Wunpost Part 17

CHAPTER XXI

A LOCK OF HAIR

It is no disgrace to flee the unknown, for Nature has made that an instinct; but the will to overcome conquers even this last of fears and steels a man's nerves to face anything. The heroes of antiquity set their lances against dragons and creatures that belched forth flame and smoke--brave Perseus slew the Gorgon, and Jason the bra.s.s-hooved bulls, and St. George and many another slew his "worm." But the dragons are all dead or driven to the depths of the sea, whence they rise up to chill men's blood; and those who conquer now fight only their memory, pa.s.sed down in our fear of the unknown. And Perseus and Jason had G.o.ds and sorceresses to protect them, but Wunpost turned back alone.

He entered Tank Canyon just as the sun sank in the west; and there at its entrance he found horse-tracks, showing dimly among the rocks. His enemy had been there, a day or two before, but he too had feared the unknown. He had gazed into that narrow pa.s.sageway and turned away, to wait at Surveyor's Well for his coming. And Wunpost had come, but the eagles had saved him to give battle once more on his own ground. Tank Canyon was his stronghold, inaccessible from behind, cut off from the sides by high walls; and the evil one who pursued him must now brave its dark depths or play an Indian game and wait.

Wunpost threw off his packs and left his mules to fret while he ran back to plant the huge traps. They were not the largest size that would break a man's leg, but yet large enough to hold their victim firm against all the force he could exert. Their jaws spread a good foot and two powerful springs lurked beneath to give them a jump; and once the blow was struck nothing could pry those teeth apart but the clamps, which were operated by screws. A man caught in such a trap would be doomed to certain death if no one came to his aid and Wunpost's lips curled ferociously as he rose up from his knees and regarded his cunning handiwork. His traps were set not far apart, in the two holes he had dug before, and covered with the greatest care; but one was in the trail, where a man would naturally step, and the other was out in the rocks. A bush, pulled carelessly down, stuck out from the bank like a fragile but compelling hand; and Wunpost knew that the prowler would step around it by instinct, which would throw him into the trap.

The night was black in Tank Canyon and only a pathway of stars showed the edge of the boxed-in walls; it was black and very silent, for not a mouse was abroad, and yet Wunpost and his dog could not sleep. A dozen times before midnight Good Luck leapt up growling and bestrode his master's form, and at last he rushed out barking, his voice rising to a yell as he paused and listened through the silence. Wunpost lay in bed and waited, then rose cautiously up and peered from the mouth of the cave. A pale moon was s.h.i.+ning on the jagged rocks above and there was a grayness that foretold the dawn, but the bottom of Tank Canyon was still dark as a pocket and he went back to wait for the day. Good Luck came back whining, and a growl rumbled in his throat--then he leapt up again and Wunpost felt his own hair rise, for a wail had come through the night. He slapped Good Luck into silence and listened again--and it came, a wild, animal-like cry. Yet it was the voice of a man and Wunpost sprang to his feet all a-tremble to gaze on his catch.

"I've got him!" he chuckled and drew on his boots; then tied up the dog and slipped out into the night.

The dawn had come when he rose up from behind a boulder and strained his eyes in the uncertain light, and where the trap had been there was now a rocking form which let out hoa.r.s.e grunts of pain. It rose up suddenly and as the head came in view Wunpost saw that his pursuer was an Indian.

His hair was long and cut off straight above the shoulders in the old-time Indian silhouette; but this buck was no Shoshone, for they have given up the breech-clout and he wore a cloth about his hips.

"H'lo!" he hailed and Wunpost ducked back for he did not trust his guest. He was the man, beyond a doubt, who had shot him from the ridge; and such a man would shoot again. So he dropped down and lay silent, listening to the rattle of the huge chain and the vicious clash of the trap, and the Indian burst out scolding.

"Wha.s.sa mala!" he gritted, "my foot get caught in trap. You come fixum--fixum quick!"

Wunpost rose up slowly and peered out through a crack and he caught the gleam of a gun.

"You throw away that gun!" he returned from behind the boulder and at last he heard it clatter among the rocks. "Now your pistol!" he ordered, but the Indian burst out angrily in his guttural native tongue. What he said could only be guessed from his scolding tone of voice; but after a sullen pause he dropped back into English, this time complaining and insolently defiant.

"You shut up!" commanded Wunpost suddenly rising above his rock and covering the Indian with his gun, "and throw away that pistol or I'll kill you!"

The Indian reared up and faced him, then reached inside his waistband and threw a wicked gun into the dirt. He was grinding his teeth with pain, like a gopher in a trap, and his brows were drawn down in a fierce scowl; but Wunpost only laughed as he advanced upon him slowly, his gun held ready to shoot.

"Don't like it, eh?" he taunted, "well, I didn't like _this_ when you up and shot me through the leg."

He slapped his leg and the Indian seemed to understand--or perhaps he misunderstood; his hand leapt like a flash to a butcher knife in his moccasin-leg and Wunpost jumped as it went past his ribs. Then a silence fell, in which the fate of a human life hung on the remnant of what some people call pity, and Wunpost's trigger-finger relaxed. But it was not pity, it was just an age-old feeling against shooting a man in a trap.

Or perhaps it was pride and the white man's instinct not to foul his clean hands with butcher's blood. Wunpost wanted to kill him but he stepped back instead and looked him in the eye.

"You rattlesnake-eyed dastard!" he hissed between his teeth and the Indian began to beg. Wunpost listened to him coldly, his eyes bulging with rage, and then he backed off and sat down.

"Who you working for?" he asked and as the Indian turned glum he rolled a cigarette and waited. The jaws of the steel-trap had caught him by the heel, stabbing their teeth through into the flesh, and in spite of his stoicism the Indian rocked back and forth and his little eyes glinted with the agony. Yet he would not talk and Wunpost went off and left him, after gathering up his guns and the knife. There was something about that butcher-knife and the way it was flung which roused all the evil in Wunpost's heart and he meditated darkly whether to let the Indian go or give him his just deserts. But first he intended to wring a confession from him, and he left him to rattle his chain.

Wunpost cooked a hasty breakfast and fed and saddled his mules and then, as the Indian began to shout for help, he walked down and glanced at him inquiringly.

"You let me go!" ordered the Indian, drawing himself up arrogantly and shaking the coa.r.s.e hair from his eyes, and Wunpost laughed disdainfully.

"Who are you?" he demanded, "and what you doing over here? I know them buckskin _tewas_--you're an Apache!"

"_Si_--Apache!" agreed the Indian. "I come over here--hunt sheep.

What for you settum trap?"

"Settum trap--ketch you," answered Wunpost succinctly. "You bad Injun--maybeso I kill you. Who hired you to come over here and kill me?"

Again the sullen silence, the stubborn turn of the head, the suffering compression of the lips; and Wunpost went back to his camp. The Indian was an Apache, he had known it from the start by his _tewas_ and the cut of his hair; for no Indian in California wears high-topped buckskin moccasins with a little canoe-prow on the toe. That was a mountain-Apache device, that little disc of rawhide, to protect the wearer's toes from rocks and cactus, and someone had imported this buck.

Of course, it was Lynch but it was different to make him _say_ so--but Wunpost knew how an Apache would go about it. He would light a little fire under his fellow-man and see if that wouldn't help. However there are ways which answer just as well, and Wunpost packed and mounted and rode down past the trap. Or at least he tried to, but his mules were so frightened that it took all his strength to haze them past. As for Good Luck, he flew at the Indian in a fury of barking and was nearly struck dead by a rock. The Apache was fighting mad, until Wunpost came back and tamed him; and then Wunpost spoke straight out.

"Here, you!" he said, "you savvy coyote? You want him come eat you up?

Well, _talk_ then, you dastard; or I'll go off and leave you. Come through now--who brought you over here?"

The Apache looked up at him from under his banged hair and his evil eyes roved fearfully about.

"Big fat man," he lied and Wunpost smiled grimly--he would tell this later to Eells.

"Nope," he said and shook his head warningly at which the Indian seemed to meditate his plight.

"Big tall man," he amended and Wunpost nodded.

"Sure," he said. "What name you callum?"

"Callum Lynchie," admitted the Apache with a sickly grin, "she come San Carlos--busca scout."

"Oh, _busca_ scout, eh?" repeated Wunpost. "What for wantum scout?

Plenty Shooshonnie scout, over here."

"Hah! Shooshonnie no good!" spat the Apache contemptuously. "Me _scout_--me work for Government! Injun scout--you savvy? Follow tracks for soldier. Me Manuel Apache--big chief!"

"Yes, big chief!" scoffed Wunpost, "but you ain't no scout, Manuel, or you wouldn't be caught here in this trap. Now listen, Mr. Injun--you want to go home? You want to go see your squaw? Well, s'pose I let you loose, what you think you're going to do--follow me up and shoot me for Lynch?"

"No! No shootum for Lynchie!" denied the Apache vigorously.

"Lynchie--she say, _busca_ mine! _Busca_ gol' mine, savvy--but 'nother man she say, you ketchum plenty money--in pants."

"O-ho!" exclaimed Wunpost as the idea suddenly dawned on him and once more he experienced a twinge of regret. This time it was for the occasion when he had shown scornful Blackwater that seven thousand dollars in bills. And he had with him now--in his pants, as the Indian said--no less than thirty thousand dollars in one roll. And all because he had lost his faith in banks.

"You shoot me--get money?" he inquired, slapping his leg; and Manuel Apache grinned guiltily. He was caught now, and ashamed, but not of attempting murder--he was ashamed of having been caught.

"Trap hurt!" he complained, drawing up his wrinkled face and rattling his chain impatiently, and Wunpost nodded gravely.

"All right," he said, "I'll turn you loose. A man that will flash his roll like I did in Blackwater--he _deserves_ to get shot in the leg."

He took his rope from the saddle and noosed the Indian about both arms, after which he stretched him out as he would a fighting wildcat and loosened the springs with his clamps.

"What you do?" he inquired, "if I let you go?"

"Go home!" snarled Manuel, "Lynchie no good--me no lik.u.m. 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.