STEEL ON STEEL
The stifling summer heat fetched up wind from the south and thundercaps
crowned the high peaks; then the rain came slashing and struck up the
dust before it lifted and went scurrying away. The lizards gasped for
breath, Drusilla ceased to sing, all Pinal seemed to palpitate with
heat; but through heat and rain one song kept on--Denver's song of steel
on steel. In the cool of his tunnel he drove up-holes and down, slugging
manfully away until his round of holes was done and then shooting away
the face. As the sun sank low he sat on the dump, sorting and sacking
the 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 of
quartzite at his left, and as she came to the forks he went on cracking
rocks without so much as a stare. She glanced at him furtively, looked
back towards the town, then turned off and came up his trail.
"Good evening," she began and as he nodded silently she seemed at a loss
for words. "--I just wanted to ask you," she burst out hurriedly, "if
you'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 father
and as Denver looked up she held it out to him, then clutched it
convulsively back.
"I don't mean," she explained, "that you have to take it. But I thought
perhaps--oh, is it very rich? I'm sorry I let him sell it."
"Why, no," answered Denver with his slow, honest smile, while his heart
beat like a trip-hammer in his breast, "it isn't so awful rich. But I
bought 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 myself
and--well, I don't want to sell."
"No, but listen," she pleaded, her eyes beginning to fill, "I--I made a
great 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 a
thought he drew back his hand.
"No!" he said, "I was sent, you know--a fortune-teller told me to dig
here."
"Oh, did he?" she exclaimed in great disappointment. "Won't some other
claim do just as well? No, I don't mean that; but--tell me how it all
came about."
"Well," began Denver, avoiding her eyes; and then he rose up abruptly
and brushed off the top of a powder-box. "Sit down," he said, "I'd sure
like to accommodate you, but here's how I come to buy it. There's a
woman over in Globe--Mother Trigedgo is her name--and she saved the
lives of a lot of us boys by predicting a cave in a mine. Well, she told
my fortune and here's what she said:
"You will soon make a journey to the west and there, within the shadow
of a place of death, you will find two treasures, one of silver and the
other 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, "I
thought----"
"But not this one!" spoke up Denver stoutly, "I know that the most of
them are fakes. But this Mother Trigedgo, she's a regular seeress--and
it's all come true, every word! Apache Leap up there is the place of
death. I came west after that fellow that robbed me; and this mine here
and that gold prospect of the Professor's are both in the shadow of the
peaks!"
"But maybe you guessed wrong," she cried, snatching at a straw. "Maybe
this isn't the one, after all. And if it isn't, oh, won't you let me buy
it 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't
he work it a little and ship out a few sacks of ore?"
"He's not a miner," protested Drusilla weakly and Denver grunted
contemptuously.
"No," he said, "you told the truth that time--and that's what the matter
with the whole district. The ground is all held by lead-pencil work and
nobody's doing any digging. And now, when I come in and begin to find
some ore, your old man wants his mining claim back."
"He does not!" retorted Drusilla, "he doesn't know I'm up here. But he
hasn'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 an
awful mistake. I can never become a great singer."
"No?" inquired Denver, glad to change the subject, "I thought you were
doing fine. That evening when you----"
"Well, so did I!" she broke in, "until you played all those records; and
then it came over me I couldn't sing like that if I tried a thousand
years. I just haven't got the temperament. Those continental people have
something that we lack--they're so Frenchy, so emotional, so full of
fire! I've tried and I've tried and I just can't do it--I just can't
interpret those parts!"
She stamped her foot and winked very fast and Denver forgot he was a
stranger. He had heard her sing so often that he seemed to know her
well, to have known her for years and years, and he ventured a
comforting word.
"Oh well, you're young yet," he suggested shame-facedly, "perhaps it
will come to you later."
"No, it won't!" she flared back, "I've got to give it up and go to
teaching school!"
She stomped her foot more impatiently than ever and Denver went to
cracking rocks.
"What do you think of that?" he inquired casually, handing over a chunk
of ore; but she gazed at it uncomprehendingly.
"Isn't there anything I can do?" she began at last, "that will make you
change your mind? I might give you this much money now and then pay you
more later, when I go to teaching school."
"Well, what do you want it back for?" he demanded irritably, "it's been
lying here idle for years. I'd think you'd be glad to have somebody get
hold of it that would do a little work."
"I just want to give it back--and have it over with!" she exclaimed with
an embittered smile. "I've practiced and I've practiced but it doesn't
do any good, and now I'm going to quit."
"Oh, if that's all," jeered Denver, "I'll locate another claim, and let
you give that back. What good would it do him if you did give it
back--he'd just sit in the shade and tell stories."
"Don't you talk that way about my father!" she exclaimed, "he's the
nicest, kindest man that ever lived! He's not strong enough to work in
this awful hot weather but he intended to open this up in the fall."
"Well, it's opened up already," announced Denver grimly. "You just show
him 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 and
ran down the trail.
She came back immediately with her father and mother and, after a moment
of pop-eyed staring, the Professor came waddling along behind.
"Where'd you get this?" called Bunker as he strode up the trail and
Denver 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 the
trail 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 call
it copper, myself."
"Vot--_copper_?" demanded the Professor making a clutch at the
specimen and examining it with his myopic eyes, and then he broke into a
roar. "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 as
they went into the tunnel he whispered in his ear: "Keep it dark, or
he'll blab to Murray!"
"Well, let him blab," answered Denver, "it's nothing to me. But all the
same, pardner," he added _sotto voce_, "if I was in your place I
wouldn't bank too much on holding them claims with a lead-pencil."
"I'm holding 'em with a six-shooter," corrected Bunker, "and Murray or
nobody 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 this
ore won't start no stampede. That seam in the hanging wall is where it
comes in--I'm looking for the veins to come together."
"Judas priest!" exclaimed Bunker jabbing his candlestick into the copper
streak, "say, this is showing up good. And your silver vein is widening
out, too. Nothing to it, boy; you've got a mine!"
"Not yet," said Denver, "but wait till she dips. This is nothing but a
blanket 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 the
stoop still remained.
"Where's the Professor?" he asked, suddenly looking about, "has he gone
to tell Murray, already? Well, by grab then, he knew it was."
"Oh, _was_ it copper?" quavered Drusilla catching hold of his hand
and looking up into his tired eyes, "and you sold it for five hundred
dollars! But that's all right," she smiled, drawing his head down for a
kiss. "I'll just have to succeed now--and I'm going to!"