“He hain’t abandoned it, I tell you. He paid the taxes up to last year. It takes an awful sight of money, stranger, to develop a big mine so far from the railroad. Krutzmacht’s pile wasn’t big enough, and he wasn’t the kind who’d take anybody in with him. All or nothing for him—that was his way. So he went back to California to get his stake. If he’s alive still, he’ll be coming in here some day ready to work this bonanza!”
“I am afraid that will never be,” Brainard said slowly. “Krutzmacht died in New York two months ago.”
The miner stared in astonishment, exclaiming at last:
“Well, well! So the old man died before he made good!” Brainard nodded. “Maybe you are looking at the property for yourself?”
“Do I look like a miner? No, I came to Monument to find out if the old man left an heir.”
“I reckon the only folks he had was that girl and her mother, and one is dead and the other gone goodness knows where,” the old miner replied. “So the Melody mine don’t belong to nobody now!”
“It belongs to that girl, if we can find her.”
“It may be sold for taxes before that.”
“Then I’ll buy it in,” Brainard said promptly.
They ate the bread and bacon they had brought with them for lunch under a pine tree on a slope of the steep hill above the mine. The old miner shook his head from time to time, and muttered to himself over the strange dispensations of Providence that left a rich mine like the Melody abandoned. Brainard thought of the girl who had escaped him, and planned vaguely what his next steps should be.