“Why, Dusty Rhodes came up here to look for Mr. Calhoun, and when I told him that I had loaned him my mule he said Mr. Calhoun would steal him! And then he went up and told Mother all about it and said that Mr. Calhoun would do anything, and he said he’d probably take Tellurium to Wild Rose and trade him off to some squaw! And when I defended him he just whooped and laughed at me–and now he’s got to apologise!”
She darted a hateful glance at the perspiring Dusty Rhodes, who was vainly trying to get Campbell’s ear; and at the end of her recital there was a look in Wunpost’s eye that spoke of reprisals to come. The fat was in the fire, as far as Rhodes was concerned, but he surprised them all by retracting. He apologized in haste, before Wunpost could make a reach for him, and then he recanted in detail, and when the tumult was over they had signed a joint agreement to give him one third of the mine.
“All right, boys,” he yelled, thrusting his copy into his pocket and making a dash for his horse. “One third! It’s all right with me! But if we’d gone to the courts I’d got half, sure as shooting! ’Sall right, but just watch my dust!”
30CHAPTER IV
THE TREE OF LIFE
As the evening came on they walked out together, Wunpost and the worshipful Wilhelmina, and from the portals of her House of Dreams they looked out over the Sink where they had met but the evening before. Less than a single day had passed since their stars had crossed, and already they were talking of life and eternal friendship and of all the great dreams that youth loves. Each had given of what they had without counting the cost or considering what others might say; and now they walked together like reunited lovers, though their friendship was not twenty-four hours old. Yet in that single eventful day what a gamut they had run of the emotions which make up the soul’s life–of dangers boldly met, of mutual sacrifice and trust and the joys of vindication and success. They had staked all they had in the greatest game in life and, miracle of miracles, they had won. They had sought out each other’s souls in the murk of death and doubt and each had been proven pure gold; yet even youth, for all its madness, has its moments of clairvoyance and Billy sensed that her joy could not last. It was too great, too perfect, to endure forever, 31and as she gazed across the desert she sighed.
“What’s the matter?” inquired Wunpost who, after a few hours’ sleep, had awakened in a most expansive mood; but she only sighed again and shook her head and gazed off across the quivering Sink. It was a hell-hole of torment to those who crossed its moods and yet in that waste she had found this man, who had changed her whole outlook on life. He had come up from the desert, a sun-bronzed young giant, volcanic in his loves and his hates; and on the morrow the desert would claim him again, for he was going back to his mine. And her father was going, too–Jail Canyon would be as empty as it had been for many a long year–and she who longed to live, to plunge into the swirl of life, would be left there alone, to dream.
But what would dreams be after she had tasted the bitter-sweet of living and learned what it was that she missed; the tug of strong emotions, the hopes and fears and heartaches that are the fruits of the great Tree of Life? She wanted to pluck the fruits, be they bitter or sweet, and drain the world’s wine to the dregs; and then, if life went ill, she could return to her House with something about which to dream. But now she only sighed and Wunpost took her hand and drew her down beside him in the shade.
“Don’t you worry about him kid?” he observed mysteriously, “I’ll take care of him, all right. And don’t you believe a word he said about me stealing horses and such. I’m a little rough sometimes when 32 these jaspers try to rob me, but I never take advantage of a friend. I’m a Kentucky Calhoun, related to John Caldwell Calhoun, the great orator who debated with Webster; and a Kentucky Calhoun never forgets a kindness nor forgives an intentional injury. Dusty Rhodes thinks he’s smart, getting a third of our mine after he went off and left me flat; but I’ll show that old walloper before I get through with him that he can’t put one over on me. And there’s a man over in Nevada that’s going to learn the same thing as soon as I make my stake–he’s another smart Aleck that thinks he can job me and get away with highway robbery.”
“Oh, is that Judson Eells?” broke in Billy quickly and Wunpost nodded his head.