A FRIEND
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.
"What's the matter?" he demanded and then his face changed and he
fumbled with the strap of his canteen. And when he looked up his eyes
met hers and there was no longer any secret between them.
"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.
In the happy days that followed he did no more work, further than to
sack his ore and ship it; but all his thoughts were centered upon
Drusilla who was friendly and elusive by turns. On that first precious
evening she came up with her father and inspected his smoke-blackened
cave, and over his new records there sprang up a conversation that held
him entranced for hours. She had been to the Metropolitan and the Boston
Opera Houses and heard the great singers at their best; she understood
their language, whether it was French or Italian or the now proscribed
German of Wagner, and she listened to the records again and again,
trying to steal the secret of their success. But through it all she was
gentle and friendly, and all her old quarrelsomeness was gone.
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.
"McGraw," he said and she frowned to herself for at last the world had
come between them. For a week he had been idle, a heaven-sent companion
in the barren loneliness of life; but now, when his powder and mining
supplies arrived, he would become the old hard-working miner. He would
go into his dark tunnel before the sun was up and not come out till it
was low in the west, and instead of being clean and handsome as a young
god he would come forth like a groveling gnome. His face would be grimy,
his hands gnarled with striking, his digging-clothes covered with
candle-grease: and his body would reek with salty sweat and the rank,
muggy odor of powder fumes. And he would crawl back to his cave like an
outworn beast of burden, to sleep while she sang to him from below.
"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."
"For instance?" he suggested and she looked far away as if thinking of
some she might name.
"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."
"Well, I ought to be studying," she assented reluctantly, "but I guess I
can go up--for a while."
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?"
"Well," began Denver, his eyes still on the road, "the first thing is to
open her up. There's no use trying to interest outside capital until
you've got some ore in sight. Then I'll go over to Globe to a man that I
know and come back with a hundred thousand dollars. That's right--I know
him well, and he knows me--and he's told me repeatedly if I find
anything big enough he's willing to put that much into it. He came up
from nothing, just an ordinary miner, but now he's got money in ten
different banks, and a hundred thousand dollars is nothing to him. But
his time is valuable, can't stop to look at prospects; so the first
thing I do is to open up that mine until I can show a big deposit of
copper. The silver and lead will pay all the expenses--and you wait,
when that ore gets down to the smelter I'll bet there'll be somebody
coming up here. It runs a thousand ounces to the ton or I'm a liar, the
way I've sorted it out; but of course old Murray and the rest of 'em
will rob me. I don't expect more than three hundred dollars."
"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.
"I'll tell you," he said meditatively, "you'd better keep away from her.
A man does better without it. Suppose she'd tell you, for instance, that
you'd get killed in a cave like she did Jack Chambers over in Globe;
you'd be scared then, all the time you were under ground--it ruins a man
for a miner. No, it's better not to know it at all. Just go ahead, the
best you know how, and play your cards to win, and I'll bet it won't be
but a year or two until you're a regular operatic star. They'll be
selling your records for three dollars apiece, and all those managers
will be bidding for you; but if Mother Trigedgo should tell you some bad
news it might hurt you--it might spoil your nerve."
"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?
"No!" he said, "I don't want any friends. Come on, I believe that's
McGraw."
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.