SOMETHING NEW
There are compensations for everything, even for being given up for
dead, and as he was welcomed back to life by a sweet kiss from
Wilhelmina, Wunpost was actually glad he had been shot. He was glad he
was hungry, for now she would feed him; glad he was wounded, for she
would be his nurse; and when Cole Campbell and his wife took him in and
made much of him he lost his last bitterness against Lynch. In the first
place, Lynch was dead, and not up on the ridge waiting to pot him for
what money he had; and in the second place Lynch had shot right past his
heart and yet had barely wounded him at all. But the sight of that
crease across his breast and the punctured hole through his arm quite
disarmed the Campbells and turned their former disapproval to a hovering
admiration and solicitude.
If the hand of Divine Providence had loosed the waterspout down their
canyon to punish him for his overweening pride, perhaps it had now saved
him and turned the bullet aside to make him meet for repentance. It was
something like that which lay in their minds as they installed him in
their best front room, and when they found that his hardships had left
him chastened and silent they even consented to accept payment for his
horse-feed. If they did not, he declared, he would pack up forthwith and
take his whole outfit to Blackwater; and the fact was the Campbells were
so reduced by their misfortunes that they had run up a big bill at the
store. Only occasional contributions from their miner sons in Nevada
kept them from facing actual want, and Campbell was engaged in packing
down his picked ore in order to make a small shipment. But if he figured
his own time in he was not making day's wages and the future held out no
hope.
Without a road the Homestake Mine was worthless, for it could never be
profitably worked; but Cole Campbell was like Eells in one respect at
least, and that was he never knew when he was whipped. A guarded
suggestion had come from Judson Eells that he might still be persuaded
to buy his mine, but Campbell would not even name a price; and now the
store-keeper had sent him notice that he had discounted his bill at the
bank. That was a polite way of saying that Eells had bought in the
account, which constituted a lien against the mine; and the Campbells
were vaguely worried lest Eells should try his well-known tactics and
suddenly deprive them of their treasure. For the Homestake Mine, in Cole
Campbell's eyes, was the greatest silver property in the West; and yet
even in this emergency, which threatened daily to become desperate, he
refused resolutely to accept tainted money. For not only was Wunpost's
money placed under the ban, but so much had been said of Judson Eells
and his sharp practises that his money was also barred.
This much Wunpost gathered on the first day of his home-coming, when,
still dazed by his welcome, he yet had the sense to look happy and say
almost nothing. He sat back in an easy chair with Wilhelmina at his side
and the Campbells hovering benevolently in the distance, and to all
attempts to draw him out he responded with a cryptic smile.
"Oh, we were so worried!" exclaimed Wilhelmina, looking up at him
anxiously, "because there was blood all over the saddle; and when the
trailers got to Wild Rose they found your pack-mule, and Good Luck with
the rope still fast about his neck. But they just couldn't find you
anywhere, and the tracks all disappeared; and when it became known that
Mr. Lynch was missing--oh, _do_ you think they killed him?"
"Search me," shrugged Wunpost. "I was too busy getting out of there to
do any worrying about Lynch. But I'll tell you one thing, about those
tracks disappearing--them Apaches must have smoothed 'em out, sure."
"Yes, but why should they kill _him_? Weren't they supposed to be
working for him? That's what Mr. Eells gave us to understand. But wasn't
it kind of him, when he heard you were missing, to send all those
search-parties out? It must have cost him several hundred dollars. And
it shows that even the men we like the least are capable of generous
impulses. He told Father he wouldn't have it happen for anything--I
mean, for you to come to any harm. All he wanted, he said, was the
mine."
"Yes," nodded Wunpost, and she ran on unheeding as he drew down the
corners of his mouth. But he could agree to that quite readily, for he
knew from his own experience that all Eells wanted was the mine. It was
only a question now of what move he would make next to bring about the
consummation of that wish. For it was Eells' next move, since, according
to Wunpost's reasoning, the magnate was already whipped. His plans for
tracing Wunpost to the source of his wealth had ended in absolute
disaster and the only other move he could possibly make would be along
the line of compromise. Wunpost had told him flat that he would not go
near his mine, no one else knew even its probable location; and yet,
when he had gone to him and suggested some compromise, Eells had refused
even to consider it. Therefore he must have other plans in view.
But all this was far away and almost academic to the lovelorn John C.
Calhoun, and if Eells never approached him on the matter of the
Sockdolager it would be soon enough for him. What he wanted was the
privilege of helping Billy feed the chickens and throw down hay to his
mules, and then to wander off up the trail to the tunnel that opened out
on the sordid world below. There the restless money-grabbers were
rushing to and fro in their fight for what treasures they knew, but one
kiss from Wilhelmina meant more to him now than all the gold in the
world. But her kisses, like gold, came when least expected and were
denied when he had hoped for them most; and the spell he held over her
seemed once more near to breaking, for on the third day he forgot
himself and talked. No, it was not just talk--he boasted of his mine,
and there for the first time they jarred.
"Well, I don't care," declared Wilhelmina, "if you have got a rich mine!
That's no reason for saying that Father's is no good; because it is, if
it only had a road."
Now here, if ever, was the golden opportunity for remaining silent and
looking intelligent; but Wunpost forgot his early resolve and gave way
to an ill-timed jest.
"Yes," he said, "that's like the gag the Texas land-boomer pulled off
when he woke up and found himself in hell. 'If it only had a little more
rain and good society----'"
"Now you hush up!" she cried, her lips beginning to tremble. "I guess
we've got enough trouble, without your making fun of it----"
"No. I'm not making fun of you!" protested Wunpost stoutly. "Haven't I
offered to build you a road? Well, what's the use of fiddling around,
packing silver ore down on burros, when you know from the start it won't
pay? First thing you folks know Judson Eells will come down on you and
grab the whole mine for nothing. Why not take some of my money that I've
buried under a rock and put in that aerial tramway?"
"Because we don't want to!" answered Wilhelmina tearfully; "my father
wants a _road_. And I don't think it's very kind of you, after all
we have suffered, to speak as if we were _fools_. If it wasn't for
that waterspout that washed away our road we'd be richer than you are,
today!"
"Oh, I don't know!" drawled Wunpost; "you don't know how rich I am. I
can take my mules and be back here in three days with ten thousand
dollars worth of ore!"
"You cannot!" she contradicted, and Wunpost's eyes began to bulge--he
was not used to lovely woman and her ways.
"Well, I'll just bet you I can," he responded deliberately. "What'll you
bet that I can't turn the trick?"
"I haven't got anything to bet," retorted Wilhelmina angrily, "but if I
did have, and it was right, I'd bet every cent I had--you're always
making big brags!"
"Yes, so you say," replied Wunpost evenly, "but I'll tell you what I'll
do. I'll put up a mule-load of ore against another sweet kiss--like you
give me when I first came in."
Wilhelmina bowed her head and blushed painfully beneath her curls and
then she turned away.
"I don't sell kisses," she said, and when he saw she was offended he put
aside his arrogant ways.
"No, I know, kid," he said, "you were just glad to see me--but why can't
you be glad all the time? Ain't I the same man? Well, you ought to be
glad then, if you see me coming back again."
"But somebody might kill you!" she answered quickly, "and then I'd be to
blame."
"They're scared to try it!" he boasted. "I've got 'em bluffed out. They
ain't a man left in the hills. And besides, I told Eells I wouldn't go
near the mine until he came through and sold me that contract. They's
nobody watching me now. And you can take the ore, if you should happen
to win, and build your father a road."
She straightened up and gazed at him with her honest brown eyes, and at
last the look in them changed.
"Well, _I_ don't care," she burst out recklessly, "and besides,
you're not going to win."
"Yes I am," he said, "and I want that kiss, too. Here, pup!" and he
whistled to his dog.
"Oh, you can't take Good Luck!" she objected quickly. "He's my dog now,
and I want him!"
She pouted and tossed her pretty head to one side, and Wunpost smiled at
her tyranny. It was something new in their relations with each other and
it struck him as quite piquant and charming.
"Well, all right," he assented, and Billy hid her face; because
treachery was new to her too.