BROKE AGAIN
The industry of four jumpers, digging in like gophers on the best of
Bunker Hill's claims, was brought to an abrupt termination by the
appearance of one man with a gun. He came on unconcernedly, Dave's
six-shooter at his hip and the strength of a lion in his stride; and the
first of the gun-men, after looking him over, jumped out of his hole and
made off. Denver tore down his notice and posted the old one, with a
copy of his original affidavit that the annual work had been done; and
when he toiled up to the remaining three claims the jumpers had fled
before him. They knew him all too well, and the gun at his hip; and they
counted it no disgrace to give way before the man who had conquered Dave
Chatwourth with rocks. So Denver changed the notices and came back
laughing and Bunker Hill made over the claims.
"Denver," he said clasping him warmly by the hand, "I swow, you're the
best danged friend I've got. For the last time, now, will you come to
dinner?"
"Sure," grinned Denver, "but cut out that 'friend' talk. It makes me
kind of nervous."
"I'll do it!" promised Bunker, "I'll do anything you ask me. You saved
my bacon on them claims. That snooping Dutch Professor tipped them
jumpers off that I'd promised my wife not to shoot, but I guess when
they see you come rambling up the gulch they begin to feel like Davey
Crockett's coon.
"'Don't shoot, Davey,' he says, 'I know you'll get me.' And he came
right down off the limb." Old Bunker laughed uproariously and slapped
Denver on the back, after which he took him over to the house and
announced a guest for dinner.
"Sit down, boy, sit down," he insisted hospitably as Denver spoke of
going home to dress, "you're company just the way you are. As Lord
Chesterfield says: 'A clean shirt is half of full dress.' And a pair of
overalls, I reckon, is the rest of it. Say, did you hear what Murray
said when we took Dave over there, looking like something that the cat
had brought in?
"'My Gawd,' he says, 'what has happened to the _mine_?'
"That was something like a deacon that I worked for one time when he was
fixing to paint his barn. He slung a ladder on an old, rotten rope and
sent me up on it to work and about half an hour afterwards the rope gave
way and dropped me, ladder and all, to the ground. The deacon was at the
house when he heard the crash and he came running with his coat-tails
straight out.
"'Goodness gracious!' he hollered, 'did you spill the paint?'
"'No,' I says, 'but I will!' And I kicked all his paint-cans over.
"Well, old Murray is like that deacon; you touch his pocket and you
touch his heart--he's always thinking about money. He'd been planning
for months to slip in and jump these claims and here you come along and
do the assessment work and knock him out of five of 'em. The boys say
he's sure got blood in his eye and is cussing you out a blue streak.
That's a nice gun you got off of Dave--how many notches has it got on
the butt? Only three, eh? Well, say, if he ever sends over to ask for it
I've got another one that I'll loan you. You want to go heeled,
understand? Murray's busy right now bossing those three shifts of miners
that are driving that adit tunnel, but when he gets the time he'll leave
his glass eye on a fence post and come over to see what we're doing.
Didn't you ever hear about Murray's glass eye?
"Well, they say he lost his good one looking for a dollar that he
dropped; but here's the big joke about the fence-post. He got his start
down in the valley, raising alfalfa and feeding stock, and he always
hired Indians whenever he could because they spent all their time-checks
at the store. A Mexican or a white man might hold out a few dollars, or
spend the whole wad for booze; but Indians are barred from getting drunk
and they've only got one use for money. Yes, they believe it was made to
spend, not to bury alongside of some fence-post. And speaking of
fence-posts brings me back to the point--Old Murray had a bunch of big,
lazy Apaches working by the day cleaning out a ditch. He was down there
at daylight and watched 'em like a hawk, but every time he'd go into
town the whole bunch would sit down for a talk. Well, he _had_ to
go to town so one day he called 'em up and made 'em a little talk.
"'Boys,' he says, 'I've got to go to town but I'm going to watch you,
all the same. Sure thing, now,' he says, 'you can laugh all you want to,
but I'll see everything that you do.' Then he took out his glass eye and
set it on a fence-post where it looked right down the ditch, and started
off for town. You know these Apaches--superstitious as hell--they got in
and worked like niggers. Kinder scared 'em, you see, ain't used to glass
eyes; but there was one old boy that was foxy. He dropped down in the
ditch where the eye wouldn't see him and crept up behind that fence-post
like a snake, and then he picked up an empty tin can and slapped it down
over the eye. There was a boy over at the ranch that saw the whole
business and he says them Indians never did a lick of work till they saw
Bible-Back's dust down the road. Pretty slick, eh, for an Indian? And
some people will try to tell you that the untutored savage can't think.
"Well, that's the kind of an hombre that we're up against--he'd skin a
flea for his hide and taller. As old Spud Murphy used to say, he'd rob a
poor tumble-bug of his ball of manure and put him on the wrong road
home. He's mean, and it sure hurt his feelings to have you hop in and
win back your mine. And knocking Dave on the head took the pip out of
these other jumpers--I'm looking for the whole bunch to fade."
"Well, they might as well," said Denver, "because their claims are not
worth fighting for and there's a Miners' Committee going to call on 'em.
I'm going along myself in an advisory capacity, and my advice will be to
beat it. And if you'll take a tip from me you'll hire a couple of miners
and put them to work on your claims."
"I'll do it to-morrow," agreed Bunker enthusiastically. "I've got a
couple of nibbles from some real mining men--not some of these little,
one-candle power promoters but the kind that pay with certified
checks--and if I can open up those claims and just get a color of copper
I'm fixed, boy, that's all there is to it. Come on now, let's go in to
dinner."
The memory of that dinner, and of the music that followed it, remained
long in Denver's mind; and later in the evening, when the lights were
low and her parents had gone to their rest, Drusilla sang the
"Barcarolle" from Hoffmann. She sang it very softly, so as not to
disturb them, but the look in her eyes recalled something to Denver and
as he was leaving he asked her a question. It was not if she loved him,
for that would be unfair and might spoil an otherwise perfect evening;
but he had been wondering as he listened whether she had not seen him
that first time--when he had slipped down and listened from the shadows.
And when he asked her she smiled up at him tremulously and nodded her
head very slowly; and then she whispered that she had always loved him
for it, just for listening and going away. She had been downcast that
night but his presence had been a comfort--it had persuaded her at last
that she could sing. She had sung the "Barcarolle" again, on that other
night, when he had stepped out so boldly from the shadows; but it was
the first time that she loved him for it, when he was still a total
stranger and had come just to hear her sing. There was more that she
said to him and when he had to go she smiled again and gave him her
hand, but he did not suggest a kiss. She was keeping that for him, until
she had been to New York and run the gauntlet of the tenors.
This was the high spot in Denver's life, when he had stood upon
Parnassus and beheld everything that was good and beautiful; but in the
morning he put on his old digging clothes again and went to work in the
mine. He had seen her and it was enough; now to break out the ore and
win her for his own. For he was poor, and she was poor, and how could
she succeed without money? But if he could open up his mine and block
out a great ore body then her claims and Bunker's, that touched it on
both sides, would take on a speculative value. They could be sold for
cash and she could go East in style, to take lessons from the ten-dollar
teacher who had influence with directors and impresarios. Denver put in
a round of holes and blasted his way into the mountain; but as he came
out in the evening, dirty and grimed and pale from powder sickness,
Drusilla paled too and almost shrank away. She had strolled up before,
only to hear the clank of his steel and the muffled thud of his blows;
and now as she stood waiting, attired as daintily as a bride, the
dream-hero of her memories was banished. He was a miner again, a sweaty,
toiling animal, dead to all the finer things of life; but if Denver read
her thoughts he did not notice, for he remembered what Mother Trigedgo
had told him.
Two weeks passed by and Labor Day came near, when all the hardy miners
foregathered in Globe and Miami and engaged in the sports of their kind.
A circular came to Denver, announcing the drilling contests and giving
his name as one of the contestants; then a personal letter from the
Committee on Arrangements, requesting him to send in his entry; and at
last there came a messenger, a good hard-rock man named Owen, to suggest
that they go in together. But Denver was driving himself to the limit,
blasting out ore that grew richer each day; and at thought of Bible-Back
Murray, waiting to pounce upon his mine, he sent back a reluctant
refusal. Yet they published his name, with the partner's place left
vacant, and advertised that he would participate; for on the Fourth of
July, with Slogger Meacham for a partner, he had won the title of
champion.
The decision to go was forced upon him suddenly on the day before the
event, though he had almost lost track of time. Every morning at
day-break he had been up and cooking, after breakfast he had gone to the
mine; and, between mucking out the tunnel and putting in new shots, the
weeks had passed like days. But when he went to Bunker on the eighth of
September and asked for a little more powder Bunker took him to the
powder-house and showed him a space where the boxes of dynamite had
been. Then he took him behind the counter and showed him the money-till
and Denver awoke from his dream.
In spite of the stampede and the activity all about them the whole Pinal
district was not producing a cent, and would not for months to come.
Every dollar that was spent there had to come in from the outside, and
the men who held the claims were all poor. Even after driving off the
jumpers and regaining their lost claims the majority had gone home after
merely scratching up their old dumps in a vain pretense at doing the
assessment work.
The promoters were not buying, they were simply taking options and
waiting on Murray's tunnel; and until he drove in and actually tapped
the copper ore there would be no steady boom. He had organized a company
and was selling a world of stock, even using it to pay off his men: and
it was whispered about that his strike was a fake, for he still refused
to exhibit the drill cores. But whether his strike was a bona fide
discovery or merely a ruse to sell stock, the fact could not be blinked
that Denver and Bunker Hill had reached the end of their rope. They were
broke again and Denver set out for Globe, leaving Bunker to hold down
his claim.