CHAPTER XXIX
IN TRUST
There was cursing and wailing and gnashing of teeth in Blackwater’s saloons that night, and some were for hanging Wunpost; but in the morning, when they woke up and found Eells and Lapham gone, they transferred their rage to them. A committee composed of the dummy directors, who had allowed Eells to do what he would, discovered from the books that the bank had been looted and that Eells was a fugitive from justice. He had diverted the bank’s funds to his own private uses, leaving only his unsecured notes; and Lapham, the shrewd fox, had levied blackmail on his chief by charging huge sums for legal service. And now they were both gone and the Blackwater depositors had been left without a cent.
It was galling to their pride to see Wunpost stalking about and exhibiting his dream-restored wealth; but no one could say that he had not warned them, and he was loser by two thousand dollars himself. But even at that they considered it poor taste when he hung a piece of crepe on the door. As for the God-given dream which he professed to have received, there were those who questioned its authenticity; but whatever his hunch was, it had saved him forty-odd thousand dollars, which he had deposited with Wells Fargo and Company. They had never gone broke yet, as far as he knew, and they had started as a Pony Express.
But there was one painful feature about his bank-wrecking triumph which Wunpost had failed to anticipate, and as poor people who had lost their all came and stood before the bank he hung his head and moved on. It was all right for Old Whiskers and men of his stripe, whose profession was predatory itself; but when the hard-rock miners and road-makers came in the heady wine of triumph lost its bead. There are no palms of victory without the dust of vain regrets to mar their gleaming leaves, and when he saw Wilhelmina riding in from Jail Canyon he retreated to a doorway and winced. This was to have been his high spot, his magnum of victory; but somehow he sensed that no great joy would come from it, although of course she had it coming to her. And Wilhelmina simply stared at the sign “Bank Closed” and leaned against the door and cried.
That was too much for Wunpost, who had been handing out five dollars to all of the workingmen who were broke, and he strode across the street and approached her.
“What you crying about?” he asked, and when she shook her head he shuffled his feet and stood silent. “Come on up to the office,” he said at last, and she followed him to the bare little room. There a short time before he had interceded to save her when she had all but signed the contract with Eells; but now at one blow he had destroyed what was built up and left her without a cent.
“What you crying about?” he repeated, as she sank down by the desk and fixed him with her sad, reproachful eyes, “you ought to be tickled to death.”
“Because I’ve lost all my money,” she answered dejectedly, “and we owe the contractors for the road.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” he said, “I’ll get you some more money. But say, didn’t you do what I said? Why, I told you the last thing before I went away to git that first payment money out!”
“You did not!” she denied, “you told me to draw a few hundred. And then you turned around and deposited all you had, so I thought the bank must be safe.”
“What–safe with Judson Eells? Safe with Lapham behind the scenes? Say, you’ll never do at all. Have you heard the big news? Well, they’ve both skipped to Mexico and the depositors won’t get a cent.”
“Then what about my contract?” she burst out tearfully, “I’ve sold him my mine and now he’s run away, so who’s going to make the next payment?”
“They ain’t nobody,” grinned Wunpost, “and that’s just the point–I told you I’d come back with his scalp!”
“Yes, but what about us?” she clamored accusingly, “who’s going to pay for the road and all? Oh, I knew all the time that you’d never forgive me, and now you’ve just ruined everything.”
“Never asked me to forgive you,” defended Wunpost stoutly, “but I don’t mind admitting I was sore. It’s all right, of course, if you think you can play the game–but I never thought you’d rob a friend!”
“But you dared me to!” she cried, “and didn’t I offer it for almost nothing, just to keep you from getting killed? And then, after I’d done everything to get back your contract you didn’t even say ‘Thanks!’”
“No, sure not,” he agreed, “what should I be thanking you for? Did I ask you to get back my grubstake? Not by a long shot I didn’t–what I wanted was my mine, and you turned around and sold it to Eells. Well, where’s your friend now, and his yeller dog, Lapham? Skally-hooting across the desert for Mexico!”
“And isn’t my contract any good? Won’t the bank take it, or anybody? Oh, I think you’re just–just hateful!”
“You bet I am, kid!” he announced with a swagger, “that’s my long suit, savvy–hate! I never forgive an enemy and I never forget a friend, and the man don’t live that can do me! I’ll git him, if it takes a thousand years!”
“Oh, there you go,” she sighed, dusting her desk off petulantly, and then she bowed her head in thought. “But I must say,” she admitted, “you have done what you said. But I thought you were just bragging at the time.”
“They all did!” he beamed, “but I’ve showed ’em, by grab–they ain’t calling me a blow-hard now. These Blackwater stiffs that wanted to run me out of town are coming around now to borrow five. They took up with a crook, just because he boosted for their town, and now they’re left holding the sack. But if they’d listened to me they wouldn’t be left flat, because I told ’em I was after his hide. And say, you should’ve seen him, when I came into his bank and shoved that big check under his nose! He knowed what I was thinking and he never said: ‘Boo!’ I showed him whether I knew how to write!”
He laid back and grinned broadly and Wilhelmina smiled, though a wistful look had crept into her eyes.
“Then I suppose,” she said, “you’re always going to hate me, because of course I did steal your mine. But now I’m glad it’s gone, because I wasn’t happy a minute–do you think you can forgive me, sometime?”
She glanced up appealingly but his brows had come down and he was staring at her fiercely.
“Gone!” he roared, “your mine ain’t gone! Ain’t you ever read that contract we framed up? Well, the mine reverts to you the first time a payment isn’t made or if the buyer becomes a fugitive from justice! Yeh, my friend slipped that in along with the rest of it, about death or an Act of God. Say, that’s what you might call head work!”
He jerked his chin and grinned admiringly but Wilhelmina did not respond.
“Yes,” she objected, “but how do I get the money to pay the men for building the road? Because the twenty-five thousand dollars that I had in the bank─”
“Get it?” cried Wunpost, “why you go up to your mine and dig out some big chunks of gold, and then you send it out and sell it at the mint and start a little bank of your own. But say, kid, you’re all right–I like you and all that–but something tells me you ain’t cut out for business. Now you’d better just turn this mine over to me─”
“Oh, will you take it back?” she cried out impulsively, leaping up and beginning to smile. “I’ve just wanted to give it to you but–well, of course I did steal it. And will you take me back for a friend?”
“Well, I might,” conceded Wunpost, rising slowly to his feet, and then he shook his head. “But you’re no business woman,” he stated, “what I was trying to say was─”
“Well, let’s own it together!” she dimpled impatiently, and Wunpost accepted the trust.