THE HAND OF FATE
The swift hand of fate, which had hurled Denver from the heights into
the depths of dark despair, suddenly snatched him up out of the abyss
again and whisked him back to Globe. When he walked out of Moroni his
mind was a blank, so overcome was his body with heat and toil and the
astounding turns of his fortune; but at the next station below, as he
was trying to steal a ride, a man had dropped off the train and dragged
him, willy nilly, into his Pullman. It was a mining superintendent who
had seen him in action when he was timbering the Last Chance stope, and
in spite of his protests he paid his fare to Globe and put him to work
down a shaft.
At the bottom of this shaft was millions of dollars worth of copper and
level after level of expensive workings; and some great stirring of the
earth was cutting it off, crushing the bottle off at the neck. Every
night, every shift, the swelling ground moved in, breaking stulls and
square-sets like tooth-picks; and now with solid steel and quick-setting
concrete they were fighting for the life of the mine. It was a dangerous
job, such as few men cared to tackle; but to Denver it was a relief, a
return to his old life after the delirium of an ugly dream. Even yet he
could not trace the flaw in his reasoning which had brought him to earth
with such a thump; but he knew, in general, that his error was the
common one of trying to run a mine on a shoestring. He had set up in
business as a mining magnate on eight hundred dollars and his nerve, and
Bible-Back Murray had busted him.
Upon that point, at least, Denver suffered no delusion; he knew that his
downfall had been planned from the first and that he had bit like a
sucker at the bait. Murray had dropped a few words and spit on the hook
and Denver had shipped him his ore. The rest, of course, was like
shooting fish in the Pan-handle--he had refused to buy the ore, leaving
Denver belly-up, to float away with other human debris. But there was
one thing yet that he could not understand--why had Murray closed down
his own mine? That was pulling it pretty strong, just to freeze out a
little prospector and rob him of a ton or two of ore; and yet Denver had
proof that it was true. He had staked a hobo who had come over the trail
and the hobo had told him what he knew. The diamond drill camp was
closed down and all the men had left, but the guard was still herding
the property. And the hobo had seen a girl at Pinal. She was easy to
look at but hard to talk to, so he had passed and hit the trail for
Globe.
Denver worked like a demon with a gang of Cousin Jacks, opposing the
swelling ground with lengths of railroad steel and pouring in the
concrete behind them; but all the time, by fits and snatches, the old
memories would press in upon him. He would think of Mother Trigedgo and
her glowing prophecies, which had turned out so wonderfully up to a
certain point and then had as suddenly gone wrong; and then he would
think of the beautiful artist with whom he was fated to fall in love,
and how, even there, his destiny had worked against him and led him to
sacrifice her love. For how could one hope to win the love of a woman if
he denied her his friendship first? And yet, if he accepted her as his
dearest friend, he would simply be inviting disaster.
It was all wrong, all foolish--he dismissed it from his mind as unworthy
of a thinking man--yet the words of the prophecy popped up in his head
like the memories of some evil dream. His hopes of sudden riches were
blasted forever, he had given up the thought of Drusilla; but the one
sinister line recurred to him constantly--"at the hands of your dearest
friend." Never before in his life had he been without a pardner, to
share his ramblings and adventures, but now in that black hole with the
steel rails coming down and death on every hand, superstition
overmastered him and he rebuffed the hardy Cornishmen, refusing to take
any man for his friend. Nor would he return to Mother Trigedgo's
boarding house, for her prophecies had ruined his life.
He worked on for a week, trying to set his mind at rest, and then a
prompting came over him suddenly to go back and see Drusilla. If death
must come, if some friend must kill him, in whose hands would he rather
entrust his life than in those of the woman he loved? Perhaps it was all
false, like the rest of the prophecy, the gold and silver treasures and
the rest; and if he was brave he might win her at last and have her for
more than a friend. But how could he face her, after all he had said,
after boasting as he had of his fortune? And he had refused her
friendship, when she had endeavored to comfort him and to exorcise this
fear-devil that pursued him. He went back to work, determined to forget
it all, but that evening he drew his time. It came to ninety dollars,
for seven shifts and over-time, and they offered him double to stay; but
the desire to see Drusilla had taken possession of him and he turned his
face towards Pinal.
It was early in the morning when he rode out of Globe and took the trail
over the divide; and as he spurred up a hill he overtook another
horseman who looked back and grinned at him wisely.
"Going to the strike?" he asked and Denver's heart leapt, though he kept
his quirt and spurs working.
"What strike?" he said and the man burst into a laugh as if sensing a
hidden jest.
"That's all right," he answered, "I guess you're hep--they say it runs
forty per cent copper."
"How'd _you_ hear about it?" inquired Denver, fishing cautiously
for information. "Where you going--over to Pinal?"
"You're whistling," returned the man, quite off his guard. "Say, stake
me a claim when you get there, if old Bible-Back hasn't jumped them
all."
"Say, what are you talking about?" demanded Denver, suddenly reining in
his horse. "Is Murray jumping claims?"
"Never mind!" replied the man, shutting up like a clam, and Denver
spurred on and left him.
There was a strike then in Pinal, Old Murray had tapped the vein and it
ran up to forty per cent copper! That would make the claim that Denver
had abandoned the week before worth thousands and thousands of dollars.
It would make him rich and Bunker Hill rich and--yes, it would prove the
prophecy! He had chosen the silver treasure and the gold treasure had
been added to it--for the copper ore which had come in later was almost
the color of gold. As old Bunk had said, all these prophecies were
symbolical, and he had done Mother Trigedgo an injustice. And there was
one claim that he knew of--yes, and four others, too--that Murray would
never jump. That was his own Silver Treasure and the four claims of
Bunker's that he had done the annual work on himself.
Denver's heart leapt again as he raced his horse across the flats and
led him scrambling with haste up the steep hills, and before the sun was
three hours high he had plunged into the box canyon of Queen Creek. Here
the trail wound in and out, crossing and recrossing the shrunken stream
and mounting with painful zigzags over the points; but he rioted through
it all, splashing the water out of the crossings as he hurried to claim
his own. The box canyon grew deeper, the walls more precipitous, the
creek bottom more dark and cavernous; until at last it opened out into
broad flats and boulder patches, thickly covered with alders and ash
trees. And then as he swung around the final, rocky point he saw his own
claim in the distance. It was nothing but a hole in the side of the
rocky hillside, a slide of gray waste down the slope; but to him it was
a beacon to light his home-coming, a proof that some dreams do come
true. He galloped down the trail where Drusilla and he had loitered and
let out an exultant whoop.
But as Denver came opposite his mine a sinister thing happened--a head
rose up against the black darkness of the tunnel and a man looked
stealthily out. Then he drew back his head like some snake in a hole and
Denver stopped and stared. A low wall of rocks had been built across the
cut and the man was crouching behind it--Denver jogged down and turned
up the trail. A glimpse at Pinal showed the streets full of automobiles
and a huddle of men by the store door, and as he rode up towards his
mine Bunker Hill came running out and beckoned him frantically back.
"Come back here!" he hollered and Denver turned and looked at him but
kept on up the narrow trail. The mine was his, without a doubt, both by
purchase and by assessment work done; and he had no fear of
dispossession by a jumper who was so obviously in the wrong.
"Hello, there!" he hailed, reining in before the tunnel; and after a
minute the man rose up with his pistol poised over his shoulder. It was
Dave, Murray's gun-man, and at sight of his enemy Denver was swept with
a gust of passion. From the moment he had first met him, this
narrow-eyed, sneering bad-man had roused all the hate that was in him;
but now it had gone beyond instinct. He found him in adverse possession
of his property and with a gun raised ready to shoot.
"What are _you_ doing here?" demanded Denver insolently but
Chatwourth did not move. He stood like a statue, his gun balanced in the
air, a thin, evil smile on his lips, and Denver gave way to his fury.
"You get out of there!" he ordered. "Get off my property! Get off or
I'll put you off!"
Chatwourth twirled his gun in a contemptuous gesture; and then, like a
flash, he was shooting. He threw his shots low, between the legs of the
horse, which reared and whirled in a panic; and with the bang of the
heavy gun in his ears, Denver found himself headed down the trail. A
high derisive yell, a whoop of hectoring laughter, followed after him as
he galloped into the open; and he was fighting his horse in a cloud of
dust when Bunker Hill and the crowd came up.