“Yes, but come up anyway and meet my wife and daughter. Drusilla is a musician–she’s studied in Boston at the celebrated Conservatory of Music─”
“I’ve got me a phonograph,” answered Big Boy shortly, “if I can ever get it over here from Globe.”
“Well, go ahead and get it, then,” said Bunker Hill tartly, “they’s nobody keeping you, I’m sure.”
“No, and you bet your life there won’t be,” came back Big Boy, starting off, “I’m playing a lone hand to win.”
42CHAPTER VI
THE ORACULUM
The palpitating heat lay like a shimmering fleece over the deserted camp of Pinal and Denver Russell, returning from Globe, beheld it as one in a dream. Somewhere within the shadow of Apache Leap were two treasures that he was destined to find, one of gold and one of silver; and if he chose wisely between them they were both to be his. And if he chose unwisely, or tried to hold them both, then both would be lost and he would suffer humiliation and shame. Yet he came back boldly, fresh from a visit with Mother Trigedgo who had blessed him and called him her son. She had wept when they parted, for her burdens had been heavy and his gift had lightened her lot; but though she wished him well she could not control his fate, for that lay with the powers above. Nor could she conceal from him the portion of evil which was balanced against the good.
“Courage and constancy will attend you through life’” she had written in her old-country scrawl; “but in the end will prove your undoing, for you will meet your death at the hands of your dearest friend.”
43That was the doom that hung over him like a hair-suspended sword–to be killed by his dearest friend–and as he paused at the mouth of Queen Creek Canyon he wished that his fortune had not been told. Of what good to him would be the two hidden treasures–or even the beautiful young artist with whom he was destined to fall in love–if his life might be cut off at any moment by some man that he counted his friend? When his death should befall, Mother Trigedgo had not told, for the signs had been obscure; but when it did come it would be by the hand of the man that he called his best friend. A swift surge of resistance came over him again as he gazed at the promised land and he shut his teeth down fiercely. He would have no friends, no best of friends, but all men that he met he would treat the same and so evade the harsh hand of fate. Forewarned was forearmed, he would have no more pardners such as men pick up in rambling around; but in this as in all else he would play a lone hand and so postpone the evil day.
He strode on down the trail into the silent town where the houses stood roofless and bare, and as he glanced at the ancient gallows-frame above the abandoned mine fresh courage came into his heart. This city of the dead should come back to life if what the stars said was true; and the long rows of adobes now stripped of windows and doors, would awaken to the tramp of miners’ boots. He would find two treasures and, if he chose well between them, both the silver and the gold would be his. 44But neither wily Bunker Hill nor the palavering Professor should pull him this way or that; for Mother Trigedgo had given him a book, to consult on all important occasions. It was Napoleon’s Oraculum, or Book of Fate; and as Denver had glanced at the key–with its thirty-two questions covering every important event in human life–a thrill of security had passed over him. With this mysterious Oraculum, the Man of Destiny had solved the many problems of his life; and in question thirteen, that sinister number, was a test that would serve Denver well: