minded and oblivious and his
pride in the job was gone. He let the men lag and leave rough ends, and
every few moments his eyes would stray away and look down the canyon for
the stage. And as the automobiles came up he scanned the passengers
hungrily--until at last he saw Drusilla. There was the fluttering of a
veil, the flash of startled eyes, a quick belated wave, and she was
gone. Denver stood in the road, staring after her blankly, and then he
threw down his pick.

"Send me back to the Pen'" he said to the guard, "I'm going to apply for
parole."

CHAPTER XXIX

THE INTERPRETATION THEREOF

After all his suffering, his oaths, his refusals, his rejection of each
friendly offer, Denver had changed his mind in the fraction of a second
when he saw Drusilla whirl past. He forgot his mine, the fierce battles,
the prophecy--all he wanted was to see her again. Placed on his honor
for the trip he started down the road, walking fast when he failed to
catch a ride, and early the next morning he reported at the prison to
apply for an immediate parole. But luck was against him and his heart
died in his breast, for the Board of Prison Directors had met the week
before and would not meet again for three weeks. Three weeks of idle
waiting, of pacing up and down and cursing the slow passage of time; and
then, perhaps, delays and disappointments and obstructions from
Bible-Back Murray. He sat with bowed head, then rose up suddenly and
wrote a brief letter to Murray.

"Get me a pardon," he scrawled, "and I'll give you a quit-claim. This
goes, if you do it quick."

He put it in the mail, with a special delivery stamp, and watched the
endless hours creep by. She was there in Pinal, running her scales,
practicing her exercises, singing arias from the operas at night; and he
was shut in by the gray concrete walls where the guards looked down from
the towers. He could not trust himself now outside of the yard, his
nerve was gone and he would head for Pinal like a homing bird to its
mate. And then it came, quicker than he had ever thought or hoped for,
though he had offered the Silver Treasure in return for it--a full
pardon from the Governor, with his citizenship restored and a letter
expressing confidence in his innocence. Denver clutched it to his breast
and started out across the desert with his eyes on distant Pinal.

It lay in the shadow of Apache Leap, that blue wall that loomed to the
east, and he hardly stopped to sha