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.

Why had he envenomed that ruthless savage by lifting his scalp-lock, the token of his warrior’s pride; when by treating him generously he might have won his good will and thus have one less enemy in the hills? Perhaps Wilhelmina had been right–it was to make good on a boast which might much better have never been uttered. He had bet her his mine and everything he had, a thing quite unnecessary to do; and then to make good he had deprived this Indian of his hair, which alone might put him back on his trail. He might get another horse and take up once more that relentless and murderous pursuit; and this time, like Lynch, he would be out for blood and not for the money there was in it.

Wunpost sighed and cinched his packs and hit out across the flats for the mouth of Emigrant Wash. But the thought that other Apaches might be in Lynch’s employ quite poisoned Wunpost’s flowing cup of happiness, and as he drew near the gap which led off to Emigrant Springs he stopped and looked up at the mountains. They were high, he knew, and his mules were tired, but something told him not to go through that gap. It was a narrow passageway through the hills, not forty feet wide, and all along its sides there were caves in the cliffs where a hundred men could hide. And why should 213Manuel Apache be making fancy smoke-talks if no one but white men were there? Why not make a straight smoke, the way a white man would, and let it go at that? Wunpost shook his head sagely and turned away from the gap–he had had enough excitement for that trip.

Bone Canyon, for which he headed, was still far away and the sun was getting low; but Wunpost knew, even if others did not, that there was a water-hole well up towards the summit. A cloudburst had sluiced the canyon from top to bottom and spread out a great fan of dirt; but in the earlier days an Indian trail had wound up it, passing by the hidden spring. And if he could water his mules there he could rim out up above and camp on a broad, level flat. Wunpost jogged along fast, for he had left the pony at Surveyor’s Well, and as he rode towards the canyon-mouth he kept his eyes on the ridges to guard against a possible surprise. For if Lynch and his Indians were watching from the gap they would notice his turning off to the left, and in that case a good runner might cut across to Bone Canyon before he could get through the pass. But the mountain side was empty and as the dusk was gathering he passed through the portals of Bone Canyon.

Like all desert canyons it boxed in at its mouth, opening out later in a broad valley behind; his road was the sand-wash, the path of the last cloudburst, now packed hard and set like stone. In the middle of the sand-wash a little channel had been dug by 214the last of the sluicing water; above the wash there rose another cut-bank where the cloudburst before it had taken out an even greater slice; and then on both sides there rose high bluffs of conglomerate which some father of all the cloudbursts had formed. Wunpost was riding in the lead now on his fast-walking mule, the two pack-animals following wearily along behind; in his nest on the front pack Good Luck was more than half sleeping, Wunpost himself was tempted to nod–and then, from the west bluff, there was a spit of fire and Wunpost found himself on the ground.

Across his breast and under his arm there was a streak that burned like fire, his mules were milling and bashing their packs; and as they turned both ways and ran he rolled over into the channel, with his rifle still clutched in one hand. Those days of steady practise had not been in vain, for as he went off his mule he had snatched at his saddle-gun and dragged it from its scabbard. And now he lay and waited, listening to the running of his mules and the frenzied barking of his dog; and it came to him vaguely that several shots had been fired, and some from the east bank of the wash. But the man who had hit him had fired from the west and Wunpost crept down the wash and looked up.

A trickle of blood was running down his left arm from the bullet wound which had just missed his heart, but his whole body was tingling with a strength which could move mountains and he was consumed with a passion for revenge. For the second 215time he had been ambushed and shot by this gang of cold-blooded murderers, and he had no doubt that their motive was the same as that to which the Indian had confessed. They had dogged his steps to kill him for his money–Pisen-face Lynch, or whoever it was–but their shooting was poor and as he rose beside a bush Wunpost took a chance from the east. The man he was looking for had shot from the west and he ran his eyes along the bluff.

Nothing stirred for a minute and then a round rock suddenly moved and altered its shape. He thrust out his rifle and drew down on it carefully, but the dusk put a blur on his sights. His foresight was beginning to loom, his hindsight was not clean, and he knew that would make him shoot high. He waited, all a-tremble, the sweat running off his face and mingling with the blood from his arm; and then the man rose up, head and shoulders against the sky, and he knew his would-be murderer was Lynch. Wunpost held his gun against the light until the sights were lined up fine, then swung back for a snap-shot at Lynch; and as the rifle belched and kicked he caught a flash of a tumbling form and clutching hands thrown up wildly against the sky. Then he stooped down and ran, helter-skelter down the wash, regardless of what might be in his way; and as he plunged around a curve he stampeded a pack-mule which had run that far and stopped.

It was the smallest of his mules, and the wildest as well, Old Walker and his mate having gone off up 216the canyon in a panic which would take them to the ranch; but it was a mule and, being packed, it could not run far down hill so Wunpost walked up on it and caught it. Far out in the open, where no enemy could slip up on him, he halted and made a saddle of the pack, and as he mounted to go he turned to Tucki Mountain and called down a curse on Lynch. Then he rode back down the trail that led to Death Valley, for the fear of the hills had come back.