DUSTY RHODES EATS DIRT
Billy gazed away in ecstasy at the dust cloud in the distance, and at
the white spot that was Tellurium, her mule; and when the rider came
closer she skipped back through the tunnel and danced along the trail to
the house. Dusty Rhodes was still there, describing in windy detail
Wunpost's encounter with one Pisen-face Lynch, but as she stood before
them smiling he sensed the mischief in her eye and interrupted himself
with a question.
"He's coming," announced Billy, showing the dimples in both cheeks and
Dusty Rhodes let his jaw drop.
"Who's coming?" he asked but she dimpled enigmatically and jerked her
curly head towards the road. They started up to look and as the white
mule rounded the point Dusty Rhodes blinked his eyes uncertainly. After
all his talk about the faithless and cowardly Wunpost here he was,
coming up the road; and the memory of a canteen which he had left
strapped upon a pack, rose up and left him cold. Talk as much as he
would he could never escape the fact that he had gone off with Wunpost's
big canteen, and the one subject he had avoided--why he had not stopped
to wait for him--was now likely to be thoroughly discussed. He glanced
about furtively, but there was no avenue of escape and he started off
down to the gate.
"Where you been all the time?" he shouted in accusing accents, "I've
been looking for you everywhere."
"Yes, you have!" thundered Wunpost dropping down off his mule and
striding swiftly towards him. "You've been lapping up the booze, over at
Blackwater! I've a good mind to kill you, you old dastard!"
"Didn't I tell you not to stop?" yelled Rhodes in a feigned fury. "You
brought it all on yourself! I thought you'd gone back----"
"You did not!" shouted Wunpost waving his fists in the air, "you saw me
behind you all the time. And if I'd ever caught up with you I'd have
bashed your danged brains out, but now I'm going to let you live! I'm
going to let you live so I can have a good laugh every time I see you go
by--Old Dusty Rhodes, the Speed King, the Wild Ass of the Desert, the
man that couldn't stop to get rich! I was running along behind you
trying to make you a millionaire but you wouldn't even give me a drink!
Look at _that_, what I was trying to show you!"
He whipped out a rock and slapped it into Rhodes' hand but Dusty was
blind with rage.
"No good!" he said, and chucked it in the dirt at which Wunpost stooped
down and picked it up.
"You're a peach of a prospector," he said with biting scorn and stored
it away in his pocket.
"Let me look at that again," spoke up Dusty Rhodes querulously but
Wunpost had spied the ladies. He advanced to the porch, his big black
hat in one hand, while he smoothed his towsled hair with the other, and
the smile which he flashed Billy made her flush and then go pale, for
she had neglected to change back to skirts. Every Sunday morning, and
when they had visitors, she was required to don the true habiliments of
her sex; but her joy at his return had left no room for thoughts of
dress and she found herself in the overalls of a boy. So she stepped
behind her mother and as Wunpost observed her blushes he addressed his
remarks to Mrs. Campbell.
"Glad to meet you," he exclaimed with a gallantry quite surprising in a
man who could not even spell "one." "I hope you'll excuse my few words
with Mr. Rhodes. It's been a long time since I've had the pleasure of
meeting ladies and I forgot myself for the moment. I met your daughter
yesterday--good morning, Miss Wilhelmina--and I formed a high opinion of
you both; because a young lady of her breeding must have a mother to be
proud of, and she certainly showed she was game. She saved my life with
that water and lunch, and then she loaned me her mule!"
He paused and Dusty Rhodes brought his bushy eyebrows down and stabbed
him to the heart with his stare.
"Lemme look at that rock!" he demanded importantly and John C. Calhoun
returned his glare.
"Mr. Rhodes," he said, "after the way you have treated me I don't feel
that I owe you any courtesies. You have seen the rock once and that's
enough. Please excuse me, I was talking with these ladies."
"Aw, you can't fool me," burst out Dusty Rhodes vindictively, "you ain't
sech a winner as you think. I've jest give Mrs. Campbell a bird's-eye
view of your career, so you're coppered on that bet from the start."
"What do you mean?" demanded Wunpost drawing himself up arrogantly while
his beetle-browed eyes flashed fire; but the challenge in his voice did
not ring absolutely true and Dusty Rhodes grinned at him wickedly.
"You'd better learn to spell Wunpost," he said with a hectoring laugh,
"before you put on any more dog with the ladies. But I asked you for
that rock and I intend to git a look at it--I claim an interest in
anything you've found."
"Oh, you do, eh?" returned Wunpost, now suddenly calm. "Well, let me
tell you something, Mr. Rhodes. You wasn't in my company when I found
this chunk of rock, so you haven't got any interest--see? But rather
than have an argument in the presence of these ladies I'll show you the
quartz again."
He drew out the piece of rock and handed it to Rhodes who stared at it
with sun-blinded eyes--then suddenly he whipped out a case and focussed
a pair of magnifying glasses meanwhile mumbling to himself in broken
accents.
"Where'd you git that rock?" he asked, looking up, and Wunpost threw out
his chest.
"Right there at Black Point," he answered carelessly, "you've been
chasing along by it for years."
"I don't believe it!" burst out Dusty gazing wildly about and mumbling
still louder in the interim. "It ain't possible--I've been right by
there!"
"But perhaps you never stopped," suggested Wunpost sarcastically and
handed the piece of rock to Mrs. Campbell.
"Look in them holes," he directed, "they're full of fine gold." And then
he turned to Dusty.
"No, Mr. Rhodes," he said, "you ain't treated me right or I'd let you in
on this strike. But you went off and left me and therefore you're out of
it, and there ain't any extensions to stake. It's just a single big
blow-out, an eroded volcanic cone, and I've covered it all with one
claim."
"But you was _traveling_ with me!" yelled Rhodes dancing about like
a jay-bird, "you gimme half or I'll have the law on ye!"
"Hop to it!" invited Wunpost, "nothing would please me better than to
air this whole case in court. And I'll bet, when I've finished, they'll
take you out of court and hang you to the first tree they find. I'll
just tell them the facts, how you went off and left me and refused to
either stop or leave me water; and then I'll tell the judge how this
little girl came down and saved my life with her mule. I'm not trying to
play the hog--all I want is half the claim--but the other half goes to
Billy. Here's the paper, Wilhelmina; I may not know how to spell but you
bet your life I know who's my friend!"
He handed over a piece of the paper bag which had been used to wrap up
his lunch, and as Wilhelmina looked she beheld a copy of the notice that
he had posted on his claim. No knight errant of old could have excelled
him in gallantry, for he had given her a full half of his claim; but her
eyes filled with tears, for here, even as at Wunpost, he had betrayed
his ineptitude with the pen. He had named the mine after her but he had
spelled it "Willie Meena" and she knew that his detractors would laugh.
Yet she folded the precious paper and thanked him shyly as he told her
how to have it recorded, and then she slipped away to gloat over it
alone and look through the specimen for gold.
But Dusty Rhodes, though he had been silenced for the moment, was not
satisfied with the way things had gone; and while Billy was making a
change to her Sunday clothes she heard his complaining voice from the
corrals. He spoke as to the hilltops, after the manner of mountain men
or those who address themselves to mules; and John Calhoun in turn had a
truly mighty voice which wafted every word to her ears. But as she
listened, half in awe at their savage repartee, a third but quieter
voice broke in, and she leapt into her dress and went dashing down the
hill for her father had come back from the mine. He was deaf, and
slightly crippled, as the result of an explosion when his drill had
struck into a missed hole; but to lonely Wilhelmina he was the dearest
of companions and she shouted into his ear by the hour. And, now that he
had come home, the rival claimants were laying their case before him.
Dusty Rhodes was excited, for he saw the chance of a fortune slipping
away through his impotent fingers; but when Wunpost made answer he was
even more excited, for the memory of his desertion rankled deep. All the
ethics of the desert had been violated by Dusty Rhodes and a human life
put in jeopardy, and as Wunpost dwelt upon his sufferings the old thirst
for revenge rose up till it quite overmastered him. He denounced Dusty's
actions in no uncertain terms, holding him up to the scorn of mankind;
but Dusty was just as vehement in his impassioned defense and in his
claim to a half of the strike. There the ethics of the desert came in
again; for it is a tradition in mining, not unsupported by sound law,
that whoever is with a man at the time of a discovery is entitled to
half the find. And the hold-over from his drinking bout of the evening
before made Dusty unrestrained in his protests.
The battle was at its height when Wilhelmina arrived and gave her father
a hug and as the contestants beheld her, suddenly transformed to a young
lady, they ceased their accusations and stood dumb. She was a child no
longer, as she had appeared in the bib overalls, but a woman and with
all a woman's charm. Her eyes were very bright, her cheeks a ruddy pink,
her curls a glorious halo for her head; and, standing beside her father,
she took on a naive dignity that left the two fire-eaters abashed. Cole
Campbell himself was a man to be reckoned with--tall and straight as an
arrow, with eyes that never wavered and decision in every line of his
face. His gray hair stood up straight above a brow furrowed with care
and his mustache bristled out aggressively, but as he glanced down at
his daughter his stern eyes suddenly softened and he acknowledged her
presence with a smile.
"Are they telling you about the strike?" she called into his ear and he
nodded and smiled again. "Let's go up there!" she proposed but he shook
his head and turned to the expectant contestants.
"Well, gentleman," he said, "as near as I can make out Mr. Rhodes
_has_ a certain right in the property. Mr. Calhoun was traveling
with him and eating his grub, and I believe a court of law would decide
in his favor even if he did go off and leave him in the lurch. But since
my daughter picked him up and supplied him with a mule to go back and
stake out the claim it might be that she also has an equity in the
property, although that is for you gentlemen to decide."
"That's decided already!" shouted Wunpost angrily, "the claim has been
located in her name. She's entitled to one-half and no burro-chasing
prospector is going to beat her out of any part of it."
"But perhaps," suggested Campbell with a quick glance at his daughter,
"perhaps she would consent to take a third. And if you would do the same
that would be giving up only one sixth and yet it would obviate a
lawsuit."
"Yes, and I'll sue him!" yammered Rhodes. "I'll fight him to a whisper!
I'll engage the best lawyers in the country! And if I can't git it no
other way----"
"That'll do!" commanded Campbell raising his hand for peace, "there's
nothing to be gained by threats. This can all be arranged if you'll just
keep your heads and try to consider it impartially. I'm surprised, Mr.
Rhodes, that you abandoned your pardner and left him without water on
the desert. I've known you a long time and I've always respected you,
but the fact would be against you in court. But on the other hand you
can prove that you rode out this morning and made a diligent search, and
that in itself would probably disprove abandonment, although I can't say
it counts for much with me. But you've asked my opinion, gentlemen, and
there it is; and my advice is to settle this matter right now without
taking the case into court."
"Well, I'll give him half of my share," broke out Wunpost fretfully,
"but I promised Billy half and she is going to get half--I gave her my
word, and that goes."
"No, I'll give him half of mine," cried Billy to her father, "because
all I did was lend him Tellurium. But before I agree to it Mr. Rhodes
has got to apologize, because he said he'd steal my mule!"
"What's that?" inquired her father holding his ear down closer, "I
didn't quite get that last."
"Why, Dusty Rhodes came up here to look for Mr. Calhoun, and when I told
him that I had loaned him my mule he said Mr. Calhoun would _steal_
him! And then he went up and told Mother all about it and said that Mr.
Calhoun would do _anything_, and he said he'd probably take
Tellurium to Wild Rose and trade him off to some _squaw_! And when
I defended him he just whooped and laughed at me--and now he's got to
_apologise_!"
She darted a hateful glance at the perspiring Dusty Rhodes, who was
vainly trying to get Campbell's ear; and at the end of her recital there
was a look in Wunpost's eye that spoke of reprisals to come. The fat was
in the fire, as far as Rhodes was concerned, but he surprised them all
by retracting. He apologized in haste, before Wunpost could make a reach
for him, and then he recanted in detail, and when the tumult was over
they had signed a joint agreement to give him one third of the mine.
"All right, boys," he yelled, thrusting his copy into his pocket and
making a dash for his horse. "One third! It's all right with me! But if
we'd gone to the courts I'd got half, sure as shooting! 'Sall right, but
just watch my dust!"