"Hell--no!" exclaimed Bible-Back startled out of his piosity. "I mean that you had better not buy it."
"Well, thanks," drawled Denver, "this is danged considerate of you. Shall I tell him you'll take it yourself?"
"Certainly not!" snapped back Murray, "I've enough claims, already. I'm just warning you for your own good."
"Danged considerate," repeated Denver with a sarcastic smile, "and now let me ask _you_ something. Who told you I wanted to buy?"
"Never mind!" returned Murray, "I've warned you, and that is enough."
"Well, all right," agreed Denver, "but if you don't want it yourself----"
"Young man!" exclaimed Murray suddenly rising to his feet and crooking his neck like a crane, "I guess you know who I am. I can make or break any man in this country, and I'm telling you now--don't you buy!"
"I get you," answered Denver, and without arguing the point he rose up and went down the trail.
When a man like Bible-Back Murray, the biggest man in the country--a sheep-owner, a store-keeper, a political power--goes out of his way to break up a trade there is something significant behind it. Denver had come to Pinal in response to a prophecy, in search of two hidden treasures between which he must make his choice; and now, added to that, was the further question of whether he should venture to oppose Murray. If he did, he could proceed in the spirit of the prophecy and choose between the silver and gold treasures; but if he did not there would be no real choice at all, but simply an elimination. He must turn away from the silver treasure, that precious vein of metal which led so temptingly into the hill, and take the little stringer of quartz which the Professor had offered as a gold mine. Denver thought it all over out in front of his cave that night and at last he came back to the prophecy.
"Courage and constancy," it said, "will attend you through life, but in the end will prove your undoing, for you will meet your death at the hands of your dearest friend."
Denver's heart fell again at the thought of that hard fate but it did not divert him from his purpose. Mother Trigedgo had said that he should be brave, nevertheless--very well then, he would dare oppose Murray. But now to choose between the two, between the Professor's stringer of gold and Bunker's vein of silver--with the ill will of Murray attached. Denver pondered them well and at last he lit a candle and referred it to Napoleon's Oraculum.