Silver and Gold: A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining CampCoolidge, Dane
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Silver and Gold: A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp
Coolidge, Dane
Gold mines and mining -- Fiction; Silver mines and mining -- Fiction; Western stories
"Night divine, O night of love,
O smile on our enchantment
Moon and stars keep watch above
This radiant night of love!"
She floated away in the haunting chorus, overcome by the madness of its
spell; and when she awoke the song was ended and love had claimed her
too.
CHAPTER XVI
A FRIEND
A new spirit, a strange gladness, had come over Drusilla and parts which
had been difficult became suddenly easy when she took up her work the
next day; but when she walked out in the cool of the evening the
sombrero and boy's boots were gone. She wore a trailing robe, such as
great ladies wear when they go to keep a tryst with knightly lovers, and
she went up the trail to where Denver was working on the last of her
father's claims. He was up on the high cliff, busily tamping the powder
that was to blast out the side of the hill, and she waited patiently
until he had fired it and come down the slope with his tools.
"That makes four," he said, "and I'm all out of powder." But she only
answered with a smile.
"I'll have to wait, now," he went on bluffly, "until McGraw comes up
again, before I can do any more work."
"Yes," she answered and smiled again; a slow, expectant smile.
"What's the matter?" he demanded and then his face changed and he
fumbled with the strap of his canteen. And when he looked up his eyes
met hers and there was no longer any secret between them.
"You can rest a few days, then," she suggested softly, "I'd like to hear
some of your records."
"Yes--sure, sure," he burst out hastily and they walked down the trail
together. She went on ahead with the quick step of a dancer and Denver
looked up at an eagle in the sky, as if in some way it could understand.
But the eagle soared on, without effort and without ceasing, and Denver
could only be glad. In some way, far beyond him, she had divined his
love; but it was not to be spoken of--now. That would spoil it all, the
days of sweet communion, the pretence that nothing had changed; yet they
knew it had changed and in the sharing of that great secret lay the tie
that should bind them together. Denver looked from the eagle to the
glorious woman and remembered the prophecy again. Even yet he must
beware, he must veil every glance, treat her still like a simple country
child; for the seeress had warned him that his fate hung in the balance
and she might still confer her hand upon another.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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