THE TREE OF LIFE
As the evening came on they walked out together, Wunpost and the
worshipful Wilhelmina, and from the portals of her House of Dreams they
looked out over the Sink where they had met but the evening before. Less
than a single day had passed since their stars had crossed, and already
they were talking of life and eternal friendship and of all the great
dreams that youth loves. Each had given of what they had without
counting the cost or considering what others might say; and now they
walked together like reunited lovers, though their friendship was not
twenty-four hours old. Yet in that single eventful day what a gamut they
had run of the emotions which make up the soul's life--of dangers boldly
met, of mutual sacrifice and trust and the joys of vindication and
success. They had staked all they had in the greatest game in life and,
miracle of miracles, they had won. They had sought out each other's
souls in the murk of death and doubt and each had been proven pure gold;
yet even youth, for all its madness, has its moments of clairvoyance and
Billy sensed that her joy could not last. It was too great, too perfect,
to endure forever, and as she gazed across the desert she sighed.
"What's the matter?" inquired Wunpost who, after a few hours' sleep, had
awakened in a most expansive mood; but she only sighed again and shook
her head and gazed off across the quivering Sink. It was a hell-hole of
torment to those who crossed its moods and yet in that waste she had
found this man, who had changed her whole outlook on life. He had come
up from the desert, a sun-bronzed young giant, volcanic in his loves and
his hates; and on the morrow the desert would claim him again, for he
was going back to his mine. And her father was going, too--Jail Canyon
would be as empty as it had been for many a long year--and she who
longed to live, to plunge into the swirl of life, would be left there
alone, to dream.
But what would dreams be after she had tasted the bitter-sweet of living
and learned what it was that she missed; the tug of strong emotions, the
hopes and fears and heartaches that are the fruits of the great Tree of
Life? She wanted to pluck the fruits, be they bitter or sweet, and drain
the world's wine to the dregs; and then, if life went ill, she could
return to her House with something about which to dream. But now she
only sighed and Wunpost took her hand and drew her down beside him in
the shade.
"Don't you worry about _him_ kid?" he observed mysteriously, "I'll
take care of him, all right. And don't you believe a word he said about
me stealing horses and such. I'm a little rough sometimes when these
jaspers try to rob me, but I never take advantage of a friend. I'm a
Kentucky Calhoun, related to John Caldwell Calhoun, the great orator who
debated with Webster; and a Kentucky Calhoun never forgets a kindness
nor forgives an intentional injury. Dusty Rhodes thinks he's smart,
getting a third of our mine after he went off and left me flat; but I'll
show that old walloper before I get through with him that he can't put
one over on me. And there's a man over in Nevada that's going to learn
the same thing as soon as I make my stake--he's another smart Aleck that
thinks he can job me and get away with highway robbery."
"Oh, is that Judson Eells?" broke in Billy quickly and Wunpost nodded
his head.
"That's the hombre," he said his voice waxing louder, "he's one of these
grubstake sharks. He came to Nevada after the Tonopah excitement with a
flunkey they call Flip Flappum. That's another dirty dog that I'm going
to put my mark on when I get him in the door--one of the most low-down,
contemptible curs that I know of--he makes his living by selling bum
life insurance. Phillip F. Lapham is his name but we all call him Flip
Flappum--he's the black-leg lawyer that drew up that contract that made
me lose my mine. Did Dusty tell you about it--then he told you a lie--I
never even read the cussed contract! I was broke, to tell you the truth,
and I'd have signed my own death warrant to get the price of a plate of
beans; and so I put my name in the place where he told me and never
thought nothing about it.
"It was a grubstake, that's all I knew, giving him half of what I staked
in exchange for what I could eat; but it turned out afterwards it was
like these fire insurance policies, where a man never reads the fine
print. There was more jokers in that contract than in a tinhorn
gambler's deck of cards--he had me peoned for life--and after I'd given
him half my strike he came out and claimed it all. Well, no man would
stand for that but when I went to make a kick there was a rat-faced
guard there waiting for me. Pisen-face Lynch they call him, and if he
was half as bad as he looks he'd be the wild wolf of the world; but he
ain't, not by a long shot, he just had the drop on me, and he run me off
my own claim! I came back and they ganged me and when I woke up I looked
like I'd been through a barbed-wire fence.
"Well, after that, as the nigger says, I began to think they didn't want
me around there, and so I pulled my freight; and it wasn't a month
afterwards that the ore all pinched out and left Judson Eells belly up.
If he lost one dollar I'll bet he lost fifty thousand, besides tipping
his hand on that contract; and I walked clean back from the lower end of
Death Valley just to see how his lip was hung. He's a big, fat slob, and
when times are good he goes around with his lip pulled up, so! But this
time he looked like an old muley cow that's come through a long, late
spring--his lip was plumb down on his brisket. So I gave him the
horse-laugh, paid my regards to Flip and Lynch, and came away feeling
fine. Because I'll tell you Billy, sure as God made little fishes,
there's a hereafter coming to them three men; and I'm the boy that's
going to deal 'em the misery--you wait, and watch my smoke!"
He smiled benevolently into Billy's startled eyes, and as the subject
seemed to interest her he settled himself more comfortably and proceeded
with his views on life.
"Yes sir," he said, "I'll put a torch under them, that'll burn 'em off
the face of the earth. Did you ever see a banker that wasn't a regular
robber--with special attention to widows and orphans? Well, take it from
me, Billy, they're a bunch of crooks--I guess I ought to know. I was
just eleven years old when they foreclosed the mortgage and turned my
mother and us kids into the street; and since then I've done everything
from punching cows to highway robbery but I've never forgot those
bankers. That's how come I signed up with Judson Eells, I thought I was
sticking him good; but he was playing a system and they didn't anybody
tumble to it until I discovered the Wunpost.
"W'y, there wasn't a prospector in the state of Nevada that hadn't
worked old Eells for a grubstake. We thought he was easy, kind of bugs
on mining like all the rest of these nuts, but the minute I struck the
Wunpost--_bing_, he's there with his contract and we find where
we've all been stung. We're tied up, by grab, with more whereases and
wherefores, and the parties of the first part, and so on, than you'd
find in a book of law; and the boys all found out from what he did to me
that he had us euchered at every turn. I thought I could fool him by
covering up the hole----"
"Oh, did you do that!" burst out Billy reproachfully, "and I made Dusty
Rhodes apologize!"
"Never mind," said Wunpost, "that was nothing but jaw-bone. He just said
it to get a share in our mine."
"No, but listen," protested Billy, "that isn't what I mean. Do you think
it was right to deceive Eells?"
"Was it _right_, kid!" laughed Wunpost. "That ain't nothing to what
I'm _going_ to do if I ever get the chance. Didn't he hire that
black-leg lawyer to draw up a cinch contract with the purpose of
grabbing all I found? Well then, that shows how honest _he_
was--and now I'm out after his scalp. I've got to raise a stake, so I
can fight him dollar for dollar; and then, sure as shooting, I'm going
to bust his bank and make him walk out of camp. Was it right--say,
that's a good one--you ain't been around much, have you? Well, that's
all right, Billy; I like you, all the same."
He nodded approvingly and Billy sat staring, for her world had gone
topsy-turvy again. She had wanted to leave Jail Canyon and go out into
the world, but was it possible that there existed a state of society
where there was no right and wrong? She sat thinking a minute, her head
in a whirl, and then she came back again.
"But when you covered up this mine and tried to keep it for yourself,
he--had Mr. Eells ever done you any harm?"
"Well, not yet, kid--that is, I didn't know it--but believe me, his
intentions were good. The time hadn't come, that's all."
"He was your friend, then," contended Billy, "because Dusty Rhodes
said----"
"Dusty Rhodes!" bellowed Wunpost and then he paused. "Go on, let's get
this off your chest."
"Well, he said," continued Billy, "that Mr. Eells gave you everything
and that you lived off his grubstake for two years; so I don't think it
was right, when you finally found a mine----"
"Say, listen," broke in Wunpost leaning over and tapping her on the knee
while he fixed her with intolerant eyes, "who's your friend, now--Dusty
Rhodes or me?"
"Why--you are," faltered Billy, "but I don't see----"
"All right then," pronounced Wunpost, "if I'm your friend, _stay with
me_. Don't tell me what Dusty Rhodes said!"
"That's all right," she defended, "didn't I make him apologize? But I'm
_your_ friend, too, and I don't think it was right----"
"Right!" thundered Wunpost, "where do you get this 'right' stuff? Have
you lived up this canyon all your life? Well, you wait until tomorrow,
when the rush is on, and I'll show you how much _right_ there is in
mining! You come down to the mine and I'll show you a bunch of mugs that
would rob you of your claim like _that_! I'm going to be there,
myself, and I'm going to borrow that pistol that you stuck in my ribs
the other night; and the first yap that touches a corner or crosses my
line I'll make him hard to catch. And then will come the promoters, with
their diamonds and certified checks, and they'll offer you millions and
millions; but you stay with me, kid, if they offer you the sub-treasury,
because they'll clean you if you ever sign up. Don't sign nothing,
see--and don't promise anything, either; and I'll tell you about
_me_, I'll do anything for a friend--but that's as far as I go.
They ain't no right and wrong, as far as I'm concerned. I'm like a
danged Injun, I'll keep my word to a friend no matter how the cards
fall; but if that friend turns against me I'll scalp him like
_that_, and hang his hide on the fence! So now you know right where
you'll find me!"
"Well, all right," retorted Billy, whose Scotch blood was up, "and I'll
tell you right where you'll find _me_. I'll stay with my friends
whether they're right or wrong, but I'll never do anything dishonest.
And if you don't like that you can take back your claim because----"
"Sure I like it!" cried Wunpost, laughing and patting her hand, "that's
just the kind of a friend I want. But all the same, Billy, this is no
Sunday School picnic--it's more like a dog fight we're going to--and the
only way to stand off that bunch of burglars is to hit 'em with anything
you've got. You've got to grab with both hands and kick with both feet
if you want to win in this mining game; and when you try to fight honest
you're tying one hand behind you, because some of 'em won't stop at
murder. Eells and Flip Flap and their kind don't pretend to be honest,
they just get by with the law; and if you give 'em the edge they'll soak
you in the jaw the first time you turn your head."
"Well, I don't care," returned Billy, "my father is honest and nobody
ever robbed him of his claim!"
"Hooh! Who wants it?" jeered Wunpost arrogantly. "I'm talking about a
real mine. Your old man's claims are stuck up in a canyon where a flying
machine couldn't hardly go and about the time he gets his road built
another cloudburst will come along and wash it away. Oh, don't talk to
me, I _know_--I've been all along those peaks and right down past
his mine--and I tell you it isn't worth stealing!"
"And I've been up there, too, and helped pack out the ore, and I tell
you you don't know what you're talking about!"
Billy's eyes flashed dangerously as she sprang up to face him and for a
minute they matched their wills; then Wunpost laughed shortly and
stepped out into the open where the sun was just topping the mountains.
"Well all right, kid," he said, "have your own way about it. It makes no
difference to me."
"No, I guess not," retorted Billy, "or you'd find out what you were
talking about before you said that my father was a fool. His mine is
just as good as it ever was--all it needs is another road."
"Yes, and then _another_ road," chimed in Wunpost mockingly, "as
soon as the first cloudburst comes by. And the price of silver is just
half what it was when Old Panamint was on the boom. But that makes no
difference, of course?"
"Yes, it does," acknowledged Billy whose eyes were gray with rage, "but
the flotation process is so much cheaper than milling that it more than
evens things up. And there hasn't been a cloudburst in thirteen
years--but that makes no difference, of course!"
She spat it out spitefully and Wunpost curbed his wit for he saw where
his jesting was leading to. When it came to her father this
unsophisticated child would stand up and fight like a wildcat. And he
began to perceive too that she was not such a child--she was a woman,
with the experience of a child. In the ways of the world she was a mere
babe in the woods but in intellect and character she was far from being
dwarfed and her honesty was positively embarrassing. It crowded him into
corners that were hard to get out of and forced him to make excuses for
himself, whereas at the moment he was all lit up with joy over the
miracle of his second big strike. He had discovered the Wunpost, and
lost it on a fluke; but the Willie Meena was different--if he kept the
peace with her they would both come out with a fortune.
"Never mind now, kid," he said at last, "your father is all right--I
like him. And if he thinks he can get rich by building roads up the
canyon, that's his privilege; it's nothing to me. But you string along
with me on our mine down below and there'll be money and to spare for us
both; and then you can take your share and build the old man a road
that'll make 'em all take notice! About twenty thousand dollars ought to
fix the matter up, but if we get to gee-hawing and Dusty Rhodes mixes in
there won't be a dollar for any of us. We've got to stand together,
see--you and me against old Dusty--and that will give us control."
"Well, I didn't start the quarrel," said Billy, beginning to blink, "but
it makes me mad, just because father won't give up to have everybody
saying he's crazy. But he isn't--he knows just exactly what he's
doing--and some day he'll be a rich man when these Blackwater
pocket-miners are destitute. The Homestake mine produced half a million
dollars, the second time they opened it up, and if the road hadn't
washed out it would be producing yet and my father would be rated a
millionaire. If he would sell out his claims, or just organize a company
and give outside capitalists control----"
"Don't you do it!" warned Wunpost, who made a very poor listener,
"they'll skin you, every time. The party that has control can take over
the property and exclude the minority stockholders from the ground, and
all they can do is to sue for an accounting and demand a look at the
books. But the books are nothing, it's what's underground that counts,
and if you try to go down they can kill you. I learned that from Judson
Eells when he put me out of Wunpost--and say, we can work that on Dusty!
We'll treat him white at first, but the minute he gets gay, it's the
gate--we'll give him the gate!"
He pranced about joyously, vainly trying to make her smile, but
Wilhelmina had lost her gaiety.
"No," she said, "let's not do that--because I made him apologize, you
know. But don't you think it's possible that Judson Eells will follow
after you and claim this mine too, under his contract?"
"He can't!" chuckled Wunpost starting to do a double-shuffle, "I fooled
him--this isn't Nevada. And when I found the Wunpost I was eating his
grub, but this time I was strictly on my own. I came to a country where
I'd never been before, so he couldn't say I'd covered it up; and that
contract was made out in the state of Nevada, but this is clear over in
California. Not a chance, kid, we're rich, cheer up!"
He tried to grab her hand but she drew it away from him and an anxious
look crept into her eyes.
"No," she said, "let's not be foolish." Already the great dream had
sped.