“What–Tellurium?” faltered the boy going over to the mule and rubbing his nose regretfully, “he’s–he’s a pet; I’d rather not.”
“Aw come on now, I’ll pay you well–I’ll stake you the claim next to mine. That ought to be worth lots of money.”
“Nope,” returned Billy, “here’s a lunch I brought along. I guess I’ll be going home.”
He untied a sack of food from the back of his saddle and mounted as if to go, but the stranger took the mule by the bit.
“Now listen, kid,” he said. “Do you know who I am? Well, I’m John C. Calhoun, the man that discovered the Wunpost Mine and put Southern Nevada on the map. I’m no crazy man; I’m a prospector, as good as the best, if I am playing to a little hard luck. Yes sir, I located the Wunpost and started that first big rush–they came pouring into Keno by the thousands; but when I show ’em this rock there won’t be anybody left–they’ll come across Death Valley like a sandstorm. They’ll come pouring down that wash like a cloudburst in July and the whole doggoned country will be located. Don’t you want to be in on the strike? I’m giving you a chance, and you’ll never have another one like it. All I ask is this mule, and your canteen and the grub, and I’ll tell you what I’ll do–I’ll give you half my claim, and I’ll bet it’s worth millions, and I’ll bring back your mule to boot!”
“Oh, will you?” exclaimed the boy and was scrambling swiftly down when he stopped with one hand on the horn. “Does–does it make any difference if I’m a girl?” he asked with a break in his voice, and John C. Calhoun started back. He looked again and in the desert moonlight the boyish face seemed to soften and change. Tears sprang into the dark eyes and as she hung her head a curl fell across her breast.
“Hell–no!” he burst out hardly knowing what he said, “not as long as I get the mule.”
“Then write out that notice for Wilhelmina Campbell–I guess that’s my legal name.”
“It’s a right pretty name,” conceded Calhoun as he mounted, “but somehow I kinder liked Billy.”
CHAPTER II
THE GATEWAY OF DREAMS
Standing alone in the desert, with her face bared to the moonlight and her curls shaken free to the wind, Wilhelmina smiled softly as she gazed after the stranger who already had won her heart. His language had been crude when he thought she was a boy, but that only proved the perfection of her disguise; and when she had asked if it made any difference, and confessed that she was a girl, he had bridged over the gap like a flash. “Hell–no!” he had said, as men oftentimes do to express the heartiest accord; and then he had added, with the gallantry due a lady, that Wilhelmina was a right pretty name. And tomorrow, as soon as he had staked out his claim–their claim–he was coming back to the ranch!
She started back up the long wash that led down from Jail Canyon, still musing on his masterful ways, but as she rounded the lower point and saw a light in the house a sudden doubt assailed her. Tellurium was her mule, to give to whom she chose, but he was matched to pull with Bodie when they needed a team and her father might not approve. And what would she say when she met her mother’s eye and she questioned her about this strange man? Yet she knew as well as anything that he was going to make her rich–and tomorrow he would bring back the mule. All she needed was faith, and the patience to wait; and she took her scolding so meekly that her mother repented it and allowed her to sleep in the tunnel.
The Jail Canyon Ranch lay in a pocket among the hills, so shut in by high ridges and overhanging rimrock that it seemed like the bottom of a well; but where the point swung in that encircled the tiny farm a tunnel bored its way through the hill. It was the extension of a mine which in earlier days had gophered along the hillside after gold, but now that it was closed down and abandoned to the rats Wilhelmina had taken the tunnel for her own. It ran through the knife-blade ridge as straight as a die, and a trail led up to its mouth; and from the other side, where it broke out into the sun, there was a view of the outer world. Sitting within its cool portal she could look off across the Sink, to Blackwater and the Argus Range beyond; and by stepping outside she could see the whole valley, from South Pass to the Death Valley Trail.
It was from this tunnel that she had watched when Dusty Rhodes went past, a moving fleck of color plumed with dust; and when the sun sank low she had seen the form that followed, like a man yet not like a man. She had seen it rise and fall, disappear and loom up again; until at last in the twilight she had challenged it with a fire and the answer had led her to–him. She had found him–lost on the desert and about to die, big and strong yet dependent upon her aid–and when she had allowed her long curls to escape he had stood silent in the presence of her womanhood. She wanted to run back and sleep in her tunnel, where the air was always moving and cool; and then in the morning, when she looked to the north, she might see the first dust of his return. She might see his tall form, and the white sides of Tellurium as he took the shortest way home, and then she could run back and drag her mother to the portal and prove that her knight had been misjudged. For her mother had predicted that the prospector would not return, and that his mine was only a blind; but she, who had seen him and felt the clasp of his hand, she knew that he would never rob her. So she fled to her dream-house, where there was nothing to check her fancies, and slept in the tunnel-mouth till dawn.
The day came first in the west, galloping along the Argus Range and splashing its peaks with red; and then as the sun ascended it found gaps in the eastern rim and laid long bands of light across the Sink. It rose up higher and, as the desert stood forth bare, the dweller in the dream-house stepped out through its portals and gazed long at the Death Valley Trail. From the far north pass, where it came down from Wild Rose, to where Blackwater sent up its thin smoke, the trail crept like a serpent among the sandhills and washes, a long tenuous line through the Sink. Where the ground was white the trail stood out darker, and where it crossed the sun-burnt mesas it was white; but from one end to the other it was vacant and nothing emerged from north pass. Billy sighed and turned away, but when she came back there was a streak of dust to the south.
It came tearing along the trail from Blackwater, struck up by a galloping horseman, and at the spot where she had found the lost man the night before the flying rider stopped. He rode about in circles, started north and came dashing back; and at last, still galloping, he turned up the wash and headed for the mouth of Jail Canyon. He was some searcher who had found her tracks in the sand, and the tracks of Tellurium going on; and, rather than follow the long trail to Wild Rose Springs, he was coming to interview her. Billy ran down to meet him with long, rangey strides, and at the point of the hill she stood waiting expectantly, for visitors were rare at the ranch. Three restless lonely weeks had dragged away without bringing a single wanderer to their doors; and now here was a second man, fully as exciting as the first, because he was coming up there to see her. Billy tucked up her curls beneath the brim of her man’s hat as she watched the laboring horse, but when she made out who it was that was coming she gave up all thought of disguise.
“Hello, Dusty!” she called running gayly down to meet him, “are you looking for Mr. Calhoun?”
“Oh, it’s Mister, is it?” he yelled. “Well, have you seen the danged whelp? Whoo, boy–where is he, Billy?”
“He went back!” she cried, “I lent him my mule. He told me he’d made a rich strike!”
“A rich strike!” repeated the man and then he laughed and spurred his drooping mount. He was tall and bony with a thin, hawk nose and eyes sunk deep into his head. “A rich strike, eh?” he mimicked, and then he laughed again, until suddenly his face came straight. “What’s that you said?” he shouted, “you didn’t lend him your mule! Well, I’m afraid, my little girl, you’ve made a mistake–that feller is a regular horse-thief. Is your mother up to the house? We’ll go up and see her–I’m afraid he’s gone and stole your mule!”
“Oh, no he hasn’t,” protested Billy confidently, running along the trail beside him, “he went back to stake out his claim. He found some rich ore