Brainard turned back to the street, and there the only human being in sight was an old man sitting in front of a tiny cottage, which seemed more decent in appearance than the other residences of Monument. Brainard hailed him, and inquired if there was another hotel in Monument in which he might take refuge. “There’s hotels enough,” the old citizen replied with placid irony, “but they ain’t doing business these days. I reckon you’ll have to put up with the Waldorf, stranger—it ain’t so worse!” In reply to Brainard’s complaint that the landlady of the Waldorf would not take notice of his arrival, the old man remarked: “I expect Katie’s just getting over her yesterday’s booze. She’ll come around after sundown. Come over and sit awhile. There ain’t any use of worryin’ yourself in this here country!” He waved an arm slowly over the empty landscape. “That’s a fact—Monument doesn’t seem greatly rushed with business,” Brainard observed, taking the proffered seat beside the old man. “What’s the matter with the place?” “The matter is that nothing has been doing in this here camp for ’most ten years,” the miner replied, pointing to the smokeless smelter. “Mine gave out?” “Mine’s all right—they never really got into it. The money gave out!” The old man explained, in his placid drawl, how Monument once had great hopes. Then there had been a dozen Waldorfs in full swing. The smelter had been built, and shafts sunk in the red-brown hills behind the town. “The Melody Mine?” “That’s what they called it, and it’s as good a mine as there ever was in Arizony—better ore than the El Verde ever had—more money in it than three El Verdes rolled into one, I say!” “Gold?” The old man spat contemptuously at a venturesome lizard. “Gold! Hell, no—copper! High-grade ore.” “What was the matter?” “Them panic times came along, and the fellow that owned the Melody went broke. He went back to Frisco. I always expected him to ride into camp some day, when the panic was over, hitch down there at the Waldorf, and sing out, ‘Howdy, Steve!’ and things would begin to hum once more. But he never come back. Guess it’s likely he ain’t made good out in California.” “Perhaps he’s dead now,” Brainard suggested. “P’r’aps—but some other feller will work the mine, one of these days. Copper’s booming all over the world, you understand. I’m waiting for that day!” The old man spat meditatively. “What is that large house on the hill?” Brainard asked, pointing to the lonely mansion beyond the town. “That’s where the old man lived—Krutzmacht’s house,” he replied. “He used to live there with his folks.” “He had a family, then?” Brainard inquired quickly. “Some said she warn’t really his wife—couldn’t be, because she had a husband where she came from, back East. I don’t know. I never asked him. Folks always talk, you understand. Well, she’s dead now. The old man left her here when he went away. She stayed on with the girl—” “With what girl?”