then it came over me I couldn't sing like that if I tried a thousand
years. I just haven't got the temperament. Those continental people have
something that we lack--they're so Frenchy, so emotional, so full of
fire! I've tried and I've tried and I just can't do it--I just can't
interpret those parts!"

She stamped her foot and winked very fast and Denver forgot he was a
stranger. He had heard her sing so often that he seemed to know her
well, to have known her for years and years, and he ventured a
comforting word.

"Oh well, you're young yet," he suggested shame-facedly, "perhaps it
will come to you later."

"No, it won't!" she flared back, "I've got to give it up and go to
teaching school!"

She stomped her foot more impatiently than ever and Denver went to
cracking rocks.

"What do you think of that?" he inquired casually, handing over a chunk
of ore; but she gazed at it uncomprehendingly.

"Isn't there anything I can do?" she began at last, "that will make you
change your mind? I might give you this much money now and then pay you
more later, when I go to teaching school."

"Well, what do you want it back for?" he demanded irritably, "it's been
lying here idle for years. I'd think you'd be glad to have somebody get
hold of it that would do a little work."

"I just want to give it back--and have it over with!" she exclaimed with
an embittered smile. "I've practiced and I've practiced but it doesn't
do any good, and now I'm going to quit."

"Oh, if that's all," jeered Denver, "I'll locate another claim, and let
you give that back. What good would it do him if you did give it
back--he'd just sit in the shade and tell stories."

"Don't you talk that way about my father!" she exclaimed, "he's the
nicest, kindest man that ever lived! He's not strong enough to work in
this awful hot weather but he intended to open this up in the fall."

"Well, it's opened up already," announced Denver grimly. "You just show
him that piece of rock."

"Oh, have you found something?" she cried snatching up the chunk of ore.
"Why, this doesn't look like silver!"

"No, it isn't," he said, and at the look in his eyes she leapt up and
ran down the trail.

She came back immediately with her father and mother and, after a moment
of pop-eyed staring, the Professor came waddling along behind.

"Where'd you get this?" called Bunker as he strode up the trail and
Denver jerked his thumb towards the tunnel.

"At the breast," he sai