Silver and Gold Part 14

"Nope," he said, "your old man took me for a hobo and he can't get the idea out of his head. What did he say when you gave me this job?"

"Well, he didn't object; but I guess, if you don't mind, we'll only do three or four claims. He says I'll need the money back East."

"Yes, you will," agreed Denver. "Five hundred isn't much. If I was flush I'd do this for nothing."

"Oh, no," she protested, "I couldn't allow that. But if there _should_ be a rush, and father's claims should be jumped----"

"You'd have the best of them, anyway. I wouldn't tempt old Murray too far."

"No," she said, "and that reminds me--I hear that he's made a strike.

But say, here's a good joke on the Professor. You know he thinks he's a mining expert, and he's been crazy to look at the diamond drill cores; and the other day the boss driller was over and he told me how he got rid of him. You know, in drilling down they run into cavities where the lime has been leached away, and in order to keep the bore intact they pour them full of cement. Well, when the Professor insisted upon seeing the core and wouldn't take no for an answer, Mr. Menzger just gave him a section of concrete, where they'd bored through a filled-up hole. And Mr. Diffenderfer just looked so wise and examined it through his microscope, and then he said it was very good rock and an excellent indication of copper. Isn't that just too rich for anything?"

"Yeh," returned Denver with a thin-lipped smile. And then, before he thought how it sounded: "Say, who is this Mr. Menzger, anyway?"

"Oh, he's a friend of ours," she answered drooping her eyelashes coquettishly. "He gets lonely sometimes and comes down to hear me sing--he's been in New York and everywhere."

"Yes, he must be a funny guy," observed Denver mirthlessly. "Any relation to that feller they call Dave?"

"Oh, Mr. Chatwourth? No, he's from Kentucky--they say he's the last of his family. All the others were killed in one of those mountain feuds--Mr. Menzger says he's absolutely fearless."

"Well, what did he leave home for, then?" inquired Denver arrogantly.

"He don't look very bad to me, I guess if he was fearless he'd be back in Kentucky, shooting it out with the rest of the bunch."

"No, it seems that his father on his dying bed commanded him to leave the country, because there were too many of the others against him. But Mr. Menzger tells me he's a professional killer, and that's why Old Murray hired him. Do you think they would jump our claims?"

"They would if they struck copper," replied Denver bluntly. "And old Murray warned me not to buy from your father--that shows he's got his eye on your property. It's a good thing we're doing this work."

"Weren't you afraid, then?" she asked, putting the wonder-note into her voice and laying aside her frank manner, "weren't you afraid to buy our claim? Or did you feel that you were guided to it, and all would be for the best?"

"That's it!" exclaimed Denver suddenly putting down his drill to gaze into her innocent young eyes. "I was guided, and so I bought it anyhow."

"Oh, I think it's so romantic!" she murmured with a sigh, "won't you tell me how it happened?"

And then Denver Russell, forgetting the seeress' warning at the very moment he was discussing her, sat down on a rock and gave Drusilla the whole story of his search for the gold and silver treasures. But at the end--when she questioned him about the rest of the prophecy--he suddenly recalled Mother Trigedgo's admonition: "Beware how you reveal your affection or she will confer her hand upon another."

A shadow came into his blue eyes and his boyish enthusiasm was stilled; and Drusilla, who had been practicing her stage-learned wiles, suddenly found her technique at fault. She chattered on, trying subtly to ensnare him, but Denver's heart was now of adamant and he failed to respond to her approaches. It was not too late yet to heed the words of the prophecy, and he drilled on in thoughtful silence.

"Don't you get lonely?" she burst out at last, "living all by yourself in that cave? Why, even these old prospectors have to have some pardner--don't you ever feel the need of a friend?"

There it was--he felt it coming--the appeal to be just friends. But another girl had tried it already, and he had learned about women from her.

"No," he said shortly, "I don't need no friends. Say, I'm going to load this hole now."

"Well, go on!" she challenged, "I'm not afraid. I'll stay here as long as you do."

"All right," he said lowering his powder down the hole and tamping it gently with a stick, "I see I can't scare _you_."

"Oh, you thought you could scare me!" she burst out mockingly, "I suppose you're a great success with the girls."

"Well," he mocked back, "a good-looking fellow like me----" And then he paused and grinned slyly.

"Oh, what's the use!" she exclaimed, rising up in disgust, "I might as well quit, right now."

"No, don't go off mad!" he remonstrated gallantly. "Stay and see the big explosion."

"I don't care _that_ for your explosion!" she answered pettishly and snapped her fingers in the air.

It was the particular gesture with which the coquettish Carmen was wont to dismiss her lovers; but as she strode down the hill Drusilla herself was heart-broken, for her coquetry had come to naught. This big Western boy, this unsophisticated miner, had sensed her wiles and turned them upon her--how then could she hope to succeed? If her eyes had no allure for a man like him, how could she hope to fascinate an audience? And Carmen and half the heroines of modern light opera were all of them incorrigible flirts. They flirted with servants, with barbers, with strolling actors, with their own and other women's husbands; until the whole atmosphere fairly reeked of intrigue, of amours and coquettish escapades. To the dark-eyed Europeans these wiles were instinctive but with her they were an art, to be acquired laboriously as she had learned to dance and sing. But flirt she could not, for Denver Russell had flouted her, and now she had lost his respect.

A tear came to her eye, for she was beginning to like him, and he would think that she flirted with everyone; yet how was she to learn to succeed in her art if she had no experience with men? It was that, in fact, which her teacher had hinted at when he had told her to go out and live; but her heart was not in it, she took no pleasure in deceit--and yet she longed for success. She could sing the parts, she had learned her French and Italian and taken instruction in acting; but she lacked the verve, the pa.s.sionate abandon, without which she could never succeed. Yet succeed she must, or break her father's heart and make his great sacrifice a mockery. She turned and looked back at Denver Russell, and that night she sang--for him.

He was up there in his cave looking down indifferently, thinking himself immune to her charms; yet her pride demanded that she conquer him completely and bring him to her feet, a slave! She sang, attired in filmy garments, by the light of the big, glowing lamp; and as her voice took on a pa.s.sionate tenderness, her mother looked up from her work.

Then Bunker awoke from his gloomy thoughts and glanced across at his wife; and they sat there in silence while she sang on and on, the gayest, sweetest songs that she knew. But Drusilla's eyes were fixed on the open doorway, on the darkness which lay beyond; and at last she saw him, a dim figure in the distance, a presence that moved and was gone.

She paused and glided off into her song of songs, the "Barcarolle" from "Love Tales of Hoffman," and as her voice floated out to him Denver rose up from his hiding and stepped boldly into the moonlight. He stood there like a hero in some Wagnerian opera, where men take the part of G.o.ds, and as she gazed the mockery went out of her song and she sang of love alone. Such a love as women know who love one man forever and hold all his love in return, yet the words were the same as those of false Giuletta when she fled with the perfidious Dapertutto.

"Night divine, O night of love, O smile on our enchantment Moon and stars keep watch above This radiant night of love!"

She floated away in the haunting chorus, overcome by the madness of its spell; and when she awoke the song was ended and love had claimed her too.

CHAPTER XVI

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 s.h.i.+p 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 pa.s.sed 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.