“She was a good woman, pardner,” said Byers.
“And she understood us,” said Abner resignedly.
The four men on the “Zip Coon” Ledge had not got fairly settled to their morning's work. There was the usual lingering hesitation which is apt to attend the taking-up of any regular or monotonous performance, shown in this instance in the prolonged scrutiny of a pick's point, the solemn selection of a shovel, or the “hefting” or weighing of a tapping-iron or drill. One member, becoming interested in a funny paragraph he found in the scrap of newspaper wrapped around his noonday cheese, shamelessly sat down to finish it, regardless of the prospecting pan thrown at him by another. They had taken up their daily routine of mining life like schoolboys at their tasks.
“Hello!” said Ned Wyngate, joyously recognizing a possible further interruption. “Blamed if the Express rider ain't comin' here!”
He was shading his eyes with his hand as he gazed over the broad sun-baked expanse of broken “flat” between them and the highroad. They all looked up, and saw the figure of a mounted man, with a courier's bag thrown over his shoulder, galloping towards them. It was really an event, as their letters were usually left at the grocery at the crossroads.
“I knew something was goin' to happen,” said Wyngate. “I didn't feel a bit like work this morning.”
Here one of their number ran off to meet the advancing horseman. They watched him until they saw the latter rein up, and hand a brown envelope to their messenger, who ran breathlessly back with it to the Ledge as the horseman galloped away again.
“A telegraph for Jackson Wells,” he said, handing it to the young man who had been reading the scrap of paper.
There was a dead silence. Telegrams were expensive rarities in those days, especially with the youthful Bohemian miners of the Zip Coon Ledge. They were burning with curiosity, yet a singular thing happened. Accustomed as they had been to a life of brotherly familiarity and unceremoniousness, this portentous message from the outside world of civilization recalled their old formal politeness. They looked steadily away from the receiver of the telegram, and he on his part stammered an apologetic “Excuse me, boys,” as he broke the envelope.
