Wunpost camped that evening at Surveyor's Well, a trench-hole dug down
into the Sink, and after his mules had eaten their fill of salt-grass he
packed up again and pushed on to the east. From the stinking alkali flat
with its mesquite clumps and sacaton, he passed on up an interminable
wash; and at daylight he was hidden in the depths of a black canyon
which ended abruptly behind him. There was no way to reach him, or even
see where he was hid, except by following up the canyon; and before he
went to sleep Wunpost got out his two bear-traps and planted them
hurriedly in the trail. Then, retiring into a cave, he left Good Luck on
guard and slept until late in the day. But nothing stirred down the
trail, his watch-dog was silent--he was hidden from all the world.
That evening just at dusk he went back down the trail and set his bear
traps again, but not even a prowling fox came along in the night to
spring their cruel jaws. The canyon was deserted and the water-hole
where he drank was unvisited except by his mules. These he had penned in
above him by a fence of brush and ropes and hobbled them to make doubly
sure; but in the morning they were there, waiting to receive their bait
of grain as if Tank Canyon was their customary home. Another day dragged
by and Wunpost began to fidget and to watch the unscalable peaks, but no
Indian's head appeared to draw a slug from his rifle and again the night
passed uneventfully. He spent the third day in a fury, pacing up and
down his cave, and at nightfall he packed up and was gone.
Three days was enough to wait on the man who had shot him down from the
heights and, now that he thought of it, he was taking a great deal for
granted when he set his big traps in the trail. In the first place, he
was assuming that the man was still there, after a lapse of six weeks
and more; and in the second place that he was bold enough, or so
obsessed by blood-lust, that he would follow him across Death Valley;
whereas as a matter of fact, he knew nothing whatever about him except
that he had shot him in the leg. His aim had been good but a little too
low, which is unusual when shooting down hill, and that might argue him
a white man; but his hiding had been better, and his absolute patience,
and that looked more like an Indian. But whoever he was, it was taking
too much for granted to think that he would walk into a trap. What
Wunpost wanted to know, and what he was about to find out, was whether
his tracks had been followed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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