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

by Dane Coolidge

  CHAPTER XII

  STEEL ON STEEL

  The stifling summer heat fetched up wind from the south and thundercapscrowned the high peaks; then the rain came slashing and struck up thedust before it lifted and went scurrying away. The lizards gasped forbreath, Drusilla ceased to sing, all Pinal seemed to palpitate withheat; but through heat and rain one song kept on--Denver's song of steelon steel. In the cool of his tunnel he drove up-holes and down, sluggingmanfully away until his round of holes was done and then shooting awaythe face. As the sun sank low he sat on the dump, sorting and sackingthe best of his ore; and one evening as he worked Drusilla came by,walking slowly as if in deep thought.

  He was down on his knees, a single-jack in his right hand a pile ofquartzite at his left, and as she came to the forks he went on crackingrocks without so much as a stare. She glanced at him furtively, lookedback towards the town, then turned off and came up his trail.

  "Good evening," she began and as he nodded silently she seemed at a lossfor words. "--I just wanted to ask you," she burst out hurriedly, "ifyou'd be willing to sell back the mine? I brought up the money with me."

  She drew out the sweaty roll of bills which he had paid to her fatherand as Denver looked up she held it out to him, then clutched itconvulsively back.

  "I don't mean," she explained, "that you have to take it. But I thoughtperhaps--oh, is it very rich? I'm sorry I let him sell it."

  "Why, no," answered Denver with his slow, honest smile, while his heartbeat like a trip-hammer in his breast, "it isn't so awful rich. But Ibought it, you know--well, I was sent here!"

  "What, by Murray?" she cried aghast, "did he send you in to buy it?"

  "Don't you think it!" returned Denver. "I'm working for myselfand--well, I don't want to sell."

  "No, but listen," she pleaded, her eyes beginning to fill, "I--I made agreat mistake. This was father's best claim, he shouldn't have sold it;and so--won't you sell it back?"

  She smiled, and Denver reached out blindly to accept the money, but at athought he drew back his hand.

  "No!" he said, "I was sent, you know--a fortune-teller told me to dighere."

  "Oh, did he?" she exclaimed in great disappointment. "Won't some otherclaim do just as well? No, I don't mean that; but--tell me how it allcame about."

  "Well," began Denver, avoiding her eyes; and then he rose up abruptlyand brushed off the top of a powder-box. "Sit down," he said, "I'd surelike to accommodate you, but here's how I come to buy it. There's awoman over in Globe--Mother Trigedgo is her name--and she saved thelives of a lot of us boys by predicting a cave in a mine. Well, she toldmy fortune and here's what she said:

  "You will soon make a journey to the west and there, within the shadowof a place of death, you will find two treasures, one of silver and theother of gold. Choose well between them and both shall be yours,but--well, I don't need to tell you the rest. But this is my choice,see? And so, of course----"

  "Oh, do you believe in those people?" she inquired incredulously, "Ithought----"

  "But not this one!" spoke up Denver stoutly, "I know that the most ofthem are fakes. But this Mother Trigedgo, she's a regular seeress--andit's all come true, every word! Apache Leap up there is the place ofdeath. I came west after that fellow that robbed me; and this mine hereand that gold prospect of the Professor's are both in the shadow of thepeaks!"

  "But maybe you guessed wrong," she cried, snatching at a straw. "Maybethis isn't the one, after all. And if it isn't, oh, won't you let me buyit back for father? Because I'm not going to New York, after all."

  "Well, what good would it do _him_?" burst out Denver vehemently."He's had it for fifteen years! If he thought so much of it why didn'the work it a little and ship out a few sacks of ore?"

  "He's not a miner," protested Drusilla weakly and Denver gruntedcontemptuously.

  "No," he said, "you told the truth that time--and that's what the matterwith the whole district. The ground is all held by lead-pencil work andnobody's doing any digging. And now, when I come in and begin to findsome ore, your old man wants his mining claim back."

  "He does not!" retorted Drusilla, "he doesn't know I'm up here. But hehasn't been the same since he sold his claim, and I want to buy it back.He sold it to get the money to send me to New York, and it was all anawful mistake. I can never become a great singer."

  "No?" inquired Denver, glad to change the subject, "I thought you weredoing fine. That evening when you----"

  "Well, so did I!" she broke in, "until you played all those records; andthen it came over me I couldn't sing like that if I tried a thousandyears. I just haven't got the temperament. Those continental people havesomething that we lack--they're so Frenchy, so emotional, so full offire! I've tried and I've tried and I just can't do it--I just can'tinterpret those parts!"

  She stamped her foot and winked very fast and Denver forgot he was astranger. He had heard her sing so often that he seemed to know herwell, to have known her for years and years, and he ventured acomforting word.

  "Oh well, you're young yet," he suggested shame-facedly, "perhaps itwill come to you later."

  "No, it won't!" she flared back, "I've got to give it up and go toteaching school!"

  She stomped her foot more impatiently than ever and Denver went tocracking rocks.

  "What do you think of that?" he inquired casually, handing over a chunkof ore; but she gazed at it uncomprehendingly.

  "Isn't there anything I can do?" she began at last, "that will make youchange your mind? I might give you this much money now and then pay youmore later, when I go to teaching school."

  "Well, what do you want it back for?" he demanded irritably, "it's beenlying here idle for years. I'd think you'd be glad to have somebody gethold of it that would do a little work."

  "I just want to give it back--and have it over with!" she exclaimed withan embittered smile. "I've practiced and I've practiced but it doesn'tdo any good, and now I'm going to quit."

  "Oh, if that's all," jeered Denver, "I'll locate another claim, and letyou give that back. What good would it do him if you did give itback--he'd just sit in the shade and tell stories."

  "Don't you talk that way about my father!" she exclaimed, "he's thenicest, kindest man that ever lived! He's not strong enough to work inthis awful hot weather but he intended to open this up in the fall."

  "Well, it's opened up already," announced Denver grimly. "You just showhim that piece of rock."

  "Oh, have you found something?" she cried snatching up the chunk of ore."Why, this doesn't look like silver!"

  "No, it isn't," he said, and at the look in his eyes she leapt up andran down the trail.

  She came back immediately with her father and mother and, after a momentof pop-eyed staring, the Professor came waddling along behind.

  "Where'd you get this?" called Bunker as he strode up the trail andDenver jerked his thumb towards the tunnel.

  "At the breast," he said. "Looks pretty good, don't it? I _thought_it would run into copper!"

  "Vot's dat? Vot's dat?" clamored the Professor from the fork of thetrail and Bunker gave Denver the wink.

  "Aw, that ain't copper," he declared, "it's just this green hornblende.We have it around here everywhere."

  "All right", answered Denver, "you can have it your own way--but I callit copper, myself."

  "Vot--_copper_?" demanded the Professor making a clutch at thespecimen and examining it with his myopic eyes, and then he broke into aroar. "Vot--dat copper?" he cried, "you think dat is copper? Oh, ho, ho!Oh, vell! Dis is pretty rich. It is nutting but manganese!"

  "That's all right," returned Denver, "you can think whatever you please;but I've worked underground in too many copper mines----"

  "Where'd you get this?" broke in Bunker, giving Denver a dig, and asthey went into the tunnel he whispered in his ear: "Keep it dark, orhe'll blab to Murray!"

  "Well, let him blab," answered Denver, "it's nothing to me. But all thesame, pardner," he added _sotto voce_, "if I was in your place Iw
ouldn't bank too much on holding them claims with a lead-pencil."

  "I'm holding 'em with a six-shooter," corrected Bunker, "and Murray ornobody else don't dare to jump a claim. I'm known around these parts."

  "Suit yourself," shrugged Denver as they came to the face, "I guess thisore won't start no stampede. That seam in the hanging wall is where itcomes in--I'm looking for the veins to come together."

  "Judas priest!" exclaimed Bunker jabbing his candlestick into the copperstreak, "say, this is showing up good. And your silver vein is wideningout, too. Nothing to it, boy; you've got a mine!"

  "Not yet," said Denver, "but wait till she dips. This is nothing but ablanket vein, so far; but if she dips and goes down then look out,old-timer, she's liable to turn out a bonanza."

  "Well, who'd a thought it," murmured Old Bunk turning somberly away,"and I've been holding her for fifteen years!"

  He led the way out, stooping down to avoid the roof; and outside thestoop still remained.

  "Where's the Professor?" he asked, suddenly looking about, "has he goneto tell Murray, already? Well, by grab then, he knew it was."

  "Oh, _was_ it copper?" quavered Drusilla catching hold of his handand looking up into his tired eyes, "and you sold it for five hundreddollars! But that's all right," she smiled, drawing his head down for akiss. "I'll just have to succeed now--and I'm going to!"