208“Go home!” snarled Manuel, “Lynchie no good–me no likum. Me your friend–no shootum–go home!”
“Well, you’d better,” warned Wunpost, “because next time I’ll kill you. Oh, by grab, I nearly forgot!”
He whipped out the butcher-knife which the Apache had flung at him and cropped off a lock of his hair. It was something he had promised Wilhelmina.
209CHAPTER XXII
THE FEAR OF THE HILLS
Wunpost romped off down the canyon, holding the hair up like a scalp-lock–which it was, except for the scalp. Manuel Apache, with the pride of his kind, had knotted it up in a purple silk handkerchief; and he had yelled louder when he found it was gone than he had when he was caught in the trap. He had, in fact, acted extremely unreasonable, considering all that had been done for him; and Wunpost had been obliged to throw down on him with his six-shooter and order him off up the canyon. It was taking a big chance to allow him to live at all and, not to tempt him too far along the lines of reprisal, Wunpost left the Apache afoot. His gaunted pony was feeding hobbled, down the canyon, and Wunpost took off the rawhide thongs and hung them about his neck, after which he drove him on with his mules. But even at that he was taking a chance, or so at least it seemed, for the look in the Apache’s eye as he had limped off up the gulch reminded Wunpost of a broken-backed rattlesnake.
He was a bad Indian and a bad actor–one of these men that throw butcher-knives–and yet Wunpost 210had tamed him and set him afoot and come off with his back-hair, as promised. He was a Government scout, the pick of the Apaches, and he had matched his desert craft against Wunpost’s; but that craft, while it was good, was not good enough, and he had walked right into a bear-trap. Not the trap in the trail–he had gone around that–but the one in the rocks, with the step-diverting bush pulled down. Wunpost had gauged it to a nicety and this big chief of the Apaches had lost out in the duel of wits. He had lost his horse and he had lost his hair; and that pain in his heel would be a warning for some time not to follow after Wunpost, the desert-man.
There were others, of course, who claimed to be desert-men and to know Death Valley like a book; but it was self-evident to Wunpost as he rode back with his trophies that he was the king of them all. He had taken on Lynch and his desert-bred Shoshone and led them the devil’s own chase; and now he had taken on Manuel, the big chief of the Apaches, and left him afoot in the rocks. But one thing he had learned from this snakey-eyed man-killer–he would better get rid of his money. For there were others still in the hills who might pot him for it any time–and besides, it was a useless risk. He was taking chances enough without making it an object for every miscreant in the country to shoot him.
He camped that noon at Surveyor’s Well, to give his mules a good feed of grass, and as he sat out in 211the open the two ravens came by, but now he laughed at their croaks. Even if the eagles came by he would not lose his nerve again, for he was fighting against men that he knew. Pisen-face Lynch and his gang were no better than he was–they left a track and followed the trails–and after he had announced that his money was all banked they would have no inducement to kill him. The inducements, in fact, would be all the other way; because the man that killed him would be fully as foolish as the one that killed the goose for her egg. He alone was the repository of that great and golden secret, the whereabouts of the Sockdolager Mine; and if they killed him out of spite neither Eells nor any of his man-hunters would ever see the color of its ore.
Wunpost stretched his arms and laughed, but as he was saddling up his mules he saw a smoke, rising up from the mouth of Tank Canyon. It was not in the Canyon but high up on a point and he knew it was Manuel Apache. He was signaling across the Valley to his boss in the Panamints that he was in distress and needed help, but no answering smoke rose up from Tucki Mountain to show where Wunpost’s enemies lay hid. The Panamints stood out clean in the brilliant November light and each purple canyon seemed to invite him to its shelter, so sweetly did they lie in the sun. And yet, as that thin smoke bellied up and was smothered back again in the smoke-talk that the Apaches know so well, Wunpost wondered if its message was only a call for help–it might be a warning to Lynch. 212Or it might be a signal to still other Apaches who were watching his coming from the heights, and as Wunpost looked again his hand sought out the Indian’s scalp-lock and he regarded it almost regretfully.