n the shadows of the evening. She heard the low boom
of a signal gun roll up from the sea. It was from the coast steamer in
the open roadstead, the signal she was listening for in the hope that
it would bring her a letter--the letter for which she had been waiting
for six weeks.

The shadows from the coast hills crept up the valley, and the
stars shone, when the whistle of the little narrow-gauge engine
announced its arrival from the port. She put on her wraps and went
to the postoffice and waited a good long hour before the mail was
distributed. There was nothing in her box except the San Francisco
paper. And yet she felt intuitively there must be some news. She
returned to her home with a vague feeling of dread and lit the parlor
lamp. Mechanically she scanned the headlines of the paper when her
eye caught the line:

"Imprisoned Miners in Snow-slide;
Relief Party Working Night and Day."

"Saguache, Colo.--Word reached here last night that John Buchan and
James Winslow, miners working a claim on the Sangre de Christo range,
were buried in their cabin beneath a snow slide. It is believed the
men are alive although there seems to be small hope of rescuing them
on account of an overhanging cliff which may topple at any moment,
with the melting snows and crush them out of existence. Rescue parties
are at work night and day."

The room seemed to whirl and grow dark as she finished reading. Tears
came to her eyes and she cried aloud. The members of the family came
to find the cause of her outcry and found her in a flood of tears.
They read the dispatch and knew the cause. The paper was two days old
from San Francisco. What could she do? She must know at once. She went
to the telegraph office and sent a message of inquiry to the mayor of
Saguache. It was twelve o'clock when the message came: "Lines all down
in San Luis valley." There was a telegraph line to San Louis Obispo,
but no coast line railroad nearer than Paso Robles Hot Springs, sixty
miles inland. It would be three days before there was another steamer
for San Francisco. She felt that if she waited the suspense would kill
her. She must go to Saguache.

In the grey of the morning she was seated beside a driver in a light
running rig behind the swiftest pair of horses in the town. The
northern express was due at noon and the distance of sixty miles must
be made. The fleet animals climbed the mountain slopes and crossed the
d