“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.