SWEDE LUCK
As the sun set that evening in a trailing blaze of glory Denver Russell
came out and sat with bared arms, looking lazily down at the town. The
news of his strike had roused them at last, these easy-going, do-nothing
old-timers; and now, from an outcast, a crack-brained hobo miner, he was
suddenly accepted as an equal. They spoke to him, they recognized him,
they rushed up to his mine and stared at the ore he had dug; and even
the Professor had purloined a specimen to take over and show to Murray.
And all because, while the rest of them loafed, he had drifted in on his
vein until he cut the stringer of copper. It was Swede luck again--the
luck of that great people who invented the wheel-barrow, and taught the
Irish to stand erect and run it.
Denver could smile a little, grimly, as he recalled Old Bunker's stories
and his fleering statement that a mule could work; but, now that he had
struck copper at the breast of his tunnel, the mule was suddenly a
gentleman. He was good enough to speak to, and for Bunker's daughter to
speak to, and for his wife to invite to supper; and all on account of a
vein of copper that was scarcely two inches thick. It was rich and it
widened out, instead of pinching off as a typical gash-vein would; and
while it would take a fortune to develop it, it was copper, and copper
was king. Silver and gold mines were nothing now, for silver was down
and gold was losing its purchasing power; but the mining journals were
full of articles about copper, and it had risen to thirty cents a pound.
Thirty cents, when a few years ago it had dropped as low as eleven! And
it was still going up, for the munition factories were clamoring for it
and the speculators were bidding up futures. Even Bible-Back Murray, who
had a reputation as a pincher, had suddenly become prodigal with his
money and was working day and night, trying to tap a hidden copper
deposit. He had caught the contagion, the lure of tremendous profits,
and he was risking his all on the venture. What would he have to say now
if his diamond drill tapped nothing and a hobo struck it rich over at
Queen Creek? Well, he could say what he pleased, for Denver was
determined not to sell for a million dollars. He had come there with a
purpose, in answer to a prophecy, and there yet remained to win the
golden treasure and the beautiful woman who was an artist.
Every little thing was coming as the seeress had predicted--good Old
Mother Trigedgo with her cards and astrology--and all that was necessary
was to follow her advice and the beautiful Drusilla would be his. He
must treat her at first like any young country girl, as if she had no
beauty or charm; and then in some way, unrevealed as yet, he would win
her love in return. He had schooled himself rigidly to resist her
fascination, but when she had looked up at him with her beseeching blue
eyes and asked him to sell back the mine, only a miracle of intercession
had saved him from yielding and accepting back the five hundred dollars.
He was like clay in her hands--her voice thrilled him, her eyes dazzled
him, her smile made him forget everything else--yet just at the moment
when he had reached out for the money the memory of the prophecy had
come back to him. And so he had refused, turning a deaf ear to her
entreaties, and scoffing at her easy-going father; and she had gone off
down the trail without once looking back, promising Bunker she would
become a great singer.
Denver smiled again dreamily as he dwelt upon her beauty, her hair like
fine-spun gold, her eyes that mirrored every thought; and with it all, a
something he could not name that made his heart leap and choke him. He
could not speak when she first addressed him, his brain had gone into a
whirl; and so he had sat there, like a great oaf of a miner, and refused
to give her anything. It was rough, yet the Cornish seeress had required
it; and doubtless, being a woman herself, she understood the feminine
heart. At the end of his long reverie Denver sighed again, for the ways
of astrologers were beyond him.
In the morning he rose early, to muck out the rock and clear the tunnel
for a new round of holes; and each time as he came out with a
wheel-barrow full of waste he cocked his eye to the west. Bible-Back
Murray would be coming over soon, if he was still at his camp around the
hill. Yet the second day passed before he arrived, thundering in from
the valley in his big, yellow car; and even then he made some purchases
at the store before he came up to the mine.
"Good morning!" he hailed cheerily, "they tell me you've struck ore.
Well, well; how does the vein show up?"
"'Bout the same," mumbled Denver and glanced at him curiously. He had
expected a little fireworks.
"About the same, eh?" repeated Murray, flicking his rebellious glass
eye, which had a tendency to stare off to one side, "is this a sample of
your ore? Well, I will say, it looks promising--would you mind if I go
into the tunnel?"
"Nope," returned Denver; and then, after a moment's pause: "How's that
gun-man of yours getting along?"
"Oh, Dave? He's all right. I'll ask you over sometime and let you get
better acquainted."
"Never mind," answered Denver, "I know him all I want to. And if I catch
him on my ground I'll sure make him jump--I don't like the way he talked
to me."
"Well, he's rough, but he's good hearted," observed Murray pacifically.
"I'm sorry he spoke to you that way--shall we go in now and look at the
vein?"
Denver grunted non-committally and led Murray into the tunnel, which had
turned now to follow the ore. Whatever his game was it was too deep for
Denver, so he looked on in watchful silence. Murray seemed well
acquainted with mining--he looked at the foot-wall and hanging-wall and
traced out the course of both veins; and then, without offering to take
any samples, he turned and went out to the dump.
"Yes, very good," he said, but without any enthusiasm, "it certainly
looks very promising. Well, good day, Mr. Russell; much obliged."
He started down the trail, leaving Denver staring, and then he turned
hurriedly back.
"Oh, by the way," he said, "I buy and sell ore. When you get enough
sacked you might send it down by McGraw and I'll give you a credit at
the store."
"Yes, all right," assented Denver and stood looking after him till he
cranked up and went roaring away. Not a word about the title, nothing
said about his warning; and no mention made of his well-known ability to
break any man in the county. The facts, apparently, were all that
interested him then--but he might make an offer later. When the vein was
opened up and he had made his first shipment, when it began to look like
a mine! Denver went back to work and as he drove in day by day he was
careful to save all the ore.
He hadn't had it assayed, because assaying is expensive and his supplies
had cost more than he expected, but from the size of the button when he
made his rough fire-tests, he knew that it ran high in silver. Probably
eight hundred ounces, besides the lead; and he had sorted out nearly a
ton. About the time he was down to his bottom dollar he would ship and
get another grub-stake. Then, when that was gone, if his vein opened up,
he would ship to the smelter direct; but the first small shipment could
be easier handled by a man who made it a business. Of course Murray
would gouge him, and overcharge him on everything, but the main idea was
to get Denver to start an account and take that much trade away from
Hill. Denver figured it all out and then let it pass, for there were
other things on his mind.
On the evening of his strike the house below had been silent; but early
the next morning she had begun again, only this time she was not singing
scales. It was grand opera now, in French and Italian; with brilliant
runs and trills and high, sustained crescendos that seemed almost to
demand applause; and high-pitched, agitato recitatives. She was running
through the scores of the standard operas--"La Traviata," "Il
Trovatore," "Martha"--but as the week wore along she stopped singing
again and Denver saw her down among the sycamores. She paid no attention
to him, wandering up and down the creek bed or sitting in gloomy silence
by the pools; but at last as he stood at the mouth of his tunnel
breaking ore with the great hammer he loved, she came out on the trail
and gazed across at him wistfully, though he feigned not to notice her
presence. He was young and vigorous, and the sledge hammer was his toy;
and as Drusilla, when she was practicing, gloried in the range of her
voice and her effortless bravuras and trills, so Denver, swinging his
sledge, felt like Thor of old when he broke the rocks with his blows.
Drusilla gazed at him and sighed and walked pensively past him, then
returned and came back up his trail.
"Good evening," she said and Denver greeted her with a smile for he saw
that her mood was friendly. She had resented, at first, his brusque
refusal and his rough, straight-out way of speaking; but she was lonely
now, and he knew in his heart that all was not well with her singing.
"You like to work, don't you?" she went on at last as he stood sweating
and dumb in her presence, "don't you ever get tired, or anything?"
"Not doing this," he said, "I'm a driller, you know, and I like to keep
my hand in. I compete in these rock-drilling contests."
"Oh, yes, father was telling me," she answered quickly. "That's where
you won all that money--the money to buy the mine."
"Yes, and I've won other money before," he boasted. "I won first place
last year in the single-handed contest--but that's too hard on your arm.
You change about, you know, in the double-handed work--one strikes while
the other turns--but in single jacking it's just hammer, hammer, hammer,
until your arm gets dead to the shoulder."
"It must be nice," she suggested with a half-concealed sigh, "to be able
to make money so easily. Have you always been a miner?"
"No, I was raised on a ranch, up in Colorado--but there's lots more
money in mining. I don't work by the day, I take contracts by the foot
where there's difficult or dangerous work. Sometimes I make forty
dollars a day. There's a knack about mining, like everything
else--you've got to know just how to drive your holes in order to break
the most ground--but give me a jack-hammer and enough men to muck out
after me and I can sink from sixteen to twenty feet a day, depending on
the rock. But here, of course, I'm working lone-handed and only make
about three feet a day."
"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.