Silver and Gold: A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp

by Dane Coolidge

  CHAPTER VIII

  THE SILVER TREASURE

  As evening came on and the red eye of the sun winked and closed behind apurple range of mountains Denver Russell came out of his cliff-dwellingcave and looked at the old town below. Mysterious shadows were gatheringamong the ruins, the white walls stood out ghostly and still, and as abreeze stirred the clacking leaves of the sycamores a voice mounted uplike a bird's. It rose slowly and descended, it ran rippling arpeggiosand lingered in flute-like trills; but it was colorless, impersonal,void of feeling.

  It was more like a flute than like the voice of a bird that pours outits soul for joy; it was perfect, but it was not moving. Only as thespirit of the desolate town--as of some lost soul, pure andpassionless--did it find its note of appeal and Denver sighed and satsilent in the darkness. His thoughts strayed far away, to his boyhood inthe mountains, to his wanderings from camp to camp; they leapt ahead tothe problem that lay before him, the choice between the silver and goldtreasures; and then, drowsy and oblivious, he left the voice stillsinging and groped to his bed in the cave.

  All night the prying pack-rats, dispossessed of their dwelling, racedand gnawed and despoiled his provisions; but when the day dawned Denverleft them to do their worst, for his mind was on greater things. Atanother time, when he was not so busy, he would swing some rudecupboards on wires and store his food out of reach; but now he onlystopped to make a hasty breakfast and started off up the trail. When thesun rose, over behind Apache Leap, and cast its black shadow among thehills, Denver was up on the rim-rock, looking out on the promised landthat should yield him two precious treasures.

  The rim where he stood was uptilted and broken, a huge stratified walllike the edge of a layer cake or the leaves of some mighty book. Theylay one upon the other, these ledges of lime and sandstone, some red,some yellow, some white; and, heaped upon the top like a rich coating ofchocolate, was the brownish-black cap of the lava. In ages long pasteach layer had been a mud bank at the bottom of a tropic sea, until theweight of waters had pressed them down and time had changed them tostone. Then Mother Earth had breathed and in a slow, century-long heave,they had emerged from the bottom of the sea, there to be broken andshattered by the pent-up forces of the fire which was raging in herbreast.

  Great rents had been formed, igneous rocks had boiled up through them;and then in a grand, titanic effort the fire had forced its way up. Forcenturies this extinct volcano had belched forth its lava, building upthe frowning heights of Apache Leap; and then once more the earth hadsubsided and the waters of the ocean had rushed in. The edge of therim-rock had been sheered by torrential floods, erosion had fashionedthe far heights; until once more, with infinite groanings, the earth hadrisen from the depths. There it stayed, cracking and trembling, as theinner fires cooled down and the fury of the conflict died away; andboiling waters bearing ores in solution burst like geysers from everycrack. And there atom by atom, combined with quartz and acids, themetals of the earth were brought to the surface and deposited on thesides of the cracks. Copper and gold and silver and lead, and many ararer metal, all spewed up from the molten heart of the world to besought out and used by man.

  All this Denver sensed as he gazed at the high cliff where the volcanohad overflowed the earth, and at the layers and layers of sedimentaryrock that protruded from beneath its base; but his eyes, though theysensed it, cared nothing for the great Cause--what they looked for wasthe fruit of all that labor. Where along this shattered rim-rock,twisted and hacked and uptilted, were the hidden cracks, the preciousfissure veins, that had brought up the ore from the depths? There at hisfeet lay one, the gash through the rim where Queen Creek took itscourse; and further to the north, where the rim-rock was wrenched to thewest, was another likely place. To the south there was another, a deep,sharp canyon that broke through the formation to the heights; and overthem all, like a sheltering hand, lay the dark, moving shadow of ApacheLeap. He traced out its line as it crept back towards the town and then,big eyed and silent, he started down the trail, still looking for somesign that might guide him.

  But other eyes than his had been sweeping the rim and as he came up thetrail Bunker Hill appeared and walked along beside him.

  "I'll just show you those claims," he said smiling genially, "it'll saveyou a little time, and maybe a pair of shoes. And just to prove that I'mon the square I'll take you to the best one first."

  He led on up the street and as they passed a stone cabin the door wasyanked violently open and then as suddenly slammed shut.

  "That's the Dutchman," grinned Bunker, "he wakes up grouchy everymorning. What did you think of that rock he showed you?"

  "Good enough," replied Denver, "it was rotten with gold. But from thelooks of the pieces it's only a stringer--I doubt if it shows anywalls."

  "No, nor anything else much," answered Bunker slightingly, "you can'teven call it a stringer. It's a kind of broken seam, going flat into thehill--the Mexicans have been after it for years. Every time there's arain the Professor will go up there and wash out a little gold in thegulch; but a Chinaman couldn't work it, and make it show a profit, if hehad to dig out his ore. Of course it's all right, if you think gold isthe ticket, but you wait till I show you this claim of mine--next to thefamous Lost Burro Mine.

  "You know the Lost Burro--there she lays, right there--and they took outfour million dollars in silver before the bonanza pinched out. At firstthey hauled their ore to the Gulf of California and shipped it toSwansea, Wales, and afterwards they built a kind of furnace and roastedtheir ore right here. It was refractory ore, mixed up with zinc andantimony; but with everything against them, and all kinds of bummanagement, she paid from the very first day. All full of water now, orI'd show you around; but some mine in its time, believe me. I wouldn'tsell it for a million dollars."

  "Five hundred is my limit," observed Denver with a grin and Bunkerslapped his leg.

  "Say," he said, "did I tell you that story about the deacon that gotstung in a horse-trade? Well, this was back east, where I used to live,before I emigrated for the good of the country, and there was an oldMethodist deacon that was as smart as they make 'em when it came todriving a bargain. He and the livery-stable keeper had made a few swapsand one was about as sharp as the other; until finally it got to be amatter of pride between 'em to cut each other's throats in somehorse-trade They would talk and haggle, and drive away and come back,and jockey each other for months; but they always paid cash and if oneof 'em got stuck he'd trade the horse off to some woman. Well, one daythe livery-stable man drove past the deacon's house with a fine, free,high-stepping bay; and every afternoon for about a week he'd go by at apretty good clip. The deacon he'd rush out and try to flag him, but thelivery-stable keeper wouldn't stop; until finally the deacon's curiositygot the best of his judgment and he went out and laid in wait for him.

  "'How much do you want for that hoss?' he says when the livery-stableman came to a stop.

  "'Two hundred dollars,' says the livery-stable keeper.

  "'I'll give you fifty!' barks the deacon coming out to look him over andthe livery-stable man tossed him the reins.

  "'The hoss is yours,' he says, and the deacon knowed he was stung.

  "Quick work," said Denver, "but I'm not like the deacon. I'm going tolook around."

  "Oh, sure, sure!" protested Bunker, "take all the time you want, butthis offer is only good for one week. I've got a special reason forwanting to make a sale or I'd never let you look at this claim. Why, theProfessor himself has told me a thousand times that it's a betterproposition than the Burro, so you can see that I am making itattractive. And I ain't pretending that I'm making you the offer for anybull-con reason. I might say that I wanted you to do some work, or toopen up the district; but the fact of the matter is I need the fivehundred dollars. I've seen times before this war when a hundred thousandcash wouldn't pry me loose from that claim, but now it's yours for fivehundred dollars if you honestly think it's worth it. And if you don't,that's all right, there's no hard feeling
between us and you can go andbuy from the Professor. You wasn't born yesterday and you're a good,hard-rock miner; so enough said, there's the claim, right there."

  He waved his hand at the steep shoulder of the hill, where the canyonhad cut through the rim-rock; and as Denver looked at the formation ofthe ground a gleam came into his eyes. The claim took in the silted edgeof the rim, where the strata had been laid bare, and along through themiddle of the varicolored layers there ran a broad streak of iron-red.Into this a streak of copper-stained green had been pinched by thelateral fault of the canyon and where the two joined--just across thecreek--was the discovery hole of the claim.

  "Let's go over and look at it," he said and, crossing the creek on thestones, he clambered up to the hole. It was an open cut with a shorttunnel at the end and, piled up about the location monument, were somesamples of the rock. Denver picked one up and at sight of the ore heglanced suspiciously at Bunker.

  "Where did this come from?" he asked holding up a chunk that was heavywith silver and lead, "is this some high-grade from the famous LostBurro?"

  "Nope," returned Bunker, "'bout the same kind of rock, though. Thatcomes from the tunnel in there."

  "Like hell!" scoffed Denver with a swift look at the specimen, "and forsale for five hundred dollars? Well, there's something funny here,somewhere."

  He stepped into the tunnel and there, across the face, was a four inchvein of the ore. It lay between two walls, as a fissure vein should; butthe dip was almost horizontal, following the level of the uptiltedstrata. Except for that it was as ideal a prospect as a man could ask tosee--and for sale for five hundred dollars! A single ton of the ore, ifit was as rich as it looked, ought easily to net five hundred dollars.

  Denver knocked off some samples with his prospector's pick and carriedthem out into the sun.

  "Why don't you work this?" he asked as he caught the gleam of nativesilver in the duller gray of the lead and Old Bunk hunched hisshoulders.

  "Little out of my line," he suggested mildly, "I leave all that to theSwedes. Say, did you ever hear that one about the Swede and theIrishman--you don't happen to be Irish, do you?"

  "No," answered Denver and as he waited for the story he remembered whatthe Professor had told him. This long, gangly Yankee, with his droopingred mustache and his stories for every occasion, was nothing but astore-keeper and a cowman. He knew nothing about mining or the value ofmines but like many another old-timer simply held down his claims andwaited--and to cover up his ignorance of mining he told stories aboutIrishmen and Swedes. "No," said Denver, "and you're no Swede, or you'ddrift in there and see what you've got."

  "A mule can work," observed Bunker oracularly, "but here's one I heardsprung on an Irishman. He was making a big talk about Swedes and Swedeluck, and after he'd got through a feller made the statement that theSwedes were the greatest people in the world.

  "'In the wur-rold!' yells the Irishman, like he was out of his head,'well, how do you figure thot out?'

  "'Well, I'll tell you,' says the feller, 'the Swedes invented thewheel-barrow--and then they learned you Irish to stand on your hind legsand run it!' Har, har, har; he had him going that time--the Mickcouldn't think what else to do so he went to heaving bricks."

  "Yes--sure," nodded Denver, "that was one on the Irish. But say, haveyou got a clean title to this claim? Because if you have----"

  "You bet I have!" spoke up Bunker, now suddenly strictly business; butas he waited expectantly there was a shout from the trail and ProfessorDiffenderfer came rushing up.

  "Oh, I heard you!" he cried shaking a trembling fist at Bunker. "I heardvot you said about my claim! Und now, Mister Bunk, I'll have my say--nosir, you haf no goot title. You haf not done your yearly assessment vorkon dis or any oder claims!"

  "Say, who called you in on this?" inquired Bunker Hill coldly. "Youdanged, bat-headed Dutchman, you keep butting in on my deals and I'llforget and bust you on the jaw!"

  His long, sharp chin was suddenly thrust out, one eye had a dangerousdroop; but the Professor returned his gaze with an insolent stare and atriumphant toss of the head.

  "Dat's all right!" he said, "you say my golt mine is a stringer--I sayyour silver mine is nuttings. You haf no title, according to law, butonly by the custom of the country."

  "Well, you poor, ignorant baboon," burst out Bunker in a fury, "whatbetter title do you want? The claim is mine, everybody knows it andacknowledges it; and I've got your signature, sworn before a notarypublic, that the annual work was done!"

  "Just a form, just a form," returned the Professor with a shrug, "I dolike everyone else. But dis claim dat I haf--and my tunnel on thehill--on dem the vork is done. And now, Mr. Russell, if you haf finishedlooking here, I will take you to see my mine."

  "Well, I don't know," began Denver still gazing at the silver ore, "thislooks pretty good, right here."

  "But the prophecy!" exclaimed the Professor with a knowing smirk, "don'tit tell you to choose between the two? And how can you tell if you don'teven look--whether the golt or the silver is better?"

  "Aw, go down and look at it!" broke in Bunker Hill angrily as Denverscratched his head, "go and see what he calls a mine--and if you don'tcome running back and put your money in my hand you ain't the miner Ithink you are. But by the holy, jumping Judas, I'm going to forgetmyself some day and knock the soo-preme pip out of this Dutchman!" Heturned abruptly away and went striding back towards the town and theProfessor leered at Denver.

  "Vot I told you?" he boasted, "I ain't scared of dat mens--he promisedhis vife he von't fight!"

  "Good enough," said Denver, "but don't work it too hard. Now come on andlet's look at your mine."