TAINTED MONEY
A month passed by and the haze above the Sink lifted its shroud and
revealed the mountains beyond; the soft blues and pinks crept back into
the distance and the shadowy canyons were filled with royal purple. At
dawn a silver radiance rose and glowed along the east and the sunsets
stained the west with orange and gold; there was wine in the cool air,
and when the night wind came up the prospectors crouched over their
fires. The first October storm put a crown on Telescope Peak and tipped
the lesser Panamints with snow, but still Wilhelmina waited and Wunpost
did not return from his mysterious trip "inside."
The time was not ripe for his notable revenge and he had forgotten Jail
Canyon and her. Yet at last she saw his dust, and as she watched him
through her glasses something told her that his thoughts were not of
her. He was on his way, either seeking after gold or searching out the
means of revenge; and if he came that way it was to find his dog and
mules and not to make love to her. Their ranch was merely his half-way
house, a place to feed his animals and leave them when he went away; and
she was only a child, to be noticed like a fond dog, but not to be taken
seriously. Billy put up her glasses and went back to the house, and when
he arrived she was a woman. Her hair was done up gracefully, her nimble
limbs were confined in skirts; and she smiled at him demurely, as if her
mind was far away and he had recalled her from maidenly dreams.
"Well, well!" exclaimed Wunpost as he limped up to the house and
discovered her on the shady front porch; "where's the trusty
bib-overalls and all? What's the matter--is it Sunday, or did you see my
dust? Say, you don't look right without them curls!"
"We're thinking of moving away," she explained quite truthfully, "and I
can't wear overalls then."
"Moving away!" cried Wunpost; "why, where were you thinking of going to?
Has your father given up on his road?"
"Well, no--or that is, he's working on a trail to pack down the ore he
had sacked. And after that's shipped, if it pays him what it ought,
we're going to move inside."
"Oh," observed Wunpost and sat down on the porch, where he rumpled his
hair reflectively. "Say," he said at last, "I've got a little
roll--what's the matter if _I_ build the road?"
"Shh!" she hissed, moving over and speaking low; "don't you know that
Mother wouldn't hear to it? And poor Father, he feels awful bad."
"No, but look," he protested, "you folks have been my friends, and I owe
you for taking care of my mules. I'd be glad to advance the money to put
in an aerial tramway and you could pay it back out of the ore. That's
the kind of road you want, one that will never wash out, and I know
where you can get one cheap. There's one down by Goler that you can buy
for almost nothing--I stopped and looked it over, coming up. And all you
have to do, after you once get it installed, is to feed your ore into
the buckets and send them down the canyon and the empties will come up
with your supplies. It's automatic--works itself, and can't get out of
order--just a long, double cable, swinging down from point to point and
supplying its own power by gravity. Some class to that, and I tell you
what I'll do--I'll lend the money to _you_!"
"No!" she said as he reached down into his pocket, and she gazed at him
reproachfully.
"What do you mean?" he asked after a minute of puzzled silence, and she
shook her head and pointed towards the house. Then she rose up quietly
and led off down the path where the hollyhocks were still in full bloom.
"You know what I mean," she said at the gate; "have you forgotten about
the cloudburst?"
"Why, no," he returned; "you don't mean to say----"
"Yes, I do," she replied, "they think your money is accursed. Father
says you didn't come by it honestly."
"Oh, he does, eh?" sulked Wunpost; "and what do you think about it?"
"I think the same," she answered promptly and looked him straight in the
eye.
"Well, well," he began with a sardonic smile, and then he thrust out his
lip. "All right, kid," he said, "excuse me for living, but I wouldn't be
that good if I could. It takes all the roar out of life. Now here I came
back with some money in my pocket, to make you a little present, and the
first thing you hand me is this: 'My money ain't come by honestly.'
Well, that's the end of the present."
He shrugged his shoulders and waited, but Billy made no reply.
"I went up into the hills," he went on at last, "and discovered a vein
of gold--nobody had ever owned it before. And I dug it out and showed
the ore to Eells and asked him if he thought it was his. No, he said he
couldn't claim it. Well, I took it to Los Angeles and sold it to a
jeweler and here's the money he paid me for it--don't you think that
money is honest?"
He drew out a sheaf of bills and flicked the ends temptingly, but Billy
shook her head.
"No," she said, "because you don't dare to show the place where you
claim you dug up that gold--and you told Mr. Eells you _stole_ it!"
"Heh, heh!" chuckled Wunpost, "you keep right up with me, kid. Don't
reckon I can give you any present. I was just thinking you might like to
take a trip to Los Angeles, and see the bright lights and all--taking
your mother along, and so forth--but it's Jail Canyon for you, for life.
If this thousand dollar bill that you earned by saving my life is
nothing but tainted money, all I can do is to tender a vote of thanks.
It must be fierce to have a Scotch conscience."
"You mind your own business," answered Billy shortly, and brushed away a
furtive tear. A trip to Los Angeles--and new clothes and everything--and
she really had earned the money! Yes, she had saved his life and enabled
him to come back to dig up some more hidden gold. But it was stolen, and
there was an end to it--she turned away abruptly, but he caught her by
the hand.
"Say, listen, kid," he said; "I may not be an angel, but I never go back
on a friend. Now you tell me what you want and, no matter what it is,
I'll go out and get it for you--honestly. You're the best friend I've
got--and you sure look swell, dressed up in them women's clothes--but I
want you to have a good time. I want you to go inside and see the world,
and go to the theaters and all, but how'm I going to slip you the
money?"
Billy laughed, rather hysterically, and then she turned grave and her
eyes looked far away.
"All I want," she said at last, "is a road up Father's canyon--and I
know he won't accept it from you. So let's talk about something else.
Are you going back to your mine?"
He sighed, then glanced up at the ridge and nodded his head
mysteriously.
"There's somebody after me," he said at last. "They follow me up now,
every place. In town it's detectives, and out here on the desert it's
Pisen-face Lynch and his gang. But I don't mind them--I'm looking for
that feller that shot me in the leg last month. It wasn't Lynch--I've
had him traced--and it wasn't none of those Shooshonnies; but there's
some feller in these hills that's out after my scalp and I've come back
to get him. And when I find him, kid, I'll light a fire under him
that'll burn 'im off the face of the earth. I'm going to kill him, by
grab, the same as I would a rattlesnake; I'm going to----"
"Oh, please don't talk that way!" broke in Wilhelmina impatiently, "it
gives people a bad impression. There isn't a man in Blackwater that
isn't firmly convinced that you're nothing but a bag of hot air. Well, I
don't care--that's just what they said!"
"Ahhr!" scoffed Wunpost, "them Blackwater stiffs. They're jealous,
that's what's the matter."
"No, but don't talk that way," she pleaded. "It turns folks against you.
Even Father and Mother have noticed it. You're always telling of the big
things you're going to do----"
"Well, don't I _do_ 'em?" he demanded. "What did I ever say I'd do
that I didn't make good, in the end? Don't you think I'm going to get
this bad _hombre_--this feller that's following me through the
hills? Well, I'll tell you what I'll do. If I don't bring you his hair
inside of a month--you can have my mine and everything. But I'm going to
_git_ him, see? I'm going to toll him across the Valley, where
he'll have to come out into the open, and when I ketch him I'm going to
scalp him. He's nothing but a low-down, murdering assassin that old
Eells or somebody has hired----"
"Oh, _please_!" she protested and his eyes opened big before they
closed down in a sudden scowl.
"Well, I'll show you," he said and packed and rode off in silence.