“It’ll work out this time,” he retorted grimly. “A man has got to learn. I’m just a kid, I know that, and I’m not much on book learning, but don’t you never say I can’t think! Maybe I can’t beat them crooks when I play their own game, but this time I deal the hand! Do you git me? We’ve switched the deal! And if I don’t ring in a cold deck and deal from the bottom it won’t be because it’s wrong. I’m out to scalp ’em, see, and just to convince you we’ll begin by building that road. Your old man is 90wrong, he don’t need no road and it won’t do him any good when he gets it; but just to make you happy and show you how much I think of you, I’ll do it–only you’ve got to stand pat! No Sunday school stuff, see? We’re going to fight this out with hay hooks, and when I come back with his hair don’t blame me if old Eells makes a roar. I’m going to stick him, see; and I’m not going to stick him once–I’m going to stick him three times, till he squeals like a pig, because that’s what he did to me! He cleaned me once on the Wunpost, and twice on the Willie Meena, but before I get through with him he’ll knock a corner off the mountain every time he sees my dust. He’ll be gone, you understand–it’ll be moving day for him–but I’ll chase him to the hottest stope in hell. I’m going to bust him, savvy, just to learn these other dastards not to start any rough stuff with me. And now the road, the road! We’ll just get him to build it–I’ve got it all framed up!”
He made a bluff to kiss her, then ran out and mounted his horse and went rollicking off towards Blackwater. Wilhelmina brushed her cheek and gazed angrily after him, then smiled and turned away with a sigh.
91CHAPTER X
THE SHORT SPORTS
The booming mining camp of Blackwater stood under the rim of a high mesa, between it and an alkali flat, and as Wunpost rode in he looked it over critically, though with none too friendly eyes. Being laid out in a land of magnificent distances, there was plenty of room between the houses, and the broad main street seemed more suited for driving cattle than for accommodating the scant local traffic. There had been a time when all that space was needed to give swing-room to twenty-mule teams, but that time was past and the two sparse rows of houses seemed dwarfed and pitifully few. Yet there were new ones going up, and quite a sprinkling of tents; and down on the corner Wunpost saw a big building which he knew must be Judson Eells’ bank.
It had sprung up in his absence, a pretentious structure of solid concrete, and as he jogged along past it Wunpost swung his head and looked it over scornfully. The walls were thick and strong, but that was no great credit, for in that desert country any man who would get water could mix concrete until he was tired. All in the world he had to do was to scoop up the ground and pour the mud into the 92molds, and when it was set he had a natural concrete, composed of lime and coarse gravel and bone-dry dust. Half the burro-corrals in Blackwater were built out of concrete, but Eells had put up a big false front. This had run into money, the ornately stamped tin-work having been shipped all the way from Los Angeles; and there were two plate-glass windows that framed a passing view of marble pillars and shining brass grilles. Wunpost took it all in and then hissed through his teeth–the money that had built it was his!
“I’ll skin him!” he muttered, and pulled up down the street before Old Whiskers’ populous saloon. Several men drifted out to speak to him as he tied his horse and pack, but he greeted them all with such a venomous glare that they shied off and went across the street. There there stood a rival saloon, rushed up in Wunpost’s absence; but after looking it over he went into Whiskers’ Place, which immediately began to fill up. The coming of Wunpost had been noted from afar, and a man who buys his grub with jewelry gold-specimens is sure to have a following. He slouched in sulkily and gazed at Old Whiskers, who was chewing on his tobacco like a ruminative billygoat and pretending to polish the bar. It was borne in on Whiskers that he had refused Wunpost a drink on the day he had walked out of camp, but he was hoping that the slight was forgotten; for if he could keep him in his saloon all the others would soon be vacated, now that Wunpost was the talk of the town. He had found one mine and lost it and 93gone out and found another one while the rest of them were wearing out shoe-leather; and a man like that could not be ignored by the community, no matter if he did curse their town. So Whiskers chewed on, not daring to claim his friendship, and Wunpost leaned against the bar.
“Gimme a drink,” he said laying fifteen cents before him; and as several men moved forward he scowled at them in silence and tossed off his solamente. “Cr-ripes!” he shuddered, “did you make that yourself?” And when Whiskers, caught unawares, half acquiesced, Wunpost drew himself up and burst forth. “I believe it!” he announced with an oracular nod, “I can taste the burnt sugar, the fusel oil, the wood alcohol and everything. One drink of that stuff would strike a stone Injun blind if it wasn’t for this dry desert air. They tell me, Whiskers, that when you came to this town you brought one barrel of whiskey with you–and that you ain’t ordered another one since. That stuff is all right for those that like it–I’m going across the street.”
He strode out the door, taking the fickle crowd with him and leaving Old Whiskers to chew the cud of brooding bitterness. In the saloon across the street a city barkeeper greeted Wunpost affably, and inquired what it would be. Wunpost asked for a drink and the discerning barkeeper set out a bottle with the seal uncut. It was bonded goods, guaranteed seven years in the wood, and Wunpost smacked his lips as he tasted it.
94“Have one yourself,” he suggested and while the crowd stood agape he laid down a nugget of gold.