“Ah, Ah-h-h-h, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah.”
It was the old familiar exercise, rising an octave at the first bound and then fluttering down like some gorgeous butterfly of sound till it rested on the octave below. And at each renewed flight it began a note higher until it climbed at last to high C. Then it ran up in roulades and galloping bravuras, it trilled and sought out new flights; yet always with the pellucid tones of the flute, the sweet, virginal purity of a child. She was right–there was something missing, a something which she groped for and could not find, a something which the other singers had. Denver sensed the lack dimly but he could not define it, all he knew was that she left out herself. In the brief glimpse he had of her she had seemed torn by dark passions, which caused her at times to brood among the sycamores and again to seek a quarrel with him; yet all this youthful turbulence was left out of her singing–she had not learned to express her emotions.
Denver listened every morning as he came out of 122his dark hole, pushing the wheel-barrows of ore and waste before him, and then he bade farewell to sun, air and music and went into the close, dark tunnel. By the light of a single candle, thrust into its dagger-like miner’s candlestick and stabbed into some seam in the wall, he smashed and clacked away at his drill until the whole face was honeycombed with holes. At the top they slanted up, at the bottom down, to keep the bore broken clean; but along the sides and in the middle they followed no system, more than to adapt themselves to the formation. When his round of holes was drilled he cut his fuse and loaded each hole with its charge; after which with firm hands he ignited each split end and hurried out of the tunnel. There he sat down on a rock and listened to the shots; first the short holes in the center, to blow out the crown; then the side holes, breaking into the opening; and the top-holes, shooting the rock down from above; and then, last and most powerful, the deep bottom holes that threw the dirt back down the tunnel and left the face clear for more work.
As the poisonous smoke was drifting slowly out of the tunnel mouth Denver fired up his forge and re-sharpened his drills; and then, along towards evening, when the fumes had become diffused, he went in to see what he had uncovered. Sometimes the vein widened or developed rich lenses, and sometimes it pinched down until the walls enclosed nothing but a narrow streak of talc; but always it dipped down, and that was a good sign, a prophecy of the 123true fissure vein to come. The ore that he mined now was a mere excrescence of the great ore-body he hoped to find, but each day the blanket-vein turned and dipped on itself until at last it folded over and led down. In a huge mass of rocks, stuck together by crystals of silica and stained by the action of acids, the silver and copper came together and intermingled at the fissure vent which had produced them both. Denver stared at it through the powder smoke, then he grabbed up some samples and went to see Bunker Hill.
Not since that great day when Denver had struck the copper had Bunker shown any interest in the mine. He sat around the house listening to Drusilla while she practiced and opening the store for chance customers; but towards Denver he still maintained a grim-mouthed reserve, as if discouraging him from asking any favors. Perhaps the fact that Denver’s money was all gone had a more or less direct bearing on the case; but though he was living on the last of his provisions Denver had refrained from asking for credit. His last shipment of powder and blacksmith’s coal had cost twenty per cent more than he had figured and he had sent for a few more records; and after paying the two bills there was only some small change left in the wallet which had once bulged with greenbacks. But his pride was involved, for he had read Drusilla a lecture on the evils of being faint-hearted, so he had simply stopped buying at the little store and lived on what he had left. But now–well, with 124that fissure vein opened up and a solid body of ore in sight, he might reasonably demand the customary accommodations which all merchants accord to good customers.
“Well, I’ve struck it,” he said when he had Bunker in the store, “just take a look at that!”
He handed over a specimen that was heavy with copper and Bunker squinted down his eyes.
“Yes, looks good,” he observed and handed it somberly back.
“I’ve got four feet of it,” announced Denver gloating over the specimens, “and the vein has turned and gone down. What’s the chances for some grub now, on account? I’m going to ship that sacked ore.”
“Danged poor–with me,” answered Bunker with decision. “You’d better try your luck with Murray.”