Brainard shook his head.
“Not to-day—perhaps sometime. . . . But not for publication—that! I’ve given you one good newspaper scoop four years ago, and this thing for your magazine. But the other I’ll keep for myself.”
Farson’s face expressed a momentary disappointment. But he merely remarked:
“I’ve often wondered about you ever since I helped you aboard the ferry with that big bag. Got it still?”
“Yes, what’s left of it.” . . .
Frank as Brainard had become under the influences of his new life and much as he was attracted by the careless, good-humored young newspaper man, he could not bring himself to tell him the intimate details of his story, which in his feelings was so much more concerned with his unknown mistress than with himself. Ever since that evening when he had stood in the abandoned house above the Arizona desert, surrounded by the mute evidences of the girl’s existence, he had prosecuted vigorously the search for the elusive Melody, using every means known to him—and all in vain. There had been no clew whatever that led beyond the railroad tracks. Neither in San Francisco, where he had looked first, nor in New Orleans, where he had gone in the hope of finding some trace of the girl’s mother, nor in New York, where the old German was well known, could he learn anything definite of Krutzmacht’s family affairs. There were many who had known the business man, but as sometimes happens the business man had admitted no one into his personal confidence.
After the first few months of this search, when forced finally to fall back upon the usual devices of advertising and employing detectives, Brainard returned to Monument,—the spot where he had found and lost his one substantial proof of the girl’s reality,—and there he had taken up the project he had conceived of working the abandoned mine until some heir should be found. Into this project he had thrown himself with all the ardor of his newly awakened temperament and found in the struggles that ensued a relief from the aimless hunting for the lost girl. As time passed with no results from all the agencies he had used in his search, his mind became less occupied with the vision of his unknown mistress, and his life concentrated itself upon this accidental undertaking,—all the more as it proved unexpectedly difficult and failure frequently threatened. His pride and good faith as well as his new manhood were challenged in the struggle, which had only quite recently resulted in abounding triumph. Now that he was free to look about him again and direct his energy into a new channel, the thought of Melody returned to haunt his mind. One of his purposes in coming to New York was to start afresh the hopeless search. An idea came to him as he talked with Farson about the mine. Perhaps publicity of his success with the Melody mine in Arizona might attract the attention of the one most concerned. With this thought in mind he said to the magazine man, turning away from the window:
“I’ll tell you all you want to know about the mine—you can put it in your story.”
He gave him a lively account of the vicissitudes of the great Melody mine at Monument, Arizona, and his experiences with it.
“So,” Farson summed up at the end, “the copper gave out?”