Silver and Gold: A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp

“No, I’m going to stay right here,” she answered stubbornly, giving Denver a hateful glance, “because I don’t believe a word you say.”

“Ve-ry well, my dear,” responded Bunker indulgently and took her under his arm.

“I’m going ahead!” she burst out quickly as they came to the turn in the trail; and before he could stop her she slipped out of his embrace and went running to the entrance of the cut. But there she halted suddenly and when they came up they found her pale and trembling. “Oh, go back!” she gasped. “He’s in there–he’ll shoot you. I know something awful will happen!”

“You’d better go back, now,” suggested her father quietly, and then he turned to the barrier. “Don’t start anything, Dave–we’ve come peaceable, this time; so come out and let’s have a talk.”

There was a long, tense silence and then the muzzle of a gun stirred uneasily and revealed the hiding place of Dave. He was crouched behind the rocks which he had piled up across the cut where it entered the slope of the hill, and his long barrelled six-shooter was thrust out through a crack just wide enough to serve for a loop-hole.

“Don’t want to talk,” he answered at last. “So go on, now; get off of my property.”

“Well, now listen,” began Bunker shaking off Drusilla’s grasp, “we acknowledge we made a slight mistake. We tried to run a whizzer and you called us good and plenty–all right then, now let’s have a talk. If you can show title to this ground you’re holding, we’ll leave you in peaceful possession; and if you can’t, you’re just wasting your time and talents, because there’s plenty more claims that ain’t took. It’s a cinch you can’t hide in that hole forever, so you might as well have it out now.”

“Well what d’ye want?” snarled Chatwourth irritably. “By cripes, I’ll kill the first man that comes a step nearer. I won’t stand no monkey-business from nobody.”

“Oh, sure, sure,” soothed Bunker, “we know you’re the goods–nerviest gun-man, I believe, I ever saw. But here’s the proposition, you ain’t here for your health, you must figure on making a winning somehow. Well, if your title’s good you’ve got a good mine, but if it ain’t you’re out of luck. Now I sold this claim for five hundred dollars to Mr. Russell, that you met a while ago; and we think it belongs to him yet. I gave him a clear title and he’s done his work, so─”

“Your title was no good!” contradicted Chatwourth from his rock pile, “you hadn’t done your work for years. I’ve located this claim and the man don’t live─”

“That’s all right!” spoke up Denver, “but I located it before you did. I didn’t buy this claim. I paid for a quit-claim and then relocated it myself–and my papers are on record in Moroni.”

“Who called you in on this?” burst out Chatwourth abusively, rising up with his gun poised to shoot. “Now you git, dam’ your heart, and if you say another word─”

“You don’t dare to shoot me!” answered Denver in a passion, standing firm as the crowd surged back. “I’m unarmed, and you don’t dare to shoot me!”

“Here, here!” exclaimed Bunker grabbing hastily at Denver’s arm but Denver struck him roughly aside.

“Never mind, now,” he said, “just get those folks away–I don’t want any of my friends to get hurt. But I’ll tell you right now, either I throw that man out or he’ll have to shoot me down in cold blood.”

He backed away panting and the miners ran for cover, but Bunker Hill held his ground.

“No, now listen, Denver,” he admonished gently, “you don’t know what you’re doing. This man will kill you, as sure as hell.”

“He will not!” cried Denver grabbing up a heavy stone and advancing on the barricade, “I’m destined to be killed by my dearest friend–that’s what old Mother Trigedgo told me! But this bastard ain’t my friend and never was─”

He paused, for Chatwourth’s gun came down and pointed straight at his heart.

“Stand back!” he shrilled and Denver leapt forward, hurling the rock with all his strength. Then he plunged through the smoke, swinging his arms out to clutch, and as he crashed through the barrier he stumbled over something that he turned back and pounced on like a cat. It was Chatwourth, but his body was limp and senseless–the stone had struck him in the head.

CHAPTER XX

JUMPERS AND TENORS

They led Denver away as if he were a child, for the revulsion from his anger had left him weak; but Chatwourth, the killer, was carried back to town with his head lolling forward like a dead man’s. The smash of the stone had caught him full on the forehead, which sloped back like the skull of a panther; and the blood, oozing down from his lacerated scalp, made him look more murderous than ever. But his hard, fighting jaw was hanging slack now and his dangerous eyes were closed; and the miners, while they carried him with a proper show of solicitude, chuckled and muttered among themselves. In a way which was nothing short of miraculous Denver Russell had walked in on Murray’s boss jumper and knocked him on the head with a rock–and the shot which Chatwourth had fired in return had never so much as touched him.

They put Chatwourth in an automobile and sent him over to Murray’s camp; and then with broad smiles they gathered about Denver and took turns in slapping him on the back. He was a wonder, a terror, a proper fighting fool, the kind that would charge into hell itself with nothing but a bucket of water; and would he mind, when he felt a little stronger, just walking with them to their claims? Just a little, friendly jaunt, as one friend with another; but if Murray’s hired junipers saw him coming up the trail that was all that would be required. They would go, and be quick about it, for they had been watching from afar and had seen what happened to Dave–but Denver brushed them aside and went up to his cave where he could be by himself and think.

If he had ever doubted the virtue of Mother Trigedgo’s prophecy he put the unworthy thought behind him. He knew it now, knew it absolutely–every word of the prophecy was true. He had staked his life to prove the blackest line of it, and Chatwourth’s bullet had been turned aside. No, the silver treasure was his, and the golden treasure also, and no man but his best friend could kill him; but the beautiful artist with whom he had fallen in love–would she now confer her hand upon another? He had come back to Pinal to set the prophecy at defiance and ask her to be his dearest friend; but now, well, perhaps it would be just as well to stick to the letter of his horoscope. “Beware how you reveal your affections,” it said–and he had been rushing back to tell her! And besides, she had met his advances despitefully, and practically called him a coward. Denver brushed off the dust from his shiny phonograph and put on the “Anvil Chorus.”

The next morning, early, he was up at his mine, with Chatwourth’s gun slung low on his leg; and while he remained there, to defend it against all comers, he held an impromptu reception. There was a rush of miners, to look at the mine and inspect the specimens of copper; and then shoestring promoters began to arrive, with proposals to stock the property. The Professor came up, his eyes staring and resentful; and old Bunker, overflowing with good humor; and at last, when nobody else was there, Drusilla walked by on the trail. She glanced up at him hopefully; then, finding no response, she heaved a great sigh and turned up his path to have it over and done with.

“Well,” she said, “I suppose you despise me, but I’m sorry–that’s all I can say. And now that I know all about your horoscope I don’t blame you for treating me so rudely. That is, I don’t blame you so much. But don’t you think, Denver, when you went away and left me, you might have written back? We’d always been such friends.”

She checked herself at the word, then smiled a sad smile and waited to hear what he would say. And Denver, in turn, checked what was on his lips and responded with a solemn nod. It had come to him suddenly to rise up and clasp her hands and whisper that he’d take a chance on it, yet–that is, if they could still be friends–but the significance of the prophecy had been proved only yesterday, and miracles can happen both ways. The same fate, the same destiny, which had fended off the bullet when Chatwourth had aimed at his heart, might turn the merest accident to the opposite purpose and make Drusilla his unwilling slayer.

“Yes,” he said, apropos of nothing, “you see now how I’m fixed. Don’t dare to have any friends.”

“No, but Denver,” she pouted, “you might say you were sorry–that’s different from being friends. But after we’d been so–oh, do you believe all that? Do you believe you’ll be killed by your dearest friend, and that nobody else can harm you? Because that, you know, is just superstition; it’s just like the ancient Greeks when they consulted the oracle, and the Indians, and Italians and such people. But educated people─”

“What’s the matter with the Greeks?” spoke up Denver contentiously. “Do you mean to say they were ignorant? Well, I talked with an old-timer–he was a Professor in some university–and he said it would take us a thousand years before we even caught up with them. Do you think that I’m superstitious? Well, listen to this, now; here’s one that he told me, and it comes from a famous Greek play. There was a woman back in Greece that was like Mother Trigedgo, and she prophesied, before a man was born, that he’d kill his own father and marry his own mother. What do you think of that, now? His father was a king and didn’t want to kill him, so when he was born he pierced his feet and put him out on a cliff to die. But a shepherd came along and found this baby and named him Edipus, which means swelled feet; and when the kid grew up he was walking along a narrow pass when he met his father in disguise. They got into a quarrel over who should turn out and Epidus killed his father. Then he went on to the city where his mother was queen and there was a big bird, the Sphinx, that used to come there regular and ask those folks a riddle: What is it that is four-footed, three-footed and two-footed? And every time when they failed to give the answer the Sphinx would take one of them to eat. Well, the queen had said that whoever guessed that riddle could be king and have her for his wife, and Epidus guessed the answer. It’s a man, you see, that crawls when he is a baby, stands on two legs when he’s grown and walks with a cane when he is old. Epidus married the queen, but when he found out what he’d done he went mad and put his own eyes out. But don’t you see he couldn’t escape it.”

“No, but listen,” she smiled, “that was just a legend, and the Greeks made it into a play. It was just like the German stories of Thor and the Norse gods that Wagner used in his operas. They’re wonderful, and all that, but folks don’t take them seriously. They’re just–why, they’re fairy tales.”

“Well, all right,” grumbled Denver, “I expect you think I am crazy, but what about Mother Trigedgo? Didn’t she send me over here to find this mine? And wasn’t it right where she told me? Doesn’t it lie within the shadow of a place of death, and wasn’t the gold added to it?”

“Why, no!” exclaimed Drusilla, “did you find the gold, too? I thought─”

“That referred to the copper,” answered Denver soberly. “It was your father that gave me the tip. When I first came over here I was inquiring for gold, because I knew I had to make a choice; but he pointed out to me that these horoscopes are symbolical and that the golden treasure might be copper. It looks a whole lot like gold, you know; and now just look what happened! I chose the silver, see–I chose the right treasure–and when I drifted in, this vein of chalcopyrites appeared and was added to the silver. It followed along in the hanging wall until the whole formation dipped and then─”

“Oh, I don’t care about that!” burst out Drusilla fretfully, “it’s easy to explain anything, afterwards! But of course if you think more of gold and silver than you do of having me for a friend─”

“But I don’t,” interposed Denver, gently taking her hand. “Sit down here and let’s talk this over.”

“Well,” sighed Drusilla and then, winking back the tears, she sank down in the shade beside him.

“I don’t want you to think,” went on Denver tenderly, without weighing very carefully what he said, “I don’t want you to think I don’t like you, because–say, if you’ll kiss me, I’ll take a chance.”

“Oh–would you?” she beamed her eyes big with wonder, “would you take a chance on my killing you?”

“If it struck me dead!” declared Denver gallantly, but she did not yield the kiss.

“No,” she said, “I don’t believe in kisses–have you kissed other girls before? And besides, I just wanted to be friends again, the way we were before.”

“Well, I guess you don’t want to be friends very bad,” observed Denver with a disgruntled smile. “When do you expect to start for the East?”

“Pretty soon,” she answered. “Will you be sorry?”

Denver shrugged his shoulders and began snapping pebbles at an ant.

“Sure,” he said and she drew away from him.

“You won’t!” she burst out resentfully.

“Yes, I’ll be sorry,” he repeated, “but it won’t make much difference–I don’t expect to last very long. I’ve always had a pardner, some feller to ramble around with and borrow all my money when he was broke, and I’m getting awful lonesome without one. Sooner or later, I reckon, I’ll pick up another one and the crazy danged fool will kill me. Drop a timber hook on my head or some stunt like that–I wish I’d never seen old Mother Trigedgo! What you don’t know never hurt anyone; but now, by grab, I’m afraid of every man I throw in with. For the time being, at least, he’s the best friend I’ve got; and–oh, what’s the use, anyway, it’ll get you, sooner or later–I might as well go out like a sport.”

“You were awful brave,” she murmured admiringly, “when you fought with Mr. Chatwourth yesterday. Weren’t you honestly afraid he would kill you?”

“No, I wasn’t!” declared Denver. “He didn’t look bad to me–don’t now and never did–and as long as the cards are coming my way I don’t let no alleged bad-man run it over me. Here’s the gun that I took away from him.”