“He does, hey!” challenged Bunker thrusting out his jaw belligerently, “well, I’d like to see somebody jump me. I’m living on my property, and possessory title is the very best title there is. By grab, if I thought that Mormon-faced old devil was 96thinking of jumping my ground─” He went off into uneasy mutterings and wrote out the quit-claim absently; then they went up together and, after going over the lines, Denver relocated the mine and named it the Silver Treasure.
“Think you guessed right, do you?” inquired Bunker with a grin. “Well, I hope you make a million. And if you do you’ll never hear no kick from me–you’ve bought it and paid my price.”
“Fair enough!” exclaimed Denver and shook hands on the trade, after which he bought some second-hand tools and went to work on a trail. Not a hundred feet down-stream from where the vein cropped out, the main trail crossed to the east side of the creek, leaving the mine on the side of a steep hill. A few days’ work, while he was waiting for his powder, would clear out the worst of the cactus and catclaws and give him free access to his hole. Then he could clean out the open cut, set up a little forge and prepare for the driving of his tunnel. The sun was blazing hot, not a breath of wind was stirring and the sweat splashed the rocks as he toiled; but there was a song in Denver’s heart that made his labors light and he hummed the “Barcarolle” as he worked. She was scornful of him now and thought only of her music; but the time would come when she would know him as her equal, for a miner can be an artist, too. And at swinging a double-jack or driving uppers Denver Russell was as good as any man. He worked for the joy of it 97and took pride in his craft–and that marks the true artist everywhere.
Yet now that his sale had been consummated and he had the money he needed, Bunker Hill suddenly lost all interest in Denver and retired into his shell. He had invited Denver once to come down to his house and share the hospitality of his home; but, after Denver’s brusque, almost brutal refusal, Old Bunk had never been the same. He had shown Denver his claim and stated the price and told a few stories on the side, but he had shown in many ways that his pride had been hurt and that he did not fully approve. This was made the more evident by the careful way in which he avoided introducing his wife; and it became apparent beyond a doubt in that tense ecstatic minute when Drusilla had come in from the garden.
Then, if ever, was the moment when Denver should have been introduced; but Bunker had pointedly neglected the opportunity and left him still a stranger. And all as a reward for his foolish words and his refusal of well-meaning hospitality. Denver realized it now, but his pride was touched and he refrained from all further advances. If he was not good enough to know Old Bunker’s family he was not good enough to associate with him; and so for three days he lived without society, for the Professor, too, was estranged. He passed Denver now with eyes fixed straight ahead, refusing even to recognize his presence; and, cut off for the time 98from all human intercourse, Denver turned at last to his phonograph.
The stars had come out in the velvety black sky, the hot stillness of evening had come, and from the valley below no sound came up but the eerie, eh, eh, eh, of tree toads. They were sitting by the stream and in cracks among the rocks, puffing out their pouched throats like toy balloons and raising, a shrill, haunting chorus. Their thin voices intermingled in an insistent, unearthly refrain as if the spirits of the dead had come again to gibber by the pool. Even the scales and trills of Drusilla had ceased, so hot and close was the night.
Denver set up his phonograph with its scrollwork front and patent filing cases and looked over the records which he had bought at great expense while the other boys were buying jazz. He was proud of them all but the one he valued most he reserved for another time. It was the “Barcarolle” from “Les Contes D’ Hoffmann,” sung by Farrar and Scotti, and he put on instead a tenor solo that had cost him three dollars in Globe. Then a violin solo, “Tambourin Chinois,” by some man with a foreign name; and at last the record that he liked the best, the “Cradle Song,” by Schumann-Heink. And as he played it again he saw Drusilla come out and stand in the doorway, listening.
It was a beautiful song, very sweet, very tender, and sung with the feeling of an artist; yet something about it seemed to displease Drusilla, for she turned and went into the house. Perhaps, hearing 99the song, she was reminded of the singers, stepping forward in a blare of trumpets to meet the applause of vast audiences; or perhaps again she felt the difference between her efforts and theirs; but all the next day, when she should have been practicing, Drusilla was strangely silent. Denver paused in his work from time to time as he listened for the familiar roulades, then he swung his heavy sledge as if it were a feather-weight and beat out the measured song of steel on steel. He picked and shoveled, tearing down from above and building up the trail below; and as he worked he whistled the “Cradle Song,” which was running through his brain. But as he swung the sledge again he was conscious of a presence, of someone watching from the sycamores; and, glancing down quickly he surprised Drusilla, looking up from among the trees. She met his eyes frankly but he turned away, for he remembered what the seeress had told him. So he went about his work and when he looked again his lady of the sycamores had fled.