“─because you don’t need to think I’m a squaw. We may be poor, but you can’t buy me–and my father doesn’t need to keep watch of me. I guess 241 I’ve been brought up to act like a lady, if I did–oh, I just hate the sight of you!”
She ended a little weakly, for the memory of that kiss made her blush and hang her head; but Wunpost had been trained to match hate with a hate, and he reared up his mane and stepped back.
“Aw, who said you were a squaw?” he retorted arrogantly. “But you might as well be, by grab! Only old Hungry Bill takes his girls down to town, but you never git to go nowhere.”
“I don’t want to go!” she cried in a passion. “I want to stay here and help all I can. But all you talk about now is how much money you’ve got, as if nothing else in the world ever counts.”
“Well, forget it!” grumbled Wunpost, swinging up on his mule and starting off up the canyon. “I’ll go off and give you a rest. And maybe them girls in Los Angeles won’t treat me quite so high-headed.”
“I don’t care,” began Wilhelmina–but she did, and so she stopped. And then the old plan, conceived æons ago, rose up and took possession of her mind. She followed along behind him, and already in her thoughts she was the owner of the Sockdolager Mine. She held it for herself, without recognizing his claims or any that Eells might bring; and while she dug out the gold and shoveled it into sacks they stood by and looked on enviously. But when her mules were loaded she took the gold away and gave it to her father for his road.
“I don’t care!” she repeated, and she meant it.
242CHAPTER XXVI
THE FINE PRINT
A week passed by, and Wilhelmina rode into Blackwater and mailed a letter to the County Recorder; and a week later she came back, to receive a letter in return and to buy at the store with gold. And then the big news broke–the Sockdolager had been found–and there was a stampede that went clear to the peaks. Blackwater was abandoned, and swarming again the next day with the second wave of stampeders; and the day after that John C. Calhoun piled out of the stage and demanded to see Wilhelmina. He hardly knew her at first, for she had bought a new dress; and she sat in an office up over the bank, talking business with several important persons.