The stifling summer heat fetched up wind from the south and thundercaps crowned the high peaks; then the rain came slashing and struck up the dust before it lifted and went scurrying away. The lizards gasped for breath, Drusilla ceased to sing, all Pinal seemed to palpitate with heat; but through heat and rain one song kept on–Denver’s song of steel on steel. In the cool of his tunnel he drove up-holes and down, slugging manfully away until his round of holes was done and then shooting away the face. As the sun sank low he sat on the dump, sorting and sacking the best of his ore; and one evening as he worked Drusilla came by, walking slowly as if in deep thought.
He was down on his knees, a single-jack in his right hand a pile of quartzite at his left, and as she came to the forks he went on cracking rocks without so much as a stare. She glanced at him furtively, looked back towards the town, then turned off and came up his trail.
“Good evening,” she began and as he nodded silently she seemed at a loss for words. “–I just wanted to ask you,” she burst out hurriedly, “if 101you’d be willing to sell back the mine? I brought up the money with me.”
She drew out the sweaty roll of bills which he had paid to her father and as Denver looked up she held it out to him, then clutched it convulsively back.
“I don’t mean,” she explained, “that you have to take it. But I thought perhaps–oh, is it very rich? I’m sorry I let him sell it.”
“Why, no,” answered Denver with his slow, honest smile, while his heart beat like a trip-hammer in his breast, “it isn’t so awful rich. But I bought it, you know–well, I was sent here!”
“What, by Murray?” she cried aghast, “did he send you in to buy it?”
“Don’t you think it!” returned Denver. “I’m working for myself and–well, I don’t want to sell.”
“No, but listen,” she pleaded, her eyes beginning to fill, “I–I made a great mistake. This was father’s best claim, he shouldn’t have sold it; and so–won’t you sell it back?”
She smiled, and Denver reached out blindly to accept the money, but at a thought he drew back his hand.