“Oh,” she murmured with a mild show of interest and Denver picked up his hammer. Mother Trigedgo had warned him not to be too friendly, and now he was learning why. He set out a huge fragment that had been blasted from the face and swung his hammer again.

“Did you ever hear the ‘Anvil Chorus’?” she asked watching him curiously. “It’s in the second act of ‘Il Trovatore.’”

“Sure!” exclaimed Denver, “I heard Sousa’s band play it! I’ve got it on a record somewhere.”

“No, but in a real opera–you’d be fine for that part. They have a row of anvils around the back of the stage and as the chorus sing the gypsy blacksmiths beat out the time by striking with their hammers. Back in New York last year there was a perfectly huge man and he had a hammer as big as yours that he swung with both hands while he sang. You reminded me of him when I saw you working–don’t you get kind of lonely, sometimes?”

“Too busy,” replied Denver turning to pick up another rock, “don’t have time for anything like that.”

“Well, I wish I was that way,” she sighed after a silence and Denver smote ponderously at the rock.

“Why don’t you work?” he asked at last and Drusilla’s eyes flashed fire.

“I do!” she cried, “I work all the time! But that doesn’t do me any good. It’s all right, perhaps, if you’re just breaking rocks, or digging dirt in some mine; but I’m trying to become a singer and you can’t succeed that way–work will get you only so far!”

“’S that so!” murmured Denver, and at the unspoken challenge the brooding resentment of Drusilla burst forth.

“Yes, it is!” she exclaimed, “and, just because you’ve struck ore, that doesn’t prove that you’re right in everything. I’ve worked and I’ve worked, and that’s all the good it’s done me–I’m a failure, in spite of everything.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” responded Denver with a superior smile, “you’ve still got your five hundred dollars. A man is never whipped till he thinks he’s whipped–why don’t you go back and take a run at it?”

“Oh, what’s the use of talking?” she cried jumping up, “when you don’t know a thing about it? I’ve tried and I’ve tried and the best I could ever do was to get a place in the chorus. And there you simply ruin your voice without even getting a chance of recognition. Oh, I get so exasperated to see those Europeans who are nothing but big, spoiled children go right into a try-out and take a part away from me that I know I can render perfectly. But that’s it, you see, they’re perfectly undisciplined, but they can throw themselves into the part; and the director just takes my name and address and says he’ll call me up if he needs me.”

Denver grunted and said nothing and as he swung his hammer again the leash to her passions gave way.

“Yes, and I hate you!” she burst out, “you’re so big and self-satisfied. But I guess if you were trying to break into grand opera you wouldn’t be quite so intolerant!”

“No?” commented Denver stopping to shift his grip and she stamped her foot in fury.

“No, you wouldn’t!” she cried half weeping with rage as she contemplated the wreck of her hopes, “don’t you know that Mary Garden and Schumann-Heink and Geraldine Farrar and all of them, that are now our greatest stars, had to starve and skimp and wait on the impresarios before they could get their chance? There’s a difference between digging a hole in the ground and moving a great audience to tears; so just because you happen to be succeeding right now, don’t think that you know it all!”

“All right,” agreed Denver, “I’ll try to remember that. And of course I’m nothing but a miner. But there’s one thing, and I know it, about all those great stars–they didn’t any of them quit. They might have been hungry and out of a job but they never quit, or they wouldn’t be where they are.”

“Oh, they didn’t, eh?” she mocked looking him over with slow scorn. “And I suppose that you never quit, either?”

“No, I never did,” answered Denver truthfully. “I’ve never laid down yet.”

“Well, you’re young yet,” she said mimicking his patronizing tones, “perhaps that will come to you later.”

She smiled with her teeth and stalked off down the trail, leaving Denver with something to think about.

CHAPTER XIV
THE STRIKE

Denver Russell was young, in more ways than one, but that did not prove he was wrong. Perhaps he was presumptuous in trying to tell an artist how to gain a foothold on the stage, but he was still convinced that, in grand opera as in mining, there was no big demand for a quitter. As for that swift, back stab, that veiled intimation that he might live to be a quitter himself, Denver resolved then and there not to quit working his mine until his last dollar was gone. And, while he was doing that, he wondered if Drusilla could boast as much of her music. Would she weaken again, as she had twice already, and declare that she was a miserable failure; or would she toil on, as he did, day by day, refusing to acknowledge she was whipped?

Denver returned to his cave in a defiant mood and put on a record by Schumann-Heink. There was one woman that he knew had fought her way through everything until she had obtained a great success. He had read in a magazine how she had been turned away by a director who had told her her voice was hopeless; and how later, after years of privation and suffering, she had come back to that same director and he had been forced to acknowledge her genius. And it was all there, in her voice, the sure strength that comes from striving, the sweetness that comes from suffering; and as Denver listened to her “Cradle Song” he remembered what he had read about her children. Every night, in those dark times when, deserted and alone, she sang in the chorus for her bread, she had been compelled for lack of a nursemaid to lock her children in her room; and evening after evening her mother’s heart was tormented by fears for their safety. What if the house should burn down and destroy them all? All the fear and love, all the anguished tenderness which had torn her heart through those years was written on the stippled disc, so deeply had it touched her life.

Denver put them all on, the best records he had by singers of world renown, and then at the end he put on the “Barcarolle,” the duet from the “Love Tales of Hoffmann.” For him, that was Drusilla’s song, the expression of her gayest, happiest self. Its lilt and flow recalled her to his thoughts like the embroidered motifs that Wagner used to anticipate the coming of his characters. It was a light song, in a way, not the greatest of music; but while she was singing it he had seen her for the first time and it had become the motif of her coming. When he heard it he saw a vision of a beautiful young girl, singing and swaying like a slender flower; and all about her was a golden radiance like the halo of St. Cecelia. And to him it was a prophecy of her ultimate success, for when she sung it she had won his heart. So he played it over and over, but when he had finished there was silence from the old town below.

Yet if Drusilla was silent it was not from despair for in the morning as Denver was mucking out his tunnel he heard her clear voice mount up like the light of some bird.

“Ah, Ah-h-h-h, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah.”

It was the old familiar exercise, rising an octave at the first bound and then fluttering down like some gorgeous butterfly of sound till it rested on the octave below. And at each renewed flight it began a note higher until it climbed at last to high C. Then it ran up in roulades and galloping bravuras, it trilled and sought out new flights; yet always with the pellucid tones of the flute, the sweet, virginal purity of a child. She was right–there was something missing, a something which she groped for and could not find, a something which the other singers had. Denver sensed the lack dimly but he could not define it, all he knew was that she left out herself. In the brief glimpse he had of her she had seemed torn by dark passions, which caused her at times to brood among the sycamores and again to seek a quarrel with him; yet all this youthful turbulence was left out of her singing–she had not learned to express her emotions.

Denver listened every morning as he came out of his dark hole, pushing the wheel-barrows of ore and waste before him, and then he bade farewell to sun, air and music and went into the close, dark tunnel. By the light of a single candle, thrust into its dagger-like miner’s candlestick and stabbed into some seam in the wall, he smashed and clacked away at his drill until the whole face was honeycombed with holes. At the top they slanted up, at the bottom down, to keep the bore broken clean; but along the sides and in the middle they followed no system, more than to adapt themselves to the formation. When his round of holes was drilled he cut his fuse and loaded each hole with its charge; after which with firm hands he ignited each split end and hurried out of the tunnel. There he sat down on a rock and listened to the shots; first the short holes in the center, to blow out the crown; then the side holes, breaking into the opening; and the top-holes, shooting the rock down from above; and then, last and most powerful, the deep bottom holes that threw the dirt back down the tunnel and left the face clear for more work.

As the poisonous smoke was drifting slowly out of the tunnel mouth Denver fired up his forge and re-sharpened his drills; and then, along towards evening, when the fumes had become diffused, he went in to see what he had uncovered. Sometimes the vein widened or developed rich lenses, and sometimes it pinched down until the walls enclosed nothing but a narrow streak of talc; but always it dipped down, and that was a good sign, a prophecy of the true fissure vein to come. The ore that he mined now was a mere excrescence of the great ore-body he hoped to find, but each day the blanket-vein turned and dipped on itself until at last it folded over and led down. In a huge mass of rocks, stuck together by crystals of silica and stained by the action of acids, the silver and copper came together and intermingled at the fissure vent which had produced them both. Denver stared at it through the powder smoke, then he grabbed up some samples and went to see Bunker Hill.

Not since that great day when Denver had struck the copper had Bunker shown any interest in the mine. He sat around the house listening to Drusilla while she practiced and opening the store for chance customers; but towards Denver he still maintained a grim-mouthed reserve, as if discouraging him from asking any favors. Perhaps the fact that Denver’s money was all gone had a more or less direct bearing on the case; but though he was living on the last of his provisions Denver had refrained from asking for credit. His last shipment of powder and blacksmith’s coal had cost twenty per cent more than he had figured and he had sent for a few more records; and after paying the two bills there was only some small change left in the wallet which had once bulged with greenbacks. But his pride was involved, for he had read Drusilla a lecture on the evils of being faint-hearted, so he had simply stopped buying at the little store and lived on what he had left. But now–well, with that fissure vein opened up and a solid body of ore in sight, he might reasonably demand the customary accommodations which all merchants accord to good customers.

“Well, I’ve struck it,” he said when he had Bunker in the store, “just take a look at that!”

He handed over a specimen that was heavy with copper and Bunker squinted down his eyes.

“Yes, looks good,” he observed and handed it somberly back.

“I’ve got four feet of it,” announced Denver gloating over the specimens, “and the vein has turned and gone down. What’s the chances for some grub now, on account? I’m going to ship that sacked ore.”

“Danged poor–with me,” answered Bunker with decision. “You’d better try your luck with Murray.”

“Oh, boosting for Murray, eh?” remarked Denver sarcastically. “Well, I may take you up on that, but it’s too far to walk now and I’ve been living on beans for a week. I guess I’m good for a few dollars’ worth.”

“Sure you’re good for it,” agreed Bunker, “but that ain’t the point. The question is–when will I get my money?”

“You’ll get it, by grab, as soon as I do,” returned Denver with considerable heat. “What’s the matter? Ain’t that ore shipment good enough security?”

“Well, maybe it is,” conceded Bunker, “but you’ll have a long wait for your money. And to tell you the truth, the way I’m fixed now, I can’t sell except for cash.”

“Oh! Cash, eh?” sneered Denver suddenly bristling with resentment. “It seems like I’ve heard that before. In fact, every time that I ask you for a favor you turn me down like a bum. I came through here, one time, so danged weak I could hardly crawl and you refused to even give me a meal; and now, when I’ve got a mine that’s worth millions, you’ve still got your hand out for the money.”

“Well, now don’t get excited,” spoke up Bunker pacifically, “you can have what grub you want. But I’m telling you the truth–those people down below won’t give me another dollar’s worth on tick. These are hard times, boy, the hardest I’ve ever seen, and if you’d offer me that mine back for five hundred cents I couldn’t raise the money. That shows how broke I am, and I’ve got a family to support.”

“Well, that’s different,” said Denver. “If you’re broke, that settles it. But I’ll tell you one thing, old-timer, you won’t be broke long. I’m going to open up a mine here that will beat the Lost Burro. I’ve got copper, and that beats ’em all.”

“Sure does,” agreed Bunker, “but it’s no good for shipping ore. It takes millions to open up a copper property.”

“Yes, and it brings back millions!” boasted Denver with a swagger. “I’m made, if I can only hold onto it. But I’ll tell you right now, if you want to hold your claims you’d better do a little assessment work. There’s going to be a rush, when this strike of mine gets out, that’ll make your ground worth millions.”

Old Bunk smiled indulgently and took a chew of tobacco and Denver came back to earth.

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” proposed Denver after a silence, “I’ll take a contract to do your assessment work for ten dollars a claim, in trade. I’ll make an open cut that’s four by six by ten, and that’s held to be legal work anywhere. Come on now, I’m tired of beans.”

“Well, come down to supper,” replied Bunker at last, “and we’ll talk it over there.”

“No, I don’t want any supper,” returned Denver resentfully, “you’ve got enough hoboes to feed. You can give me an answer, right now.”

“All right–I won’t do it,” replied Bunker promptly and turned to go out the door; but it had opened behind them and Drusilla stood there smiling, a mischievous twinkle in her eyes.

“What are you two men quarreling about?” she demanded reprovingly, “we could hear you clear over to the house.”

“Well, I asked him over to supper,” began Bunker in a rage, “and─”

“That’s got nothing to do with it,” broke in Denver hotly, “I’m making him a business proposition. But he’s so danged bull-headed he’d rather kill some jumper than comply with the law as it stands. He’s been holding down these claims with a lead-pencil and a six-shooter just about as long as he can and─”

“Oh, have you made another strike?” asked Drusilla eagerly and when she heard the news she turned to her father with a sudden note of gladness in her voice. “Then you’ll have to do the work,” she said, “because I’ll never be happy till you do. Ever since you sold your claim I’ve been sorry for my selfishness but now I’m going to pay you back. I’m going to take my five hundred dollars and hire this assessment work done and then─”

“It won’t cost any five hundred,” put in Denver hastily. “I’m kinder short, right now, and I offered to do it for ten dollars a claim, in trade.”

“Ten dollars? Why, how can you do it for that? I thought the law required a ten foot hole, or the same amount of work in a tunnel.”

“Or an open cut,” hinted Denver. “Leave it to me–I can do it and make money, to boot.”

“Well, you’re hired, then!” cried Drusilla with a rush of enthusiasm, “but you have to go to work to-morrow.”

“Well–ll,” qualified Denver, “I wanted to look over my strike and finish sacking that ore. Wouldn’t the next day do just as well?”

“No, it wouldn’t,” she replied. “You can give me an answer, right now.”

“Well, I’ll go you!” said Denver and Old Bunker grunted and regarded them with a wry, knowing smile.

CHAPTER XV
A NIGHT FOR LOVE

There was music that evening in the Bunker Hill mansion but Denver Russell sat sulking in his cave with no company but an inquisitive pack-rat. He regretted now his curt refusal to join the Hills at supper, for Drusilla was singing gloriously; but a man without pride is a despicable creature and Old Bunk had tried to insult him. So he went to bed and early in the morning, while the shadow of Apache Leap still lay like a blanket across the plain, he set out to fulfill his contract. Across one shoulder he hung a huge canteen of water, on the other a sack of powder and fuse; and, to top off his burden, he carried a long steel churn-drill and a spoon for scooping out the muck.

The discovery hole of Bunker’s Number Two claim was just up the creek from his own and, after looking it over, Denver climbed up the bank and measured off six feet from the edge. Then, raising the steel bar, he struck it into the ground, churning it rhythmically up and down; and as the hole rapidly deepened he spooned it out and poured in a little more water. It was the same uninteresting work that he had seen men do when they were digging a railroad cut; and the object was the same, to shoot down the dirt with the minimum of labor and powder. But with Denver it became a work of art, a test of his muscle and skill, and at each downward thrust he bent from the hips and struck with a deep-chested “Huh!”

An hour passed by, and half the length of the drill was buried at the end of the stroke; and then, as he paused to wipe the sweat from his eyes, Denver saw that his activities were being noted. Drusilla was looking on from the trail below, and apparently with the greatest interest. She was dressed in a corduroy suit, with a broad sombrero against the sun; and as she came up the slope she leapt from rock to rock in a heavy pair of boys’ high boots. There was nothing of the singer about her now, nor of the filmy-clad barefooted dancer; the jagged edge of old Pinal would permit of nothing so effeminate. Yet, over the rocks as on the smooth trails, she had a grace that was all her own, for those hillsides had been her home.

“Well, how’s the millionaire?” she inquired with a smile that made his fond heart miss a beat. “Is this the way you do it? Are you just going to drill one hole?”

“That’s the dope,” replied Denver, “sink it down ten feet and blow the whole bank off with one shot. It’s as easy as shooting fish.”

“Why, you’re down half-way, already!” she cried in amazement. “How long before you’ll be done?”

“Oh, half an hour or so,” said Denver. “Want to wait and see the blast? I learned this system on the railroad.”

“You’ll be through, then, before noon!” she exclaimed. “You’re actually making money.”

“Well, a little,” admitted Denver, “but, of course, if you’re not satisfied─”

“Oh, I’m satisfied,” she protested, “I was only thinking–but then, it’s always that way. There are some people, of course, who can make money anywhere. How does it feel to be a millionaire?”

“Fine!” grinned Denver, chugging away with his drill, “this is the way they all got their start. The Armstrong method–and that’s where I shine; I can break more ground than any two men.”

“Well, I believe you can,” she responded frankly, “and I hope you have a great success. I didn’t like it very well when you called me a quitter, but I can see now what you meant. Did you ever study music at all?”

Denver stopped his steady churning to glance at her quickly and then he nodded his head.

“I played the violin, before I went to mining. Had to quit then–it stiffens up your fingers.”

“What a pity!” she cried. “But that explains about your records–I knew you’d heard good music somewhere.”

“Yes, and I’m going to hear more,” he answered impressively, “I’m not going to blow my money. I’m going back to New York, where all those singers live. The other boys can have the booze.”

“Don’t you drink at all?” she questioned eagerly. “Don’t you even smoke? Well, I’m going right back and tell father. He told me that all miners spent their money in drinking–why wouldn’t you come over to supper?”

She shot the question at him in the quick way she had, but Denver did not answer it directly.

“Never mind,” he said, “but I will tell you one thing–I’m not a hobo miner.”

“No, I knew you weren’t,” she responded quickly. “Won’t you come over to supper to-night? I might sing for you,” she suggested demurely; but Denver shook his head.

“Nope,” he said, “your old man took me for a hobo and he can’t get the idea out of his head. What did he say when you gave me this job?”

“Well, he didn’t object; but I guess, if you don’t mind, we’ll only do three or four claims. He says I’ll need the money back East.”

“Yes, you will,” agreed Denver. “Five hundred isn’t much. If I was flush I’d do this for nothing.”

“Oh, no,” she protested, “I couldn’t allow that. But if there should be a rush, and father’s claims should be jumped─”

“You’d have the best of them, anyway. I wouldn’t tempt old Murray too far.”

“No,” she said, “and that reminds me–I hear that he’s made a strike. But say, here’s a good joke on the Professor. You know he thinks he’s a mining expert, and he’s been crazy to look at the diamond drill cores; and the other day the boss driller was over and he told me how he got rid of him. You know, in drilling down they run into cavities where the lime has been leached away, and in order to keep the bore intact they pour them full of cement. Well, when the Professor insisted upon seeing the core and wouldn’t take no for an answer, Mr. Menzger just gave him a section of concrete, where they’d bored through a filled-up hole. And Mr. Diffenderfer just looked so wise and examined it through his microscope, and then he said it was very good rock and an excellent indication of copper. Isn’t that just too rich for anything?”

“Yeh,” returned Denver with a thin-lipped smile. And then, before he thought how it sounded: “Say, who is this Mr. Menzger, anyway?”

“Oh, he’s a friend of ours,” she answered drooping her eyelashes coquettishly. “He gets lonely sometimes and comes down to hear me sing–he’s been in New York and everywhere.”

“Yes, he must be a funny guy,” observed Denver mirthlessly. “Any relation to that feller they call Dave?”

“Oh, Mr. Chatwourth? No, he’s from Kentucky–they say he’s the last of his family. All the others were killed in one of those mountain feuds–Mr. Menzger says he’s absolutely fearless.”

“Well, what did he leave home for, then?” inquired Denver arrogantly. “He don’t look very bad to me, I guess if he was fearless he’d be back in Kentucky, shooting it out with the rest of the bunch.”

“No, it seems that his father on his dying bed commanded him to leave the country, because there were too many of the others against him. But Mr. Menzger tells me he’s a professional killer, and that’s why Old Murray hired him. Do you think they would jump our claims?”

“They would if they struck copper,” replied Denver bluntly. “And old Murray warned me not to buy from your father–that shows he’s got his eye on your property. It’s a good thing we’re doing this work.”

“Weren’t you afraid, then?” she asked, putting the wonder-note into her voice and laying aside her frank manner, “weren’t you afraid to buy our claim? Or did you feel that you were guided to it, and all would be for the best?”

“That’s it!” exclaimed Denver suddenly putting down his drill to gaze into her innocent young eyes. “I was guided, and so I bought it anyhow.”

“Oh, I think it’s so romantic!” she murmured with a sigh, “won’t you tell me how it happened?”

And then Denver Russell, forgetting the seeress’ warning at the very moment he was discussing her, sat down on a rock and gave Drusilla the whole story of his search for the gold and silver treasures. But at the end–when she questioned him about the rest of the prophecy–he suddenly recalled Mother Trigedgo’s admonition: “Beware how you reveal your affection or she will confer her hand upon another.”

A shadow came into his blue eyes and his boyish enthusiasm was stilled; and Drusilla, who had been practicing her stage-learned wiles, suddenly found her technique at fault. She chattered on, trying subtly to ensnare him, but Denver’s heart was now of adamant and he failed to respond to her approaches. It was not too late yet to heed the words of the prophecy, and he drilled on in thoughtful silence.

“Don’t you get lonely?” she burst out at last, “living all by yourself in that cave? Why, even these old prospectors have to have some pardner–don’t you ever feel the need of a friend?”

There it was–he felt it coming–the appeal to be just friends. But another girl had tried it already, and he had learned about women from her.

“No,” he said shortly, “I don’t need no friends. Say, I’m going to load this hole now.”

“Well, go on!” she challenged, “I’m not afraid. I’ll stay here as long as you do.”

“All right,” he said lowering his powder down the hole and tamping it gently with a stick, “I see I can’t scare you.”

“Oh, you thought you could scare me!” she burst out mockingly, “I suppose you’re a great success with the girls.”

“Well,” he mocked back, “a good-looking fellow like me─” And then he paused and grinned slyly.

“Oh, what’s the use!” she exclaimed, rising up in disgust, “I might as well quit, right now.”

“No, don’t go off mad!” he remonstrated gallantly. “Stay and see the big explosion.”

“I don’t care that for your explosion!” she answered pettishly and snapped her fingers in the air.

It was the particular gesture with which the coquettish Carmen was wont to dismiss her lovers; but as she strode down the hill Drusilla herself was heart-broken, for her coquetry had come to naught. This big Western boy, this unsophisticated miner, had sensed her wiles and turned them upon her–how then could she hope to succeed? If her eyes had no allure for a man like him, how could she hope to fascinate an audience? And Carmen and half the heroines of modern light opera were all of them incorrigible flirts. They flirted with servants, with barbers, with strolling actors, with their own and other women’s husbands; until the whole atmosphere fairly reeked of intrigue, of amours and coquettish escapades. To the dark-eyed Europeans these wiles were instinctive but with her they were an art, to be acquired laboriously as she had learned to dance and sing. But flirt she could not, for Denver Russell had flouted her, and now she had lost his respect.

A tear came to her eye, for she was beginning to like him, and he would think that she flirted with everyone; yet how was she to learn to succeed in her art if she had no experience with men? It was that, in fact, which her teacher had hinted at when he had told her to go out and live; but her heart was not in it, she took no pleasure in deceit–and yet she longed for success. She could sing the parts, she had learned her French and Italian and taken instruction in acting; but she lacked the verve, the passionate abandon, without which she could never succeed. Yet succeed she must, or break her father’s heart and make his great sacrifice a mockery. She turned and looked back at Denver Russell, and that night she sang–for him.

He was up there in his cave looking down indifferently, thinking himself immune to her charms; yet her pride demanded that she conquer him completely and bring him to her feet, a slave! She sang, attired in filmy garments, by the light of the big, glowing lamp; and as her voice took on a passionate tenderness, her mother looked up from her work. Then Bunker awoke from his gloomy thoughts and glanced across at his wife; and they sat there in silence while she sang on and on, the gayest, sweetest songs that she knew. But Drusilla’s eyes were fixed on the open doorway, on the darkness which lay beyond; and at last she saw him, a dim figure in the distance, a presence that moved and was gone. She paused and glided off into her song of songs, the “Barcarolle” from “Love Tales of Hoffman,” and as her voice floated out to him Denver rose up from his hiding and stepped boldly into the moonlight. He stood there like a hero in some Wagnerian opera, where men take the part of gods, and as she gazed the mockery went out of her song and she sang of love alone. Such a love as women know who love one man forever and hold all his love in return, yet the words were the same as those of false Giuletta when she fled with the perfidious Dapertutto.