“No!” he said, “I was sent, you know–a fortune-teller told me to dig here.”
“Oh, did he?” she exclaimed in great disappointment. “Won’t some other claim do just as well? No, I don’t mean that; but–tell me how it all came about.”
102“Well,” began Denver, avoiding her eyes; and then he rose up abruptly and brushed off the top of a powder-box. “Sit down,” he said, “I’d sure like to accommodate you, but here’s how I come to buy it. There’s a woman over in Globe–Mother Trigedgo is her name–and she saved the lives of a lot of us boys by predicting a cave in a mine. Well, she told my fortune and here’s what she said:
“You will soon make a journey to the west and there, within the shadow of a place of death, you will find two treasures, one of silver and the other of gold. Choose well between them and both shall be yours, but–well, I don’t need to tell you the rest. But this is my choice, see? And so, of course─”
“Oh, do you believe in those people?” she inquired incredulously, “I thought─”
“But not this one!” spoke up Denver stoutly, “I know that the most of them are fakes. But this Mother Trigedgo, she’s a regular seeress–and it’s all come true, every word! Apache Leap up there is the place of death. I came west after that fellow that robbed me; and this mine here and that gold prospect of the Professor’s are both in the shadow of the peaks!”
“But maybe you guessed wrong,” she cried, snatching at a straw. “Maybe this isn’t the one, after all. And if it isn’t, oh, won’t you let me buy it back for father? Because I’m not going to New York, after all.”
103“Well, what good would it do him?” burst out Denver vehemently. “He’s had it for fifteen years! If he thought so much of it why didn’t he work it a little and ship out a few sacks of ore?”
“He’s not a miner,” protested Drusilla weakly and Denver grunted contemptuously.
“No,” he said, “you told the truth that time–and that’s what the matter with the whole district. The ground is all held by lead-pencil work and nobody’s doing any digging. And now, when I come in and begin to find some ore, your old man wants his mining claim back.”