CHAPTER I
THE DEATH VALLEY TRAIL
The heat hung like smoke above Panamint Sink, it surged up against the hills like the waves of a great sea that boiled and seethed in the sun; and the mountains that walled it in gleamed and glistened like polished jet where the light was struck back from their sides. They rose up in solid ramparts, unbelievably steep and combed clean by the sluicings of cloudbursts; and where the black canyons had belched forth their floods a broad wash spread out, writhing and twisting like a snake-track, until at last it was lost in the Sink. For the Sink was the swallower-up of all that came from the hills and whatever it sucked in it buried beneath its sands or poisoned on its alkali flats. Yet the Death Valley trail led across its level floor–thirty miles from Wild Rose Springs to Blackwater and its saloons–and while the heat danced and quivered there was a dust in the north pass and a pack-train swung round the point.
It came on furiously, four burros with flat packs and an old man who ran cursing behind; and as he passed down into the Sink there was another dust in the north and a lone man followed as furiously after him. He was young and tall, a mountain of rude strength, and as he strode off down the trail he brandished a piece of quartz and swung his hat in the air. But the pack-train kept on, a column of swirling dust, a blotch of burro-gray in the heat; and as he emptied his canteen he hurled it to the ground and took after his partner on the run. He could see the twinkling feet, the heave of the white packs, the vindictive form dodging behind; and then his knees weakened, his throbbing brain seemed to burst and he fell down cursing in the trail. But the pack-train went on like a tireless automaton that no human power could stay and when he raised his head it was a streamer of dust, a speck on the far horizon.
He rose up slowly and looked around–at the empty trail, the waterless flats, the barren hills all about–and then he raised his fist, which still clutched the chunk of quartz, and shook it at the pillar of dust. His throat was dry and no words came, to carry the burden of his hate, but as he stumbled along his eyes were on the dust-cloud and he choked out gusty oaths. A demoniac strength took possession of his limbs and once more he broke into a run, the muttered oaths grew louder and gave way to savage shouts and then to delirious babblings; and when he awoke he was groveling in a sand-wash and the sun had sunk in the west.
Once more he rose up and looked down the empty trail and across the waterless flats; and then he raised his eyes to the eastern hills, burning red in the last rays of the sun. They were high, very high, with pines on their summits, and from the wash of a near canyon there lapped out a tongue of green, the promise of water beyond. But his strength had left him now and given place to a feverish weakness–the hills were far away, and he could only sit and wait, and if help did not come he would perish. The solemn twilight turned to night, a star glowed in the east; and then, on the high point above the mouth of the canyon, there leapt up a brighter glow. It was a fire, and as he gazed he saw a form passing before it and feeding the ruddy blaze. He rose up all a-tremble, crushed down a brittle salt-bush and touched it off with a match; and as the resinous wood flared up he snatched out a torch and carried the flame to another bush. It was the signal of the lost, two fires side by side, and he gave a hoarse cry when, from the point of the canyon, a second fire promised help. Then he sank down in the sand, feebly feeding his signal fire, until he was roused by galloping feet.
A half moon was in the sky, lighting the desert with ghostly radiance, and as he scrambled up to look he saw a boy on a white mule, riding in with a canteen held out. Not a word was spoken but as he gurgled down the water he rolled his eyes and gazed at his rescuer. The boy was slim and vigorous, stripped down to sandals and bib overalls; and conspicuously on his hip he carried a heavy pistol which he suddenly hitched to the front.
“That’s enough, now,” he said, “you give me back that canteen.” And when the man refused he snatched it from his lips and whipped out his ready gun. “Don’t you grab me,” he warned, “or I’ll fill you full of lead. You’ve had enough, I tell you!”
For a moment the man faced him as if crouching for a spring; and then his legs failed him and he sank to the ground, at which the boy dropped down and stooped over him.
“Lie still,” he said, “and I’ll bathe your face–I was afraid you were crazy with the heat.”
“That’s all right, kid,” muttered the man, “you’re right on the job. Say, gimme another drink.”
“In a minute–well, just a little one! Now, lie down here in the sand and try to go to sleep.” He moistened a big handkerchief and sopped water on his head and over his heaving chest, and after a few drinks the big frame relaxed and the man lay sleeping like a child. But in his dreams he was still lost and running across the desert, he started and twitched his arms; and then he began to mutter and fumble in the sand until at last he sat up with a jerk.
“Where’s that rock?” he demanded, “by grab, she’s half gold–I’m going to take it and bash out his brains!” He rose to his knees and scrambled about and the boy dropped his hand to his gun. “I’m going to kill him!” raved the man, “the danged old lizard-herder–he went off and left me to die!”
He felt about in the dirt and grabbed up the chunk of quartz, which he had lost in his last delirium.
“Look at that!” he exclaimed thrusting it out to the boy, “the richest danged quartz in the world! I’ve got a ledge of it, kid, enough to make us both rich–and John Calhoun never forgets a friend! No, and he never forgets an enemy–the son of a goat don’t live that can put one over on me! You just wait, Mister Dusty Rhodes!”
“Oh, was that Dusty Rhodes?” the boy piped up eagerly. “I was watching from the point and I thought it was his outfit–but I don’t think I’ve ever seen you. Were you glad when you saw my fire?”
“You bet I was, kid,” the man answered gravely, “I reckon you saved my life. My name is John C. Calhoun.”
He held out his hand and after a moment’s hesitation the boy reached out and took it.
“My name is Billy Campbell and we live in Jail Canyon. My mother will be coming down soon–that is, if she can catch our other mule.”
“Glad to meet her,” replied Calhoun still shaking his hand, “you’re a good kid, Billy; I like you. And when your mother comes, if it’s agreeable to her, I’d like to take you along for my pardner. How would that suit you, now–I’ve just made a big strike and I’ll put you right next to the discovery.”
“I–I’d like it,” stammered the boy hastily drawing his hand away, “only–only I’m afraid my mother won’t let me. You see the boys are all gone, and there’s lots of work to do, and–but I do get awful lonely.”
“I’ll fix it!” announced Calhoun, pausing to take another drink, “and anything I’ve got, it’s yours. You’ve saved my life, Billy, and I never forget a kindness–any more than I forget an injury. Do you see that rock?” he demanded fiercely. “I’m going to follow Dusty Rhodes to the end of the world and bash out his rabbit brains with it! I stopped up at Black Point to look at that big dyke and what do you think he done? He went off and left me and never looked back until he struck them Blackwater saloons! And the first chunk of rock that I knocked off of that ledge would assay a thousand dollars–gold! I ran after that danged fool until I fell down like I was dead, and then I ran after him again, but he never so much as looked back–and all the time I was trying to make him rich and put him next to my strike!”
He stopped and mopped his brow, then took another drink and laughed, deep down in his chest.
“We were supposed to be prospecting,” he said at last. “I threw in with him over at Furnace Creek and we never stopped hiking until we struck the upper water at Wild Rose. How’s that for prospecting–never looked at a rock, except them he threw at his burros–and this morning, when I stopped, he got all bowed up and went off and left me flat. All I had was one canteen and the makings for a smoke, everything else was on the jacks, and the first rock I knocked off was rotten with gold–he’d been going past it for years! Well, I stopped! Nothing to it, when you find a ledge like that you want to put up a notice. All my blanks were in the pack but I located it, all the same–with some rocks and a cigarette paper. It’ll hold, all right, according to law–it’s got my name, and the date, and the name of the claim and how far I claim, both ways–but not a doggoned corner nor a pick-mark on it; and there it is, right by the trail! The first jasper that comes by is going to jump it, sure–don’t you know, boy, I’ve got to get back. What’s the chances for borrowing your mule?”
“What–Tellurium?” faltered the boy going over to the mule and rubbing his nose regretfully, “he’s–he’s a pet; I’d rather not.”
“Aw come on now, I’ll pay you well–I’ll stake you the claim next to mine. That ought to be worth lots of money.”
“Nope,” returned Billy, “here’s a lunch I brought along. I guess I’ll be going home.”
He untied a sack of food from the back of his saddle and mounted as if to go, but the stranger took the mule by the bit.
“Now listen, kid,” he said. “Do you know who I am? Well, I’m John C. Calhoun, the man that discovered the Wunpost Mine and put Southern Nevada on the map. I’m no crazy man; I’m a prospector, as good as the best, if I am playing to a little hard luck. Yes sir, I located the Wunpost and started that first big rush–they came pouring into Keno by the thousands; but when I show ’em this rock there won’t be anybody left–they’ll come across Death Valley like a sandstorm. They’ll come pouring down that wash like a cloudburst in July and the whole doggoned country will be located. Don’t you want to be in on the strike? I’m giving you a chance, and you’ll never have another one like it. All I ask is this mule, and your canteen and the grub, and I’ll tell you what I’ll do–I’ll give you half my claim, and I’ll bet it’s worth millions, and I’ll bring back your mule to boot!”
“Oh, will you?” exclaimed the boy and was scrambling swiftly down when he stopped with one hand on the horn. “Does–does it make any difference if I’m a girl?” he asked with a break in his voice, and John C. Calhoun started back. He looked again and in the desert moonlight the boyish face seemed to soften and change. Tears sprang into the dark eyes and as she hung her head a curl fell across her breast.
“Hell–no!” he burst out hardly knowing what he said, “not as long as I get the mule.”
“Then write out that notice for Wilhelmina Campbell–I guess that’s my legal name.”
“It’s a right pretty name,” conceded Calhoun as he mounted, “but somehow I kinder liked Billy.”
CHAPTER II
THE GATEWAY OF DREAMS
Standing alone in the desert, with her face bared to the moonlight and her curls shaken free to the wind, Wilhelmina smiled softly as she gazed after the stranger who already had won her heart. His language had been crude when he thought she was a boy, but that only proved the perfection of her disguise; and when she had asked if it made any difference, and confessed that she was a girl, he had bridged over the gap like a flash. “Hell–no!” he had said, as men oftentimes do to express the heartiest accord; and then he had added, with the gallantry due a lady, that Wilhelmina was a right pretty name. And tomorrow, as soon as he had staked out his claim–their claim–he was coming back to the ranch!
She started back up the long wash that led down from Jail Canyon, still musing on his masterful ways, but as she rounded the lower point and saw a light in the house a sudden doubt assailed her. Tellurium was her mule, to give to whom she chose, but he was matched to pull with Bodie when they needed a team and her father might not approve. And what would she say when she met her mother’s eye and she questioned her about this strange man? Yet she knew as well as anything that he was going to make her rich–and tomorrow he would bring back the mule. All she needed was faith, and the patience to wait; and she took her scolding so meekly that her mother repented it and allowed her to sleep in the tunnel.
The Jail Canyon Ranch lay in a pocket among the hills, so shut in by high ridges and overhanging rimrock that it seemed like the bottom of a well; but where the point swung in that encircled the tiny farm a tunnel bored its way through the hill. It was the extension of a mine which in earlier days had gophered along the hillside after gold, but now that it was closed down and abandoned to the rats Wilhelmina had taken the tunnel for her own. It ran through the knife-blade ridge as straight as a die, and a trail led up to its mouth; and from the other side, where it broke out into the sun, there was a view of the outer world. Sitting within its cool portal she could look off across the Sink, to Blackwater and the Argus Range beyond; and by stepping outside she could see the whole valley, from South Pass to the Death Valley Trail.
It was from this tunnel that she had watched when Dusty Rhodes went past, a moving fleck of color plumed with dust; and when the sun sank low she had seen the form that followed, like a man yet not like a man. She had seen it rise and fall, disappear and loom up again; until at last in the twilight she had challenged it with a fire and the answer had led her to–him. She had found him–lost on the desert and about to die, big and strong yet dependent upon her aid–and when she had allowed her long curls to escape he had stood silent in the presence of her womanhood. She wanted to run back and sleep in her tunnel, where the air was always moving and cool; and then in the morning, when she looked to the north, she might see the first dust of his return. She might see his tall form, and the white sides of Tellurium as he took the shortest way home, and then she could run back and drag her mother to the portal and prove that her knight had been misjudged. For her mother had predicted that the prospector would not return, and that his mine was only a blind; but she, who had seen him and felt the clasp of his hand, she knew that he would never rob her. So she fled to her dream-house, where there was nothing to check her fancies, and slept in the tunnel-mouth till dawn.
The day came first in the west, galloping along the Argus Range and splashing its peaks with red; and then as the sun ascended it found gaps in the eastern rim and laid long bands of light across the Sink. It rose up higher and, as the desert stood forth bare, the dweller in the dream-house stepped out through its portals and gazed long at the Death Valley Trail. From the far north pass, where it came down from Wild Rose, to where Blackwater sent up its thin smoke, the trail crept like a serpent among the sandhills and washes, a long tenuous line through the Sink. Where the ground was white the trail stood out darker, and where it crossed the sun-burnt mesas it was white; but from one end to the other it was vacant and nothing emerged from north pass. Billy sighed and turned away, but when she came back there was a streak of dust to the south.
It came tearing along the trail from Blackwater, struck up by a galloping horseman, and at the spot where she had found the lost man the night before the flying rider stopped. He rode about in circles, started north and came dashing back; and at last, still galloping, he turned up the wash and headed for the mouth of Jail Canyon. He was some searcher who had found her tracks in the sand, and the tracks of Tellurium going on; and, rather than follow the long trail to Wild Rose Springs, he was coming to interview her. Billy ran down to meet him with long, rangey strides, and at the point of the hill she stood waiting expectantly, for visitors were rare at the ranch. Three restless lonely weeks had dragged away without bringing a single wanderer to their doors; and now here was a second man, fully as exciting as the first, because he was coming up there to see her. Billy tucked up her curls beneath the brim of her man’s hat as she watched the laboring horse, but when she made out who it was that was coming she gave up all thought of disguise.
“Hello, Dusty!” she called running gayly down to meet him, “are you looking for Mr. Calhoun?”
“Oh, it’s Mister, is it?” he yelled. “Well, have you seen the danged whelp? Whoo, boy–where is he, Billy?”
“He went back!” she cried, “I lent him my mule. He told me he’d made a rich strike!”
“A rich strike!” repeated the man and then he laughed and spurred his drooping mount. He was tall and bony with a thin, hawk nose and eyes sunk deep into his head. “A rich strike, eh?” he mimicked, and then he laughed again, until suddenly his face came straight. “What’s that you said?” he shouted, “you didn’t lend him your mule! Well, I’m afraid, my little girl, you’ve made a mistake–that feller is a regular horse-thief. Is your mother up to the house? We’ll go up and see her–I’m afraid he’s gone and stole your mule!”
“Oh, no he hasn’t,” protested Billy confidently, running along the trail beside him, “he went back to stake out his claim. He found some rich ore right there at Black Point, and he’s going to give me half of it.”
“At Black P’int!” whooped Dusty Rhodes doubling up in a knot to squeeze out the last atom of his mirth, “w’y I’ve been past that p’int for twenty years–it’s nothing but porphyry and burnt lava! He’s crazy with the heat! Where’s your father, my little girl? We’ll have to go out and ketch him if we ever expect to git back that mule!”
“He’s working up the canyon,” answered Billy sulkily, “but never you mind about my mule. He’s mine, I guess, and I loaned him to that man in exchange for a half interest in his mine!”
“Oh, it’s a mine now, is it?” mocked Dusty Rhodes, “next thing it’ll be a mine and mill. And he borrowed your mule, eh, that your father give ye, and sent ye back home on foot!”
“I don’t care!” pouted Billy, “I’ll bet you change your tune when you see him coming back with my mule. You went off and left him, and if I hadn’t gone down and helped him he would have died in the desert of thirst.”
“Eh–eh! Went off and left him!” bleated Dusty in a fury, “the poor fool went off and left me! I picked him up at Furnace Crick, over in the middle of Death Valley, and jest took him along out of pity; and all the way over he was looking at every rock when a prospector wouldn’t spit on the place! He was eating my grub and packing his bed on my jacks; and then, by the gods, he wants me to stop at Black P’int while he looks at that hungry bull-quartz! I warned him distinctly that I don’t wait for no man–did he say I went off and left him?”
“Yes, he did,” answered Billy, “and he says he’s going to kill you, because you went off and took all his water!”
“Hoo, hoo!” jeered Dusty Rhodes, “that big bag of wind?” But he ignored what she said about the water.
They spattered through the creek, where it flowed out to sink in the sand, and passed around the point of the canyon; and then the green valley spread out before them until it was cut off by the gorge above. This was the treacherous Corkscrew Bend, where the fury of countless cloudbursts had polished the granite walls like a tombstone; but Dusty Rhodes recalled the time when a fine stage-road had threaded its curves and led on up the canyon to old Panamint. But the flood which had destroyed the road had left the town marooned and the inhabitants had gone out over the rocks; until now only Cole Campbell, the owner of the Homestake, stayed on to do the work on his claims. In this valley far below he had made his home for years, diverting the creek to water his scanty crops; while in season and out he labored on the road which was to connect up his mine with the world.
His house stood against the hill, around the point from Corkscrew Bend, old and rambling and overgrown with vines; and along the road that led up to it there were rows of peaches and figs, fenced off by stone walls from the creek. Dusty rode past the trees slowly, feasting his eyes on their lush greenness and the rank growth of alfalfa beyond; until from the house ahead a screen door slammed and a woman gazed anxiously down.
“Oh, is that you, Mr. Rhodes?” she called out at last, “I thought it was the man who got lost! Come up to the house and tell me about him–do you think he will bring back our mule?”
He dismounted with a flourish and dropped his reins at the gate; then, while Billy hung back and petted the lathered horse, he strode up the flower-entangled walk.
“Don’t think nothing, Mrs. Campbell,” he announced with decision, “that boy has stole ’em before. He’ll trade off that mule fer anything he can git and pull his freight fer Nevada.”
He paced up to the porch and shook hands ceremoniously, after which he accepted a drink and a basketful of figs and proceeded to retail the news.
“Do you know who that feller is?” he inquired mysteriously, as Billy crept resentfully near, “he’s the man that discovered the Wunpost mine and tried to keep it dark. Yes, that big mine over in Keno that they thought was worth millions, only it pinched right out at depth; but it showed up the nicest specimens of jewelry gold that has ever been seen in these parts. Well, this Wunpost, as they call him, was working on a grubstake for a banker named Judson Eells. He’d been out for two years, just sitting around the water-holes or playing coon-can with the Injuns, when he comes across this mine, or was led to it by some Injun, and he tries to cover it up. He puts up one post, to kinder hold it down in case some prospector should happen along; and then he writes his notice, leaving out the date– and everything else, you might say.
“‘Wunpost Mine,’” he writes, “‘John C. Calhoun owner. I claim fifteen hundred feet on this vein.’
“And jest to show you, Mrs. Campbell, what an ignorant fool he is–he spelled One Post, W-u-n! That’s where he got his name!”
“I think that’s a pretty name!” spoke up Billy loyally, as her mother joined in on the laugh. “And anyhow, just because a man can’t spell, that’s no reason for calling him a fool!”
“Well, he is a fool!” burst out Dusty Rhodes spitefully, “and more than that, he’s a crook! Now that is what he done–he covered up that find and went back to the man that had grubstaked him. But this banker was no sucker, if he did have the name of staking every bum in Nevada. He was generous with his men and he give ’em all they asked for, but before he planked down a dollar he made ’em sign a contract that a corporation lawyer couldn’t break. Well, when Wunpost said he’d quit, Mr. Eells says all right–no hard feeling–better luck next time. But when Wunpost went back and opened up this vein Mr. Eells was Johnny-on-the-spot. He steps up to that hole and shows his contract, giving him an equal share of whatever Wunpost finds–and then he reads a clause giving him the right to take possession and to work the mine according to his judgment. And the first thing Wunpost knowed the mine was worked out and he was left holding the sack. But served him right, sez I, for trying to beat his outfitter, after eating his grub for two years!”
“But didn’t he receive anything?” inquired Mrs. Campbell. “That seems to me pretty sharp practice.”
She was a prim little woman, with honest blue eyes that sometimes made men think of their sins, and when Dusty Rhodes perceived that he had gone a bit too far he endeavored to justify his spleen.
“He received some!” he cried, “but what good did it do him? Eells give him five hundred dollars when he demanded an accounting and he blowed it all in in one night. He was buying the drinks for every man in camp–your money was all counterfeit with him–and the next morning he woke up without a shirt to his back, having had it torn off in a fight. What kind of a man is that to be managing a mine or to be partners with a big banker like Eells? No, he walked out of camp without a cent to his name and I picked him up Tuesday over at Furnace Crick. All he had was his bed and a couple of canteens and a little jerked beef in a sack, but to hear the poor boob talk you’d think he was a millionaire–he had the world by the tail. And then, at the end of it, he’d be borrying your tobacco–or anything else you’d got. But I never would’ve thought that he’d steal Billy’s mule–that’s gitting pretty low, it strikes me.”
“He never stole my mule!” burst out Wilhelmina angrily. “I expect him back here any time. And when he does come, and you hear about his mine, I’ll bet you change your tune!”
“Ho! Ho!” shouted Rhodes, nodding and winking at Mrs. Campbell, “she’s getting to be growed-up, ain’t she? Last time I come through here she was a little girl in pigtails but now it’s done up in curls. And I can’t say a word against this no-account Wunpost till she calls me a liar to my face!”
“Billy is almost nineteen,” answered Mrs. Campbell quietly, “but I’m surprised to hear her contradict.”
“Well, I didn’t mean that,” apologized Wilhelmina hastily, “but–well anyhow, I know he’s got a mine! Because he showed me a piece of quartz that he’d carried all the way, and he must have had a reason for that. It was just moonlight, of course, and I couldn’t see the gold, but I know that it was quartz.”
“Ah, Billy, my little girl,” returned Dusty indulgently, “you don’t know the boy like I do. And the world is full of quartz but you don’t find a mine right next to a well-worn trail. Have you got that piece of rock? Well now you see the p’int–he took it away! Would he do that if his mine was on the square?”
“Well, I don’t know why not,” answered Billy at last and then she bowed her head and turned away. They gazed after her pityingly as she ran along the ditch and up to the mouth of her tunnel, but Billy did not stop till she had threaded its murky passageway and come out at her gate of dreams. It was from there that she had seen him when he was lost in the Sink, and she knew her dream of dreams would come true. He was going to come back, he was going to bring her mule, and make her his partner in the mine. She looked out–and there was his dust!