“You savvy Wunpo?” he asked, “hi-ko man–busca gol’? Him sendum piece of lock!”
He produced a piece of rock from a knot in his shirt-tail and handed it over to her slowly. It was a small chunk of polished quartz, half green, half turquoise blue; and in the center, like a jewel, a crystal of yellow gold gleamed out from its matrix of blue. Wilhelmina gazed at it blankly, then flushed and turned away as she felt Hungry Bill’s eyes upon her. He was a disreputable old wretch, who imputed to others the base motives which governed his own acts; and when she read his black heart Wilhelmina straightened up and gave him back the stone.
“No, you keepum!” protested Hungry. “Hi-ko ketchum plenty mo’.”
But Wilhelmina shook her head.
“No!” she said, “you give that to my mother. Are those your girls down there? Well, why don’t you let them come up to the house? You no good–I don’t like bad Indians!”
78She turned away from him, still frowning angrily, and strode on down to the creek; but the daughters of Hungry Bill, in their groveling way, seemed to share the low ideals of their father. They were tall and sturdy girls, clad in breezy calico dresses and with their hair down over their eyes; and as they gazed out from beneath their bangs a guilty smile contorted their lips, a smile that made Wilhelmina writhe.
“What’s the matter with you?” she snapped, and as the scared look came back she turned on her heel and left them. What could one expect, of course, from Hungry Bill’s daughters after they had been guarded like the slave-girls in a harem; but the joy of hearing from Wunpost was quite lost in the fierce anger which the conduct of his messengers evoked. He was up there, somewhere, and he had made another strike–the most beautiful blue quartz in the world–but these renegade Shoshones with their understanding smiles had quite killed the pleasure of it for her. She returned to the house where Hungry Bill, in the kitchen, was wolfing down a great pan of beans; but the sight of the old glutton with his mouth down to the plate quite sickened her and drove her away. Wunpost was up in the hills, and he had made a strike, but with that she must remain content until he either came down himself or chose a more highminded messenger.
Hungry Bill went on to Blackwater and came back with a load of supplies, which he claimed he was taking to “Wunpo”; and, after he had passed up the 79canyon, Wilhelmina strolled along behind him. At the mouth of Corkscrew Gorge there was a great pool of water, overshadowed by a rank growth of willows through whose tops the wild grapevines ran riot. Here it had been her custom, during the heat of the day, to paddle along the shallows or sit and enjoy the cool air. There was always a breeze at the mouth of Corkscrew Gorge, and when it drew down, as it did on this day, it carried the odors of dank caverns. In the dark and gloomy depths of this gash through the hills the rocks were always damp and cold; and beneath the great waterfalls, where the cloudbursts had scooped out pot-holes, there was a delicious mist and spray. She dawdled by the willows, then splashed on up the slippery trail until, above the last echoing waterfall, she stepped out into the world beyond.
The great canyon spread out again, once she had passed the waterworn Gorge, and peak after peak rose up to right and left where yawning side canyons led in. But all were set on edge and reared up to dizzying heights; and along their scarred flanks there lay huge slides of shaley rock, ready to slip at the touch of a hand. Vivid stripes of red and green, alternating with layers of blue and white, painted the sides of the striated ridges; and odd seams here and there showed dull yellows and chocolate browns like the edge of a crumbled layer-cake. Up the canyon the walls shut in again, and then they opened out, and so on for nine miles until Old Panamint was reached and the open valley sloped up to the summit.
80Many a time in the old days when they had lived in Panamint had Wilhelmina scaled those far heights; the huge white wall of granite dotted with ball-like piñons and junipers, which fenced them from Death Valley beyond. It opened up like a gulf, once the summit was reached, and below the jagged precipices stretched long ridges and fan-like washes which lost themselves at last in the Sink. For a hundred miles to the north and the south it lay, a writhing ribbon of white, pinching down to narrow strips, then broadening out in gleaming marshes; and on both sides the mountains rose up black and forbidding, a bulwark against the sky. Wilhelmina had never entered it, she had been content to look down; and then she crept back to beautiful sheltered Panamint where father had his mine.