just as well?"

"No, it wouldn't," she replied. "You can give me an answer, right now."

"Well, I'll go you!" said Denver and Old Bunker grunted and regarded
them with a wry, knowing smile.

CHAPTER XV

A NIGHT FOR LOVE

There was music that evening in the Bunker Hill mansion but Denver
Russell sat sulking in his cave with no company but an inquisitive
pack-rat. He regretted now his curt refusal to join the Hills at supper,
for Drusilla was singing gloriously; but a man without pride is a
despicable creature and Old Bunk had tried to insult him. So he went to
bed and early in the morning, while the shadow of Apache Leap still lay
like a blanket across the plain, he set out to fulfill his contract.
Across one shoulder he hung a huge canteen of water, on the other a sack
of powder and fuse; and, to top off his burden, he carried a long steel
churn-drill and a spoon for scooping out the muck.

The discovery hole of Bunker's Number Two claim was just up the creek
from his own and, after looking it over, Denver climbed up the bank and
measured off six feet from the edge. Then, raising the steel bar, he
struck it into the ground, churning it rhythmically up and down; and as
the hole rapidly deepened he spooned it out and poured in a little more
water. It was the same uninteresting work that he had seen men do when
they were digging a railroad cut; and the object was the same, to shoot
down the dirt with the minimum of labor and powder. But with Denver it
became a work of art, a test of his muscle and skill, and at each
downward thrust he bent from the hips and struck with a deep-chested
"Huh!"

An hour passed by, and half the length of the drill was buried at the
end of the stroke; and then, as he paused to wipe the sweat from his
eyes, Denver saw that his activities were being noted. Drusilla was
looking on from the trail below, and apparently with the greatest
interest. She was dressed in a corduroy suit, with a broad sombrero
against the sun; and as she came up the slope she leapt from rock to
rock in a heavy pair of boys' high boots. There was nothing of the
singer about her now, nor of the filmy-clad barefooted dancer; the
jagged edge of old Pinal would permit of nothing so effeminate. Yet,
over the rocks as on the smooth trails, she had a grace that was all her
own, for those hillsides had been her home.

"Well, how's the millionaire?" she inquired with a smile that made his
fond heart miss a beat. "Is