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

“A gash-vein!” echoed Denver, “why the poor, ignorant fool–can’t you see that the vein is getting bigger? Well, how can it be a gash-vein when it’s between two good walls and increasing in width all the time? Your friend must think I’m a prospector.”

“Oh, no,” protested the Colonel smiling feebly at the joke, “but–well, he advises me not to buy. The fact that the ore is so rich on the surface is against its continuance at depth. All gash-veins, as you know, are very rich at the surface; so in this case the fact is against you. But I tell you what I will do–just to protect my other property and avoid any future complications–I’ll give you a thousand dollars for your claim.”

“Whooo!” jeered Denver, “I’ll get more than that for the ore I just sent to the smelter. No, I’m no thousand-dollar man, Mr. Dodge. I’ve got a fissure vein and it’s increasing at depth, so I guess I’ll just hold on a while. You wait till old Murray begins to ship!”

“Ah–er–well, I’ll give you fifteen hundred,” conceded the Colonel drawing out his check-book and pen. “That’s the best I can possibly do.”

“Well save your check then, because I’m a long ways from broke. What d’ye think of that for a roll?” Denver drew out his roll of prize money, with a hundred dollar bill on top, and flickered the edges of the twenties. “I guess I can wait a while,” he grinned. “Come around again, when I’m broke.”

“I’ll give you a thousand dollars down and nine thousand in six months,” burst out the Colonel with sudden vehemence. “Now it’s that or absolutely nothing. If you try to hold me up I’ll abandon my option and withdraw entirely from the district.”

“Sorry to lose you, old-timer,” returned Denver genially, “but I guess we can’t do business. Come around in about a month.”

A sudden flash came into the Colonel’s bold eyes and he opened his mouth to speak–then he paused and shut his mouth tight.

“Not on your life, Mr. Russell,” he said with finality, “if I go I will not come back. Now give me your lowest cash price for the property. Will you accept ten thousand dollars?”

“No, I won’t,” answered Denver, “nor a hundred thousand, either. I’m a miner–I know what I’ve got.”

“Very well, Mr. Russell,” replied Colonel Dodge crisply and, bowing haughtily, he withdrew.

Denver looked after him laughing, but something about his stride suddenly wiped away the grin from Denver’s face–the Colonel was going somewhere. He was going with a purpose, and he walked like a man who was perfectly sure of his next move–like a man who has seen a snake in the road and turns back to cut a club. It was distinctly threatening and a light dawned on Denver when the automobile turned off towards Murray’s camp. That was it, he was an agent of Murray.

Denver sharpened up his steel and put in a round of holes but all that day and the next his uneasiness grew until he jumped at every sound. He felt the hostility of Colonel Dodge’s silence more than any that words could express; and when, on the second day, he saw Professor Diffenderfer approaching he stopped his work to watch him.

“Vell, how are you?” began the Professor, trying to warm up their ancient friendship; and then, seeing that Denver merely bristled the more, he cast off his cloak of well-wishing. “I vas yoost over to Murray’s camp,” he burst out vindictively, “and Dave said he vanted his gun.”

“Tell ’im to come over and get it,” suggested Denver and then he unbuckled his belt. “All right,” he said handing over the gun and cartridges, “here it is; I don’t need it, anyhow.” The Professor blinked and looked again, then reached out and took the belt doubtfully.

“Vot you mean?” he asked at last as his curiosity got the better of him, “have you got anudder gun somevhere? Dot Dave, he svears he vill kill you.”

“That’s all right,” replied Denver, “just give him his gun–I’ll take him on any day, with rocks.”

“How you mean ‘take him on?’” inquired the Professor all excitement but Denver waved him away.

“Go on now,” he said, “and give him his gun. I guess he’ll know what I mean.”

But if Chatwourth understood the hidden taunt he did not respond to the challenge and Denver’s mind reverted to H. Parkinson Dodge and his flattering offers for the mine. Ten thousand dollars cash, from a mining promoter, was indeed a princely sum; better by far than the offer of half a million shares that went with Bunker’s option. For stock is the sop that is thrown to poor miners in lieu of the good hard cash, but ten thousand dollars was a lot of money for a promoter to pay for a claim. It showed that there were others beside himself who believed in the value of his property, yet who this Colonel Dodge was or who were his backers was a question that only Bunker could answer. Denver waited in a sweat, now wondering if Bunker would speak to him, nor exulting in the offer for his mine; and when at last he saw Bunker Hill drive in he threw down his tools and hurried towards him.

But Bunker Hill was surly, he barely glanced at Denver and went on caring for his horses; and Denver did not crowd him. He waited, and at last Old Bunk looked up with jaw thrust grimly out.

“Well?” he said, and Denver forgot everything but the question that was on his tongue.

“Say,” he burst out, “who is this Colonel Dodge that came up and bought your mine? Is he working for Murray, or what?”

“Search me,” grumbled Bunker, “I got his thousand dollars, and that’s about all I know.”

“He was up here to see me the same day you left, with a whole load of six-buckle experts; and say, he offered me a check for ten thousand dollars if I’d sell him the Silver Treasure claim. And when I refused it he got into his machine and went right over to Murray’s. I’ll bet you you’re sold out to Bible-Back.”

“Well, he’s stuck then,” said Bunker. “I guess you haven’t heard the news–Murray’s closed down his camp for good.”

“He has!” exclaimed Denver, and then he laughed heartily. “He’s a foxy old dastard, isn’t he?”

“You said it,” returned Bunker. “Never did have any ore. Just pretended he had in order to sell stock and recoup what he’d lost on the drilling. They’re offering the stock for nothing.”

“Who’s offering it?” demanded Denver suddenly taking the matter seriously. “I’ll bet you it’s nothing but a fake!”

“All right,” shrugged Bunker, “but I met a bunch of miners and they were swapping stock for matches. Old Tom Buchanan down at Desert Wells won’t accept it at any price–that shows how much it’s a fake.”

“Aw, he pulled that once before,” answered Denver contemptuously, “but he don’t fool me again. Like as not he’s made a strike and is just shutting down so he can buy back the stock he sold.”

Bunker looked up and grunted, then gathered together his purchases and ambled off towards the house.

“That’s all you think about, ain’t it?” he said at parting. “I’ll mention it when I write to Drusilla.”

“Oh–oh, yes,” stammered Denver suddenly reminded of his dereliction, “say, how did she happen to go? And I want to get her address so I can explain how it happened–I wouldn’t have missed seeing her for anything!”

“No, of course not,” growled Bunker, “not for anything but your own interests. You can go to hell for your address.”

“Why, what do you mean?” demanded Denver; but as Bunker did not answer he fell back and let him go on.

CHAPTER XXV

THE ANSWER

There are some kinds of questions which require no answers and others which answer themselves. Denver had asked Bunker what he meant when he refused Drusilla’s address and intimated that he was unworthy of her friendship, but after a gloomy hour in the deepening twilight the question answered itself. Bunker had taken his daughter across the desert, on her way to the train and New York, and his curt remarks were but the reflex of her’s as she discussed Denver’s many transgressions. He thought more of mines and of his own selfish interests than he did of her and her art, and so she desired to hear no more of him or his protestations of innocence. That was what the words meant and as Denver thought them over he wondered if it was not true.

Drusilla had greeted him cordially when he had returned from Globe and had invited him to dinner that same night, but he had refused because he needed the sleep and begrudged the daylight to take it. And the next day he had worked even harder than before and had forgotten her invitation entirely. She was to sing just for him and, after the singing, she would have told him all her plans; and then perhaps they might have spoken of other things and parted as lovers should. But no, he had spoiled it by his senseless hurry in getting his ore off with McGraw; and now, with all the time in the world on his hands, the valley below was silent. Not a scale, not a trill, not a run or roulade; only silence and the frogs with their devilish insistence, their ceaseless eh, eh, eh. He rose up and heaved a stone into the creek-bed below, then went in and turned on his phonograph.

They were real people to him now, these great artists of the discs; Drusilla had described them as she listened to the records and even the places where they sang. She had pictured the mighty sweep of the Metropolitan with its horse-shoe of glittering boxes; the balconies above and the standing-room below where the poor art-students gathered to applaud; and he had said that when he was rich he would subscribe for a box and come there just to hear her sing. And now he was broke, and Drusilla was going East to run the perilous gauntlet of the tenors. He jerked up the stylus in the middle of a record and cursed his besotted industry. If he had let his ore go, and gone to see her like a gentleman, Drusilla might even now be his. She might have relented and given him a kiss–he cursed and stumbled blindly to bed.

In the morning he went to work in the close air of the tunnel, which sadly needed a fan, and then he hurled his hammer to the ground and felt his way out to daylight. What was the use of it all; where did it get him to, anyway; this ceaseless, grinding toil? Murray’s camp had shut down, the promoters had vanished, Pinal was deader than ever; he gathered up his tools and stored them in his cave, then sat down to write her a letter. Nothing less than the truth would win her back now and he confessed his shortcomings humbly; after which he told her that the town was too lonely and he was leaving, too. He sealed it in an envelope and addressed it with her name and when he was sure that Old Bunk was not looking he slipped in and gave it to her mother.

“I’m going away,” he said, “and I may not be back. Will you send that on to Drusilla?”

“Yes,” she smiled and hid it in her dress; but as he started for the door she stopped him.

“You might like to know,” she said, “that Drusilla has received an engagement. She is substitute soprano in a new Opera Company that is being organized to tour the big cities. I’m sorry you didn’t see her.”

“Yes,” answered Denver, “I’m sorry myself–but that never bought a man anything. Just send her the letter and–well, goodby.”

He blundered out the door and down the steps, and there stretched the road before him. In the evening he was as far as Whitlow’s Well and a great weight seemed lifted from his breast. He was free again, free to wander where he pleased, free to make friends with any that he met–for if the prophecy was not true in regard to his mine it was not true regarding his friends. And how could any woman, by cutting a pack of cards and consulting the signs of the zodiac, predict how a man would die? Denver made himself at home with a party of hobo miners who had come in from the railroad below, and that night they sat up late, cracking jokes and telling stories of every big camp in the West. It was the old life again, the life that he knew and loved, drifting on from camp to camp with every man his friend. Yet as he stretched out that night by the flickering fire he almost regretted the change. He was free from the great fear, free to make friends with whom he would; but, to win back the love of the beautiful young artist, he would have given up his freedom without a sigh.

His sleep that night was broken by strange dreams and by an automobile that went thundering by, and in the morning as they cooked a mulligan together he saw two great motor trucks go past. They were loaded with men and headed up the canyon and Denver began to look wild. A third machine appeared and he went out to flag it but the driver went by without stopping; and so did another, and another. He rushed after the next one and caught it on the hill but the men pushed him roughly from the running board. They were armed and he knew by their hard-bitten faces that it was another party of jumpers.

“Where are you going?” he yelled but they left him by the road without even a curse for an answer. Well, he knew then; they were going to Final, and Murray had fooled him again. Denver had suspected from the first that Murray’s shutdown was a ruse, to shake down the public for their stock; and now he knew it, and that if his mine was jumped again it would be held against all comers. Another automobile whirled by; and then came men that he knew, the miners who owned claims in the district.

“What’s the matter?” he called but they would not stop to talk, simply shouted and beckoned him on. Denver started, right then, without stopping for breakfast or to pick up his hobo’s pack; and soon he caught a ride with a party of prospectors whose claims he had once freed from jumpers.