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.
It was from this tunnel that she had watched when Dusty Rhodes went
past, a moving fleck of color plumed with dust; and when the sun sank
low she had seen the form that followed, like a man yet not like a man.
She had seen it rise and fall, disappear and loom up again; until at
last in the twilight she had challenged it with a fire and the answer
had led her to--him. She had found him--lost on the desert and about to
die, big and strong yet dependent upon her aid--and when she had allowed
her long curls to escape he had stood silent in the presence of her
womanhood. She wanted to run back and sleep in her tunnel, where the air
was always moving and cool; and then in the morning, when she looked to
the north, she might see the first dust of his return. She might see his
tall form, and the white sides of Tellurium as he took the shortest way
home, and then she could run back and drag her mother to the portal and
prove that her knight had been misjudged. For her mother had predicted
that the prospector would not return, and that his mine was only a
blind; but she, who had seen him and felt the clasp of his hand, she
knew that he would never rob _her_. So she fled to her dream-house,
where there was nothing to check her fancies, and slept in the
tunnel-mouth till dawn.
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.
It came tearing along the trail from Blackwater, struck up by a
galloping horseman, and at the spot where she had found the lost man the
night before the flying rider stopped. He rode about in circles, started
north and came dashing back; and at last, still galloping, he turned up
the wash and headed for the mouth of Jail Canyon. He was some searcher
who had found her tracks in the sand, and the tracks of Tellurium going
on; and, rather than follow the long trail to Wild Rose Springs, he was
coming to interview her. Billy ran down to meet him with long, rangey
strides, and at the point of the hill she stood waiting expectantly, for
visitors were rare at the ranch. Three restless lonely weeks had dragged
away without bringing a single wanderer to their doors; and now here was
a second man, fully as exciting as the first, because he was coming up
there to see _her_. Billy tucked up her curls beneath the brim of
her man's hat as she watched the laboring horse, but when she made out
who it was that was coming she gave up all thought of disguise.
"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!"
"A rich _strike_!" repeated the man and then he laughed and spurred
his drooping mount. He was tall and bony with a thin, hawk nose and eyes
sunk deep into his head. "A rich strike, eh?" he mimicked, and then he
laughed again, until suddenly his face came straight. "What's that you
said?" he shouted, "you didn't lend him your _mule_! Well, I'm
afraid, my little girl, you've made a mistake--that feller is a regular
horse-thief. Is your mother up to the house? We'll go up and see
her--I'm afraid he's gone and stole your mule!"
"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!"
"Oh, it's a _mine_ now, is it?" mocked Dusty Rhodes, "next thing
it'll be a mine and mill. And he borrowed your mule, eh, that your
father give ye, and sent ye back home on foot!"
"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."
"Eh--eh! Went off and _left_ him!" bleated Dusty in a fury, "the
poor fool went off and left _me_! I picked him up at Furnace Crick,
over in the middle of Death Valley, and jest took him along out of pity;
and all the way over he was looking at every rock when a prospector
wouldn't spit on the place! He was eating my grub and packing his bed on
my jacks; and then, by the gods, he wants me to stop at Black P'int
while he looks at that hungry bull-quartz! I warned him distinctly that
I don't wait for no man--did he say I went off and left him?"
"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.
"Do you know who that feller is?" he inquired mysteriously, as Billy
crept resentfully near, "he's the man that discovered the Wunpost mine
and tried to keep it dark. Yes, that big mine over in Keno that they
thought was worth millions, only it pinched right out at depth; but it
showed up the nicest specimens of jewelry gold that has ever been seen
in these parts. Well, this Wunpost, as they call him, was working on a
grubstake for a banker named Judson Eells. He'd been out for two years,
just sitting around the water-holes or playing coon-can with the Injuns,
when he comes across this mine, or was led to it by some Injun, and he
tries to cover it up. He puts up one post, to kinder hold it down in
case some prospector should happen along; and then he writes his notice,
_leaving out the date_--and everything else, you might say.
"'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!"
"I think that's a _pretty_ name!" spoke up Billy loyally, as her
mother joined in on the laugh. "And anyhow, just because a man can't
spell, that's no reason for calling him a fool!"
"Well, he _is_ a fool!" burst out Dusty Rhodes spitefully, "and
more than that, he's a crook! Now that is what he done--he covered up
that find and went back to the man that had grubstaked him. But this
banker was no sucker, if he did have the name of staking every bum in
Nevada. He was generous with his men and he give 'em all they asked for,
but before he planked down a dollar he made 'em sign a contract that a
corporation lawyer couldn't break. Well, when Wunpost said he'd quit,
Mr. Eells says all right--no hard feeling--better luck next time. But
when Wunpost went back and opened up this vein Mr. Eells was
Johnny-on-the-spot. He steps up to that hole and shows his contract,
giving him an equal share of whatever Wunpost finds--and then he reads a
clause giving him the right to take possession and to work the mine
according to his judgment. And the first thing Wunpost knowed the mine
was worked out and he was left holding the sack. But served him right,
sez I, for trying to beat his outfitter, after eating his grub for two
years!"
"But didn't he receive _anything_?" inquired Mrs. Campbell. "That
seems to me pretty sharp practice."
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.
"He received _some_!" he cried, "but what good did it do him? Eells
give him five hundred dollars when he demanded an accounting and he
blowed it all in in one night. He was buying the drinks for every man in
camp--your money was all counterfeit with him--and the next morning he
woke up without a shirt to his back, having had it torn off in a fight.
What kind of a man is that to be managing a mine or to be partners with
a big banker like Eells? No, he walked out of camp without a cent to his
name and I picked him up Tuesday over at Furnace Crick. All he had was
his bed and a couple of canteens and a little jerked beef in a sack, but
to hear the poor boob talk you'd think he was a millionaire--he had the
world by the tail. And then, at the end of it, he'd be borrying your
tobacco--or anything else you'd got. But I never would've thought that
he'd steal Billy's mule--that's gitting pretty low, it strikes me."
"He never stole my mule!" burst out Wilhelmina angrily. "I expect him
back here any time. And when he does come, and you hear about his mine,
I'll bet you change your tune!"
"Ho! Ho!" shouted Rhodes, nodding and winking at Mrs. Campbell, "she's
getting to be growed-up, ain't she? Last time I come through here she
was a little girl in pigtails but now it's done up in curls. And I can't
say a word against this no-account Wunpost till she calls me a liar to
my face!"
"Billy is almost nineteen," answered Mrs. Campbell quietly, "but I'm
surprised to hear her contradict."
"Well, I didn't mean that," apologized Wilhelmina hastily, "but--well
anyhow, I _know_ he's got a mine! Because he showed me a piece of
quartz that he'd carried all the way, and he must have had a reason for
_that_. It was just moonlight, of course, and I couldn't see the
gold, but I know that it was quartz."
"Ah, Billy, my little girl," returned Dusty indulgently, "you don't know
the boy like I do. And the world is full of quartz but you don't find a
mine right next to a well-worn trail. Have you got that piece of rock?
Well now you see the p'int--he took it _away_! Would he do that if
his mine was on the square?"
"Well, I don't know why not," answered Billy at last and then she bowed
her head and turned away. They gazed after her pityingly as she ran
along the ditch and up to the mouth of her tunnel, but Billy did not
stop till she had threaded its murky passageway and come out at her gate
of dreams. It was from there that she had seen him when he was lost in
the Sink, and she knew her dream of dreams would come true. He was going
to come back, he was going to bring her mule, and make her his partner
in the mine. She looked out--and there was his dust!