it. And will you take me back for afriend?"

  "Well, I might," conceded Wunpost, rising slowly to his feet, and thenhe shook his head. "But you're no business woman," he stated, "what Iwas trying to say was----"

  "Well, let's own it together!" she dimpled impatiently, and Wunpostaccepted the trust.