Philip Verrill Mighels – författare

The Furnace of Gold was published in 1910. The title comes from Proverbs 17:3 The crucible for silver and the furnace for gold, but the Lord tests the heart. The story begins "Now Nevada, though robed in gray and white--the gray of sagebrush and the white of snowy summits--had never yet been accounted a nun when once again the early summer aroused the passions of her being and the wild peach burst into bloom. It was out in Nauwish valley, at the desert-edge, where gold has been stored in the hungry-looking rock to lure man away from fairer pastures. There were mountains everywhere--huge, rugged mountains, erected in the igneous fury of world-making, long since calmed. Above them all the sky was almost incredibly blue--an intense ultramarine of extraordinary clearness and profundity. At the southwest limit of the valley was the one human habitation established thereabout in many miles, a roadside station where a spring of water issued from the earth. Towards this, on the narrow, side-hill road, limped a dusty red automobile. It contained three passengers, two women and a man. Of the women, one was a little German maid, rather pretty and demure, whose duty it was to enact the chaperone. The other, Beth Kent, straight from New York City, well--the wild peach was in bloom."

Excerpt: "It all commenced that bright November day of the Indian rabbit drive and hunt. The motley army of the piute tribe was sweeping tremendously across a sage-brush valley of Nevada, their force two hundred braves in number. They marched abrest, some thirty yards apart, and formed a line that was more than two miles long.

That he had made no reply whatsoever to Fenton''s proposition he failed to realize till Gerald spoke again. "Well, Sid," demanded that impetuous lieutenant of finance, "gone dumb? Perhaps I haven''t made it plain," and he particularized on his fingers. "You get an ocean trip of eight or ten weeks'' duration, tropic sun at its best, leisurely business without a fleck of bother, absolute rest, good provender, thorough recuperation, your entire expenses cheerfully paid, vast service rendered to me, no time lost on your equilibrator, time for countless new inventions to sprout in your fertile brain—and the unutterable joy of escaping this abominable climate, practically at once!" Grenville''s smile, still brightly boyish, despite the many reverses and hardships of his six and twenty years, came creeping to his eyes. His wan face suggested a tint of color. "Don''t wake me up for a moment, Fen," he answered. "I haven''t dreamed anything like it for years." "Dreamed?" repeated Fenton, resuming his interrupted pacing up and down the rug, where the firelight reddened his profile. "Does that mean you like it?—you''ll go?" "Would Cinderella go to a ball?" replied the still incredulous Grenville, half seriously. "What''s the joker, old chap? What is the worst that could happen at the midnight stroke of twelve?" ."