Silver and Gold: A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp

A new spirit, a strange gladness, had come over Drusilla and parts which had been difficult became suddenly easy when she took up her work the next day; but when she walked out in the cool of the evening the sombrero and boy’s boots were gone. She wore a trailing robe, such as great ladies wear when they go to keep a tryst with knightly lovers, and she went up the trail to where Denver was working on the last of her father’s claims. He was up on the high cliff, busily tamping the powder that was to blast out the side of the hill, and she waited patiently until he had fired it and come down the slope with his tools.

“That makes four,” he said, “and I’m all out of powder.” But she only answered with a smile.

“I’ll have to wait, now,” he went on bluffly, “until McGraw comes up again, before I can do any more work.”

“Yes,” she answered and smiled again; a slow, expectant smile.

“You can rest a few days, then,” she suggested softly, “I’d like to hear some of your records.”

“Yes–sure, sure,” he burst out hastily and they walked down the trail together. She went on ahead with the quick step of a dancer and Denver looked up at an eagle in the sky, as if in some way it could understand. But the eagle soared on, without effort and without ceasing, and Denver could only be glad. In some way, far beyond him, she had divined his love; but it was not to be spoken of–now. That would spoil it all, the days of sweet communion, the pretence that nothing had changed; yet they knew it had changed and in the sharing of that great secret lay the tie that should bind them together. Denver looked from the eagle to the glorious woman and remembered the prophecy again. Even yet he must beware, he must veil every glance, treat her still like a simple country child; for the seeress had warned him that his fate hung in the balance and she might still confer her hand upon another.

A week passed like a day, full of dreams and half-uttered confidences and long, contented silences; and then, as they sat in the shade of the giant sycamore Denver let his eyes that had been fixed upon Drusilla, stray and sweep the lower road.

“What are you looking for now?” she demanded impatiently and he turned back with a guilty grin.

“Will you go back to work?” she asked at last and he nodded and stretched his great arms.

“Back to work!” he repeated, “and I guess it’s about time. I wonder how much credit Murray gave me?”

Drusilla said nothing. She was looking far away and wondering at the thing we call life.

“Why do you work so hard?” she inquired, half complainingly. “Is that all there is in the world?”

“No, lots of other things,” he answered carelessly, “but work is the only way to get them. I’m on my way, see? I’ve just begun. You wait till I open up that mine!”

“Then what will you do?” she murmured pensively, “go ahead and open up another mine?”

“Well, I might,” he admitted. “Don’t you remember that other treasure? There’s a gold-mine around here, somewhere.”

“Oh, is that all you think about?” she protested with a smile. “There are lots of other treasures, you know.”

“Yes, but this one was prophesied,” returned Denver doggedly. “I’m bound to find it, now.”

“But Denver,” she insisted, “don’t you see what I mean? These fortune-tellers never tell you, straight out. Yours said, ‘a golden treasure,’ but that doesn’t mean a gold mine. There are other treasures, besides.”

“Well,” she said at length, “there are opals, for one. They are beautiful, and look like golden fire. Or it might be a rare old violin that would bring back your music again. I saw one once that was golden yellow–wouldn’t you like to play while I sing? But if you spend all your life trying to grub out more riches you will lose your appreciation of art.”

“Yes, but wait,” persisted Denver, “I’m just getting started. I haven’t got a dollar to my name. If Murray don’t send me the supplies that I ordered I’ll have to go to work for my grub. The jewels can wait, and the yellow violins, but I know that she meant a mine. It would have to be a mine or I couldn’t choose between them–and when I make my stake I’m going to buy out the Professor and see what he’s got underground. Of course, it’s only a stringer now but─”

“Oh dear,” sighed Drusilla and then she rose up, but she did not go away. “Aren’t you glad,” she asked, “that we’ve had this week together? I suppose I’m going to miss you, now. That’s the trouble with being a woman–we get to be so dependent. Can I play over your records, sometimes?”

“Sure,” said Denver, “say, I’m going up there now to see if McGraw isn’t in sight. Would you like to come along too? We can sit outside in the shade and watch for his dust, down the road.”

They clambered up together over the ancient, cliff-dwellers’ trail, where each foothold was worn deep in the rock; but as they sat within the shadow of the beetling cliff Drusilla sighed again.

“Do you think?” she asked, “that there will be a great rush when they hear about your strike down in Moroni? Because then I’ll have to go–I can’t practice the way I have been with the whole town filled up with miners. And everything will be changed–I’d almost rather it wouldn’t happen, and have things the way they are now. Of course I’ll be glad for father’s sake, because he’s awfully worried about money; but sometimes I think we’re happier the way we are than we will be when we’re all of us rich. What will be the first thing you’ll do?”

“Isn’t it wonderful,” murmured Drusilla, “and to think it all happened just from having your fortune told! I’m going over to Globe before I start back East and get her to tell my fortune, too; but of course it can’t be as wonderful as yours–you must have been just born lucky.”

“Well, maybe I was,” said Denver with a shrug, “but it isn’t all over yet–I still stand a chance to lose. And she told me some other things that are not so pleasant–sometimes I wish I’d never gone near her.”

“Oh, what are they?” she asked in a hushed eager voice; but Denver ignored the question. Never, not even to his dearest friend, would he tell the forecasting of his death; and as for dearest friends, if he ever had another pardner he could never trust him a minute. The chance slipping of a pick, a missed stroke with a hammer, any one of a thousand trivial accidents, and the words of the prophecy would come to pass–he would be killed before his time. But if he favored one man no more than another, if he avoided his former pardners and friends, then he might live to be one of the biggest mining men in the country and to win Drusilla for his wife.

“Oh, did she tell you something?” cried Drusilla apprehensively. “Do tell me what it was! I won’t breathe it to a soul; and if you could share it with some friend, don’t you think it would ease your mind?”

Denver looked at her slowly, then he turned away and shook his head in refusal.

“Oh, Denver!” she exclaimed as she sensed the significance of it, and before he knew it she was patting his work-hardened hand. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but if ever I can help you I want you to let me know. Would it help to have me for a friend?”

“A friend!” he repeated, and then he drew back and the horror came into his eyes. She was his friend already, the dearest friend he had–was she destined then to kill him?

He rose up hastily and held out his hand to help her but she refused to accept his aid. Her lips were trembling, there were tears in her eyes and her breast was beginning to heave; but there was no explanation he could give. He wanted her, yes, but not as a friend–as his beloved, his betrothed, his wife! By any name, but not by the name of friend. He drew away slowly as her head bowed to her knees; and at last he left her, weeping. It was best, after all, for how could he comfort her? And he could see McGraw’s dust down the road.

“I’m going to meet McGraw!” he called back from the steps and went bounding off down the trail.

McGraw, the freighter, was a huge, silent man from whom long years on the desert had almost taken the desire for speech. He came jangling up the road, his wagons grinding and banging, his horses straining wearily in their collars; and as Denver ran to meet him he threw on the brakes and sat blinking solemnly at his inquisitor.

“Where’s my powder?” demanded Denver looking over the load, “and say, didn’t you bring that coal? I don’t see that steel I ordered, either!”

“No,” said McGraw and then, after a silence: “Murray wouldn’t receive your ore.”

“Wouldn’t receive it!” yelled Denver, “why, what was the matter with it–did the sacks get broke going down?”

“No,” answered McGraw, “the sacks were all right. He said the ore was no good.”

“Like hell!” scoffed Denver, “that ore that I sent him? It would run a thousand ounces to the ton!”

McGraw wrinkled his brows and looked up at the sun.

“Well,” he said, “I guess I’ll be going.”

“Nope,” answered McGraw, “he wouldn’t give me nawthin’. He said the ore was no good. Come, boys!” And he threw off the brakes with a bang.

The chains tightened with a jerk, the wheelers set their feet; then the lead wagon heaved forward, the trail-wagon followed and Denver was alone on the road. His brain was in a whirl, he had lost all volition, even the will to control his wild thoughts; until suddenly he burst out in a fit of cursing–of Murray, of McGraw, of everything. McGraw had been a fool, he should have demanded the supplies anyway; and Murray was just trying to job him. He knew he was broke and had not had the ore assayed, and he was taking advantage of the fact. He had refused the ore in order to leave him flat and compel him to abandon his mine; and then he, Murray, would slip over with his gun-man and take possession himself. Denver struck his leg and looked up and down the road, and then he started off for Moroni.

The sun rose up higher, the heat waves began to shimmer and the landscape to blur before his eyes; and then an automobile came thundering up behind him and halted on the flat.

“Get in!” called the driver throwing the door open hospitably; and in an hour’s time Denver was set down in Moroni, but with the fever still hot in his brain. His first frenzy had left him, and the heat madness of the desert with its insidious promptings to violence; but the sense of injustice still rankled deep and he headed for Murray’s store. It was a huge, brick building crowded from basement to roof with groceries and general merchandise. Busy clerks hustled about, waiting on Mexicans and Indians and slow-moving, valley ranchers; and as Denver walked in there was a man there to meet him and direct him to any department. It showed that Bible-Back was efficient, at least.

Denver leapt up on the platform and cut open a sack, but as he was pouring a generous sample of the ore into his handkerchief a man stepped out of the next warehouse.

“Hey!” he called, “what are you doing, over there? You get down and leave that ore alone!”

“Go to hell!” returned Denver, tying a knot in his handkerchief, and the man came over on the run.

“Say!” he threatened, “you put that ore back or you’ll find yourself in serious trouble.”

“Oh, I will, hey?” replied Denver with his most tantalizing smile. “Whose ore do you think this is, anyway?”

“It belongs to Mr. Murray, and you’d better put it back or I’ll report the matter at once.”

“There’s Mr. Murray, now,” exclaimed the man and as Denver looked up he saw a yellow automobile churning rapidly along through the dust. Murray himself was at the wheel and, sitting beside him, was another man equally familiar–it was Dave, his hired gun-man.

“What are you doing here, Mr. Russell?” demanded Murray with asperity and Denver became suddenly calm. Old Murray had been hiding from him, but they had summoned him by telephone, and he had brought along Dave for protection. But that should not keep him from having his way and forcing Murray to a show-down.

“I just came down for a sample of that ore I sent you,” answered Denver with a sarcastic grin. “McGraw said you claimed it was no good, so I thought I’d have it assayed.”

“Oh,” observed Murray and for a minute he sat silent while Dave and Denver exchanged glances. The gun-man was slight and insignificant looking, with small features and high, boney cheeks; but there was a smouldering hate in his deep-set eyes which argued him in no mood for a jest, so Denver looked him over and said nothing.

“Oh, that’s the racket, eh?” suggested Denver. “You’ve got your good eye on my mine. Well, I’d just like to tell you─”

“No, I haven’t,” snapped back Murray, his voice harsh and strident, “I wouldn’t accept your mine as a gift. Your silver is practically worthless and there’s no copper in the district; as I know all too well, to my sorrow. I’ve lost twenty thousand dollars on better ground than yours and ordered the whole camp closed down–that shows how much I want your mine.”

He started his engine and glided on to the warehouse and Denver stood staring down the road. Then he raised his sample, tied up in his handkerchief, and slammed it into the dirt. His mine was valueless unless he had money, and Murray had abandoned the district. More than ever Denver realized how much it had meant to him, merely to have that diamond drilling running and a big man like Murray behind it. It was indicative of big values and great expectations; but now, with Murray out of the running, the district was absolutely dead. There was no longer the chance of a big copper strike, such as had been rumored repeatedly for weeks, to bring on a stampede and make every claim in the district worth thousands of dollars as a gamble.

The swift hand of fate, which had hurled Denver from the heights into the depths of dark despair, suddenly snatched him up out of the abyss again and whisked him back to Globe. When he walked out of Moroni his mind was a blank, so overcome was his body with heat and toil and the astounding turns of his fortune; but at the next station below, as he was trying to steal a ride, a man had dropped off the train and dragged him, willy nilly, into his Pullman. It was a mining superintendent who had seen him in action when he was timbering the Last Chance stope, and in spite of his protests he paid his fare to Globe and put him to work down a shaft.

Upon that point, at least, Denver suffered no delusion; he knew that his downfall had been planned from the first and that he had bit like a sucker at the bait. Murray had dropped a few words and spit on the hook and Denver had shipped him his ore. The rest, of course, was like shooting fish in the Pan-handle–he had refused to buy the ore, leaving Denver belly-up, to float away with other human débris. But there was one thing yet that he could not understand–why had Murray closed down his own mine? That was pulling it pretty strong, just to freeze out a little prospector and rob him of a ton or two of ore; and yet Denver had proof that it was true. He had staked a hobo who had come over the trail and the hobo had told him what he knew. The diamond drill camp was closed down and all the men had left, but the guard was still herding the property. And the hobo had seen a girl at Pinal. She was easy to look at but hard to talk to, so he had passed and hit the trail for Globe.

It was all wrong, all foolish–he dismissed it from his mind as unworthy of a thinking man–yet the words of the prophecy popped up in his head like the memories of some evil dream. His hopes of sudden riches were blasted forever, he had given up the thought of Drusilla; but the one sinister line recurred to him constantly–“at the hands of your dearest friend.” Never before in his life had he been without a pardner, to share his ramblings and adventures, but now in that black hole with the steel rails coming down and death on every hand, superstition overmastered him and he rebuffed the hardy Cornishmen, refusing to take any man for his friend. Nor would he return to Mother Trigedgo’s boarding house, for her prophecies had ruined his life.

It was early in the morning when he rode out of Globe and took the trail over the divide; and as he spurred up a hill he overtook another horseman who looked back and grinned at him wisely.

“Going to the strike?” he asked and Denver’s heart leapt, though he kept his quirt and spurs working.

“What strike?” he said and the man burst into a laugh as if sensing a hidden jest.

“That’s all right,” he answered, “I guess you’re hep–they say it runs forty per cent copper.”

“You’re whistling,” returned the man, quite off his guard. “Say, stake me a claim when you get there, if old Bible-Back hasn’t jumped them all.”

“Say, what are you talking about?” demanded Denver, suddenly reining in his horse. “Is Murray jumping claims?”

“Never mind!” replied the man, shutting up like a clam, and Denver spurred on and left him.

There was a strike then in Pinal, Old Murray had tapped the vein and it ran up to forty per cent copper! That would make the claim that Denver had abandoned the week before worth thousands and thousands of dollars. It would make him rich and Bunker Hill rich and–yes, it would prove the prophecy! He had chosen the silver treasure and the gold treasure had been added to it–for the copper ore which had come in later was almost the color of gold. As old Bunk had said, all these prophecies were symbolical, and he had done Mother Trigedgo an injustice. And there was one claim that he knew of–yes, and four others, too–that Murray would never jump. That was his own Silver Treasure and the four claims of Bunker’s that he had done the annual work on himself.

But as Denver came opposite his mine a sinister thing happened–a head rose up against the black darkness of the tunnel and a man looked stealthily out. Then he drew back his head like some snake in a hole and Denver stopped and stared. A low wall of rocks had been built across the cut and the man was crouching behind it–Denver jogged down and turned up the trail. A glimpse at Pinal showed the streets full of automobiles and a huddle of men by the store door, and as he rode up towards his mine Bunker Hill came running out and beckoned him frantically back.

“Hello, there!” he hailed, reining in before the tunnel; and after a minute the man rose up with his pistol poised over his shoulder. It was Dave, Murray’s gun-man, and at sight of his enemy Denver was swept with a gust of passion. From the moment he had first met him, this narrow-eyed, sneering bad-man had roused all the hate that was in him; but now it had gone beyond instinct. He found him in adverse possession of his property and with a gun raised ready to shoot.

“What are you doing here?” demanded Denver insolently but Chatwourth did not move. He stood like a statue, his gun balanced in the air, a thin, evil smile on his lips, and Denver gave way to his fury. “You get out of there!” he ordered. “Get off my property! Get off or I’ll put you off!”

Chatwourth twirled his gun in a contemptuous gesture; and then, like a flash, he was shooting. He threw his shots low, between the legs of the horse, which reared and whirled in a panic; and with the bang of the heavy gun in his ears, Denver found himself headed down the trail. A high derisive yell, a whoop of hectoring laughter, followed after him as he galloped into the open; and he was fighting his horse in a cloud of dust when Bunker Hill and the crowd came up.

“Did he hit ye?” yelled Bunker when Denver had conquered his pitching horse and set him back on his haunches. “Hell’s bells, boy, I told you to stay out of there!”

“Well, you lend me a gun!” shouted Denver in a fury, “and I’ll go back and shoot it out with that dastard! It’s him or me–that’s all!”

“Here’s a gun, pardner,” volunteered a long-bearded prospector handing up a six-shooter with tremulous eagerness; but Bunker Hill struck the long pistol away and took Denver’s horse by the bit.

“Not by a jugful, old-timer,” he said to the prospector. “Do you want to get the kid killed? Come on back to the meeting and we’ll frame up something on these jumpers that’ll make ’em hunt their holes. But this boy here is my friend, understand?”

He held the prancing horse, which had been spattered with glancing lead, until Denver swung down out of the saddle; and then, while the crowd followed along at their heels, he led the way back to the store.

“Danged right,” answered Bunker, “he made a strike last month–and now he has jumped all our claims. Or at least, it’s his men, because Dave there’s the leader; but Murray claims they’re working for themselves. He’s over at his camp with a big gang of miners, driving a tunnel in to tap the deposit–it run forty per cent pure copper.”

“Well, we’re made then,” exulted Denver, “if we can get back our claims. Come on, let’s run these jumpers off!”

“Yes, that’s what I said, a few hours ago,” grumbled Bunker biting savagely at his mustache, “and I never was so hacked in my life. We went up to this Dave and all pulled our guns and ordered him out of the district, and I’m a dadburned Mexican if he didn’t pull his gun and run the whole bunch of us away. He’s nervy, there’s no use talking; and I promised Mrs. Hill that I’d keep out of these shooting affrays. By grab, it was downright disgraceful!”

“That’s all right,” returned Denver, “he don’t look bad to me. You just lend me a gun and─”

“He’ll kill ye!” warned Bunker, “I know by his eye. He’s a killer if ever there was one. So don’t go up against him unless you mean business, because you can’t run no blazer on him!”

“That’s it,” explained Bunker, “we were having a meeting when we seen you horn in on Dave. These gentlemen are all men that have held their ground for years and it don’t seem right they should lose it. At the same time it’ll take something more than a slap on the wrist to make these blasted jumpers let go. They’ve staked all the good claims and are up doing the work on them and the question is–what can we do?”

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” spoke up the old prospector vindictively as the crowd surged into the store, “I’ll get up on the Leap and shoot down on them jumpers until I chase the last one of ’em off. They can’t run no rannikaboo on me!”

From his seat in the corner Denver listened apathetically as the miners argued and wrangled, and the longer they talked the more it became apparent that nothing was going to be done. The encounter with Dave had cooled their courage, and more and more the sentiment began to lean towards an appeal to the power of the law. But then it came out that the law was an instrument which might operate as a two-edged sword; for possession, and diligence in working the claim, are the two big points in mining law and just at that moment a legal decision would be all in favor of the jumpers. And if Murray was behind them, as all the circumstances seemed to indicate, he would hire the most expensive lawyers in the country and fight the case to a finish. No, if anything was to be done they must find out some other way, or they would be playing right into his hands.

“I’ll tell you,” proposed Bunker as the talk swung back to action, “let’s go back unarmed and talk to Dave again and find out what he thinks he’s doing. He can’t hold Denver’s claim, and those claims of mine, because the work has just been done; and then, if we can talk him into vacating our ground, maybe these other jaspers will quit.”

“I’ll go you!” said Denver rising up impatiently, “and if he won’t vacate my claim I’ll try some other means and see if we can’t persuade him.”

“Never mind what you’d do if you had the nerve,” broke in Bunker Hill sarcastically. “Just because you’ve got a claim that you’d like to get back is no reason for stirring up trouble. No, I’m willing to go ahead and do all the talking; but I want you to understand–this is peaceable.”

“Well, all right,” agreed the miners and, laying aside their pistols, they started up the street for Denver’s mine; but as Bunker led off a voice called from the porch and his wife came hurrying after him. Behind her followed Drusilla, reluctantly at first; but as her father kept on, despite the entreaties of her mother, she ran up and caught him by the sleeve.

“No, don’t go, father!” she cried appealingly and as Bunker replied with an evasive laugh she turned her anger upon Denver.

“Why don’t you get back your own mine?” she demanded, “instead of dragging my father into it?”

“Never mind, now,” protested Bunker, “we ain’t going to have no trouble–we just want to have a friendly talk. This has nothing to do with Denver or his mine–all we want is a few words with Dave.”

“He’ll shoot you!” she insisted. “Oh, I just know something will happen. Well, all right, then; I’m going along too!”

“No, I’m going to stay right here,” she answered stubbornly, giving Denver a hateful glance, “because I don’t believe a word you say.”

“Ve-ry well, my dear,” responded Bunker indulgently and took her under his arm.

“I’m going ahead!” she burst out quickly as they came to the turn in the trail; and before he could stop her she slipped out of his embrace and went running to the entrance of the cut. But there she halted suddenly and when they came up they found her pale and trembling. “Oh, go back!” she gasped. “He’s in there–he’ll shoot you. I know something awful will happen!”

“You’d better go back, now,” suggested her father quietly, and then he turned to the barrier. “Don’t start anything, Dave–we’ve come peaceable, this time; so come out and let’s have a talk.”

There was a long, tense silence and then the muzzle of a gun stirred uneasily and revealed the hiding place of Dave. He was crouched behind the rocks which he had piled up across the cut where it entered the slope of the hill, and his long barrelled six-shooter was thrust out through a crack just wide enough to serve for a loop-hole.

“Don’t want to talk,” he answered at last. “So go on, now; get off of my property.”

“Well what d’ye want?” snarled Chatwourth irritably. “By cripes, I’ll kill the first man that comes a step nearer. I won’t stand no monkey-business from nobody.”

“Oh, sure, sure,” soothed Bunker, “we know you’re the goods–nerviest gun-man, I believe, I ever saw. But here’s the proposition, you ain’t here for your health, you must figure on making a winning somehow. Well, if your title’s good you’ve got a good mine, but if it ain’t you’re out of luck. Now I sold this claim for five hundred dollars to Mr. Russell, that you met a while ago; and we think it belongs to him yet. I gave him a clear title and he’s done his work, so─”

“Your title was no good!” contradicted Chatwourth from his rock pile, “you hadn’t done your work for years. I’ve located this claim and the man don’t live─”

“That’s all right!” spoke up Denver, “but I located it before you did. I didn’t buy this claim. I paid for a quit-claim and then relocated it myself–and my papers are on record in Moroni.”

“You don’t dare to shoot me!” answered Denver in a passion, standing firm as the crowd surged back. “I’m unarmed, and you don’t dare to shoot me!”

“Here, here!” exclaimed Bunker grabbing hastily at Denver’s arm but Denver struck him roughly aside.

“Never mind, now,” he said, “just get those folks away–I don’t want any of my friends to get hurt. But I’ll tell you right now, either I throw that man out or he’ll have to shoot me down in cold blood.”

He backed away panting and the miners ran for cover, but Bunker Hill held his ground.

“No, now listen, Denver,” he admonished gently, “you don’t know what you’re doing. This man will kill you, as sure as hell.”

“He will not!” cried Denver grabbing up a heavy stone and advancing on the barricade, “I’m destined to be killed by my dearest friend–that’s what old Mother Trigedgo told me! But this bastard ain’t my friend and never was─”

He paused, for Chatwourth’s gun came down and pointed straight at his heart.

They led Denver away as if he were a child, for the revulsion from his anger had left him weak; but Chatwourth, the killer, was carried back to town with his head lolling forward like a dead man’s. The smash of the stone had caught him full on the forehead, which sloped back like the skull of a panther; and the blood, oozing down from his lacerated scalp, made him look more murderous than ever. But his hard, fighting jaw was hanging slack now and his dangerous eyes were closed; and the miners, while they carried him with a proper show of solicitude, chuckled and muttered among themselves. In a way which was nothing short of miraculous Denver Russell had walked in on Murray’s boss jumper and knocked him on the head with a rock–and the shot which Chatwourth had fired in return had never so much as touched him.

If he had ever doubted the virtue of Mother Trigedgo’s prophecy he put the unworthy thought behind him. He knew it now, knew it absolutely–every word of the prophecy was true. He had staked his life to prove the blackest line of it, and Chatwourth’s bullet had been turned aside. No, the silver treasure was his, and the golden treasure also, and no man but his best friend could kill him; but the beautiful artist with whom he had fallen in love–would she now confer her hand upon another? He had come back to Pinal to set the prophecy at defiance and ask her to be his dearest friend; but now, well, perhaps it would be just as well to stick to the letter of his horoscope. “Beware how you reveal your affections,” it said–and he had been rushing back to tell her! And besides, she had met his advances despitefully, and practically called him a coward. Denver brushed off the dust from his shiny phonograph and put on the “Anvil Chorus.”

“Well,” she said, “I suppose you despise me, but I’m sorry–that’s all I can say. And now that I know all about your horoscope I don’t blame you for treating me so rudely. That is, I don’t blame you so much. But don’t you think, Denver, when you went away and left me, you might have written back? We’d always been such friends.”

“Yes,” he said, apropos of nothing, “you see now how I’m fixed. Don’t dare to have any friends.”

“No, but Denver,” she pouted, “you might say you were sorry–that’s different from being friends. But after we’d been so–oh, do you believe all that? Do you believe you’ll be killed by your dearest friend, and that nobody else can harm you? Because that, you know, is just superstition; it’s just like the ancient Greeks when they consulted the oracle, and the Indians, and Italians and such people. But educated people─”

“No, but listen,” she smiled, “that was just a legend, and the Greeks made it into a play. It was just like the German stories of Thor and the Norse gods that Wagner used in his operas. They’re wonderful, and all that, but folks don’t take them seriously. They’re just–why, they’re fairy tales.”

“Well, all right,” grumbled Denver, “I expect you think I am crazy, but what about Mother Trigedgo? Didn’t she send me over here to find this mine? And wasn’t it right where she told me? Doesn’t it lie within the shadow of a place of death, and wasn’t the gold added to it?”

“That referred to the copper,” answered Denver soberly. “It was your father that gave me the tip. When I first came over here I was inquiring for gold, because I knew I had to make a choice; but he pointed out to me that these horoscopes are symbolical and that the golden treasure might be copper. It looks a whole lot like gold, you know; and now just look what happened! I chose the silver, see–I chose the right treasure–and when I drifted in, this vein of chalcopyrites appeared and was added to the silver. It followed along in the hanging wall until the whole formation dipped and then─”

“Oh, I don’t care about that!” burst out Drusilla fretfully, “it’s easy to explain anything, afterwards! But of course if you think more of gold and silver than you do of having me for a friend─”

“But I don’t,” interposed Denver, gently taking her hand. “Sit down here and let’s talk this over.”

“Well,” sighed Drusilla and then, winking back the tears, she sank down in the shade beside him.

“I don’t want you to think,” went on Denver tenderly, without weighing very carefully what he said, “I don’t want you to think I don’t like you, because–say, if you’ll kiss me, I’ll take a chance.”

“Oh–would you?” she beamed her eyes big with wonder, “would you take a chance on my killing you?”

“If it struck me dead!” declared Denver gallantly, but she did not yield the kiss.

“Well, I guess you don’t want to be friends very bad,” observed Denver with a disgruntled smile. “When do you expect to start for the East?”

“Pretty soon,” she answered. “Will you be sorry?”

Denver shrugged his shoulders and began snapping pebbles at an ant.

“Sure,” he said and she drew away from him.

“You won’t!” she burst out resentfully.

“Yes, I’ll be sorry,” he repeated, “but it won’t make much difference–I don’t expect to last very long. I’ve always had a pardner, some feller to ramble around with and borrow all my money when he was broke, and I’m getting awful lonesome without one. Sooner or later, I reckon, I’ll pick up another one and the crazy danged fool will kill me. Drop a timber hook on my head or some stunt like that–I wish I’d never seen old Mother Trigedgo! What you don’t know never hurt anyone; but now, by grab, I’m afraid of every man I throw in with. For the time being, at least, he’s the best friend I’ve got; and–oh, what’s the use, anyway, it’ll get you, sooner or later–I might as well go out like a sport.”

“No, I wasn’t!” declared Denver. “He didn’t look bad to me–don’t now and never did–and as long as the cards are coming my way I don’t let no alleged bad-man run it over me. Here’s the gun that I took away from him.”

“Yes, I noticed it,” she said. “But when he comes back for it are you going to give it up?”

“Sure,” answered Denver, “just show me a rock-pile and I’ll run him out of town like a rabbit.”

“And you fought him with rocks!” she said half to herself, “I wish I were as brave as that.”

“Well, it’s all in your mind,” expounded Denver. “Some people are afraid to crack an egg but I’m game to try anything once.”

“So am I!” she defended looking him boldly in the eye but he shook his head and smiled.

“Nope,” he said, “you don’t believe in kisses. But I was willing to take a chance on getting killed.”

“No,” she said, “a kiss means more than that. It means–well, it means that you love someone.”

“It means what you want it to mean,” he corrected. “Don’t you have to kiss the tenor in these operas?”

She looked at him bravely and he saw in her eyes the calmness that goes with desperation.

“You write to me,” he said, “and I’ll send you the last dollar I’ve got.”

“No, I didn’t mean that,” she replied, “I can earn my living at something. But father and mother have spent all their money in training me to be a great singer and I just can’t bear to disappoint them. It’s cost ten thousand dollars to bring me where I am, and this five hundred dollars is nothing. Why the great vocal teachers, who can use their influence to get their pupils a hearing, charge ten dollars for a half-hour lesson; and if I don’t go to them then every door is closed–unless I’m willing to pay the price.”

“No! No, Denver!” she broke in very earnestly, “I don’t want you to do that again. I heard last night that Dave said he would get you–and if he did, why then I’d be to blame. You’d be doing it for me, and if one of those men killed you–well, it would be just the same as me.”

“Nope!” denied Denver, “there was no figure of speech about that. It said: ‘at the hands of your dearest friend.’ These jumpers ain’t my friends and never was–come on, let’s take a chance. I’ll run ’em off the claims if your father will give you half of ’em, and then you can turn around and sell out for cash and go back to New York like a queen. You stand off the tenors and I’ll stand off the jumpers; and then, perhaps–but we won’t talk about that now. Come on, will you shake hands on the deal?”

She looked at him questioningly, his powerful hand reached out to help her, the old, boyish laughter in his eyes, and then she smiled back as bravely.

“All right,” she said, “but you’ll have to be careful–because now I’m your dearest friend.”

“I’m game,” he cried, “and you don’t have to kiss me either. But if some Dago tenor─”

“No,” she promised looking up at him wistfully. “I’ll–I’ll save the kiss for you.”

The industry of four jumpers, digging in like gophers on the best of Bunker Hill’s claims, was brought to an abrupt termination by the appearance of one man with a gun. He came on unconcernedly, Dave’s six-shooter at his hip and the strength of a lion in his stride; and the first of the gun-men, after looking him over, jumped out of his hole and made off. Denver tore down his notice and posted the old one, with a copy of his original affidavit that the annual work had been done; and when he toiled up to the remaining three claims the jumpers had fled before him. They knew him all too well, and the gun at his hip; and they counted it no disgrace to give way before the man who had conquered Dave Chatwourth with rocks. So Denver changed the notices and came back laughing and Bunker Hill made over the claims.

“Denver,” he said clasping him warmly by the hand, “I swow, you’re the best danged friend I’ve got. For the last time, now, will you come to dinner?”

“Sure,” grinned Denver, “but cut out that ‘friend’ talk. It makes me kind of nervous.”

“‘Don’t shoot, Davey,’ he says, ‘I know you’ll get me.’ And he came right down off the limb.” Old Bunker laughed uproariously and slapped Denver on the back, after which he took him over to the house and announced a guest for dinner.

“Sit down, boy, sit down,” he insisted hospitably as Denver spoke of going home to dress, “you’re company just the way you are. As Lord Chesterfield says: ‘A clean shirt is half of full dress.’ And a pair of overalls, I reckon, is the rest of it. Say, did you hear what Murray said when we took Dave over there, looking like something that the cat had brought in?

“‘My Gawd,’ he says, ‘what has happened to the mine?’

“That was something like a deacon that I worked for one time when he was fixing to paint his barn. He slung a ladder on an old, rotten rope and sent me up on it to work and about half an hour afterwards the rope gave way and dropped me, ladder and all, to the ground. The deacon was at the house when he heard the crash and he came running with his coat-tails straight out.

“‘No,’ I says, ‘but I will!’ And I kicked all his paint-cans over.

“Well, old Murray is like that deacon; you touch his pocket and you touch his heart–he’s always thinking about money. He’d been planning for months to slip in and jump these claims and here you come along and do the assessment work and knock him out of five of ’em. The boys say he’s sure got blood in his eye and is cussing you out a blue streak. That’s a nice gun you got off of Dave–how many notches has it got on the butt? Only three, eh? Well, say, if he ever sends over to ask for it I’ve got another one that I’ll loan you. You want to go heeled, understand? Murray’s busy right now bossing those three shifts of miners that are driving that adit tunnel, but when he gets the time he’ll leave his glass eye on a fence post and come over to see what we’re doing. Didn’t you ever hear about Murray’s glass eye?

“‘Boys,’ he says, ‘I’ve got to go to town but I’m going to watch you, all the same. Sure thing, now,’ he says, ‘you can laugh all you want to, but I’ll see everything that you do.’ Then he took out his glass eye and set it on a fence-post where it looked right down the ditch, and started off for town. You know these Apaches–superstitious as hell–they got in and worked like niggers. Kinder scared ’em, you see, ain’t used to glass eyes; but there was one old boy that was foxy. He dropped down in the ditch where the eye wouldn’t see him and crept up behind that fence-post like a snake, and then he picked up an empty tin can and slapped it down over the eye. There was a boy over at the ranch that saw the whole business and he says them Indians never did a lick of work till they saw Bible-Back’s dust down the road. Pretty slick, eh, for an Indian? And some people will try to tell you that the untutored savage can’t think.

“Well, they might as well,” said Denver, “because their claims are not worth fighting for and there’s a Miners’ Committee going to call on ’em. I’m going along myself in an advisory capacity, and my advice will be to beat it. And if you’ll take a tip from me you’ll hire a couple of miners and put them to work on your claims.”

“I’ll do it to-morrow,” agreed Bunker enthusiastically. “I’ve got a couple of nibbles from some real mining men–not some of these little, one-candle power promoters but the kind that pay with certified checks–and if I can open up those claims and just get a color of copper I’m fixed, boy, that’s all there is to it. Come on now, let’s go in to dinner.”

And when he asked her she smiled up at him tremulously and nodded her head very slowly; and then she whispered that she had always loved him for it, just for listening and going away. She had been downcast that night but his presence had been a comfort–it had persuaded her at last that she could sing. She had sung the “Barcarolle” again, on that other night, when he had stepped out so boldly from the shadows; but it was the first time that she loved him for it, when he was still a total stranger and had come just to hear her sing. There was more that she said to him and when he had to go she smiled again and gave him her hand, but he did not suggest a kiss. She was keeping that for him, until she had been to New York and run the gauntlet of the tenors.

The decision to go was forced upon him suddenly on the day before the event, though he had almost lost track of time. Every morning at day-break he had been up and cooking, after breakfast he had gone to the mine; and, between mucking out the tunnel and putting in new shots, the weeks had passed like days. But when he went to Bunker on the eighth of September and asked for a little more powder Bunker took him to the powder-house and showed him a space where the boxes of dynamite had been. Then he took him behind the counter and showed him the money-till and Denver awoke from his dream.

In spite of the stampede and the activity all about them the whole Pinal district was not producing a cent, and would not for months to come. Every dollar that was spent there had to come in from the outside, and the men who held the claims were all poor. Even after driving off the jumpers and regaining their lost claims the majority had gone home after merely scratching up their old dumps in a vain pretense at doing the assessment work.