"Won't some other
claim do just as well? No, I don't mean that; but--tell me how it all
came about."

"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."

"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."

"He does not!" retorted Drusilla, "he doesn't know I'm up here. But he
hasn't been the same since he sold his claim, and I want to buy it back.
He sold it to get the money to send me to New York, and it was all an
awful mistake. I can never become a great singer."

"No?" inquired Denver, glad to change the subject, "I thought you were
doing fine. That evening when you----"

"Well, so did I!" she broke in, "until you played all those records; and