Wunpost camped that evening at Surveyor’s Well, a trench-hole dug down into the Sink, and after his mules had eaten their fill of salt-grass he packed up again and pushed on to the east. From the stinking alkali flat with its mesquite clumps and sacaton, he passed on up an interminable wash; and at daylight he was hidden in the depths of a black canyon which ended abruptly behind him. There was no way to reach him, or even see where he was hid, except by following up the canyon; and before he went to sleep Wunpost got out his two bear-traps and planted them hurriedly in the trail. Then, retiring into a cave, he left Good Luck on guard and slept until late in the day. But nothing stirred down the trail, his watch-dog was silent–he was hidden from all the world.
That evening just at dusk he went back down the trail and set his bear traps again, but not even a prowling fox came along in the night to spring their cruel jaws. The canyon was deserted and the water-hole where he drank was unvisited except by his mules. These he had penned in above him by a fence of brush and ropes and hobbled them to make doubly sure; but in the morning they were there, waiting to receive their bait of grain as if Tank Canyon was their customary home. Another day dragged by and Wunpost began to fidget and to watch the unscalable peaks, but no Indian’s head 196appeared to draw a slug from his rifle and again the night passed uneventfully. He spent the third day in a fury, pacing up and down his cave, and at nightfall he packed up and was gone.
Three days was enough to wait on the man who had shot him down from the heights and, now that he thought of it, he was taking a great deal for granted when he set his big traps in the trail. In the first place, he was assuming that the man was still there, after a lapse of six weeks and more; and in the second place that he was bold enough, or so obsessed by blood-lust, that he would follow him across Death Valley; whereas as a matter of fact, he knew nothing whatever about him except that he had shot him in the leg. His aim had been good but a little too low, which is unusual when shooting down hill, and that might argue him a white man; but his hiding had been better, and his absolute patience, and that looked more like an Indian. But whoever he was, it was taking too much for granted to think that he would walk into a trap. What Wunpost wanted to know, and what he was about to find out, was whether his tracks had been followed.
He left Tank Canyon after dark, driving his pack-mules before him to detect any possible ambush; and in his nest on the front pack Good Luck stood up like a sentinel, eager to scent out the lurking foe. For the past day and night Good Luck had been uneasy, snuffing the wind and growling in his throat, but the actions of his master had been cause enough for that, for he responded to Wunpost’s every mood. 197And Wunpost was as jumpy as a cat that has been chased by a dog, he practised for hours on the draw-and-shoot; and whenever he dismounted he dragged his rifle with him to make sure he would do it in a pinch. He was worried but not frightened and when he came free from the canyon he headed for Surveyor’s Well.
Someone had been there before him, perhaps even that very night, for water had been splashed about the hole; but whoever it was, was gone. Wunpost studied the unshod horse-track, then he began to cut circles in the snow-white alkali and at last he sat down to await the dawn. There was something eerie about this pursuit, if pursuit it was, for while the horse had been watered from the bucket at the well, its rider had not left a track. Not a heel-mark, not a nail-point, and the last of the water had been dropped craftily on the spot where he had mounted. That was enough–Wunpost knew he had met his match. He watered his mules again, rode west into the mesquite brush and at sun-up he was hid for the day.
Where three giant mesquite trees, their tops reared high in the air and their trunks banked up with sand, sprawled together to make a natural barricade, Wunpost unpacked his mules and tied them there to browse while he climbed to the top of a mound. The desert was quite bare as far as he could see–no horseman came or went, every distant trail was empty, the way to Tank Canyon was untrod. And yet somewhere there must be a man 198and a horse–a very ordinary horse, such as any man might have, and a man who wiped out his tracks. Wunpost lay there a long time, sweeping the washes with his glasses, and then a shadow passed over him and was gone. He jumped and a glossy raven, his head turned to one side, gave vent to a loud, throaty quawk! His mate followed behind him, her wings rustling noisily, her beady eye fixed on his camp, and Wunpost looked up and cursed back at them.
If the ravens on the mountain had made out his hiding-place and come down from their crags to look, what was to prevent this man who smoothed out his tracks from detecting his hidden retreat? Wunpost knew the ravens well, for no man ever crossed Death Valley without hearing the whish of black wings, but he wondered now if this early morning visit did not presage disaster to come. What the ravens really sought for he knew all too well, for he had seen their knotted tracks by dead forms; yet somehow their passage conjured up thoughts in his brain which had never disturbed him before. They were birds of death, rapacious and evil-bringing, and they had cast their boding shadows upon him.
The dank coolness of the morning gave place to ardent midday before he crept down and gave up his watch, but as he crouched beneath the trees another shadow passed over him and cast a slow circle through the brush. It was a pair of black eagles, come down from the Panamints to throw a fateful 199circle above him, and in all his wanderings it had never happened before that an eagle had circled his camp. A superstitious chill made Wunpost shudder and draw back, for the Shoshones had told him that the eagles loved men’s battles and came from afar to watch. They had learned in the old days that when one war-party followed another there would later be feasting and blood; and now, when one man followed another across the desert, they came down from their high cliffs to look. Wunpost scrambled to his hillock and watched their effortless flight; and they swung to the north, where they circled again, not far from the spot where he was hid. Here was an omen indeed, a sign without fail, for below where they circled his enemy was hiding–or slipping up through the brush to shoot.
We can all stand so much of superstitious fear and then the best nerves must crack–Wunpost saddled his mules and struck out due south, turning off into the “self-rising ground.” Here in bloated bubbles of salt and poisonous niter the ground had boiled up and formed a brittle crust, like dough made of self-rising flour. It was a dangerous place to go, for at uncertain intervals his mules caved through to their hocks, but Wunpost did not stop till he had crossed to the other side and put ten miles of salt-flats behind him. He was haunted by a fear of something he could not name, of a presence which pursued him like a devil; but as he stopped and looked back the hot curses rushed to his lips and he headed boldly for the mouth of Tank Canyon.