Wunpost. Coolidge Dane
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.
22“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.
23“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 24a 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 25trying 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 26slightly 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 27charm. 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 naïve 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