"That's got nothing to do with it," broke in Denver hotly, "I'm making him a business proposition. But he's so danged bull-headed he'd rather kill some jumper than comply with the law as it stands. He's been holding down these claims with a lead-pencil and a six-shooter just about as long as he can and----" "Oh, have you made another strike?" asked Drusilla eagerly and when she heard the news she turned to her father with a sudden note of gladness in her voice. "Then you'll have to do the work," she said, "because I'll never be happy till you do. Ever since you sold your claim I've been sorry for my selfishness but now I'm going to pay you back. I'm going to take my five hundred dollars and hire this assessment work done and then----" "It won't cost any five hundred," put in Denver hastily. "I'm kinder short, right now, and I offered to do it for ten dollars a claim, in trade." "Ten dollars? Why, how can you do it for that? I thought the law required a ten foot hole, or the same amount of work in a tunnel." "Or an open cut," hinted Denver. "Leave it to me--I can do it and make money, to boot." "Well, you're hired, then!" cried Drusilla with a rush of enthusiasm, "but you have to go to work to-morrow." "Well--ll," qualified Denver, "I wanted to look over my strike and finish sacking that ore. Wouldn't the next day do 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!"