le sheet, in
glaring type, announcing the capture of the convicts. By a bold and
daring coup, it said, the entire herd of criminals, all half starved
and weakened by privations, had been rounded up and transported back to
prison. Unfortunately, the report was slightly inaccurate. Matt
Barger, the leader in the prison delivery, and the most desperate man
in the lot, had escaped the posse's vigilance. Of this important
factor in the welcome story of the posse's work Goldite was ignorant,
and doomed to be in ignorance a week.

The news to Beth was a source of great relief. But her troubles in
other directions were fated to increase. That evening three men called
formally--formally, that is to say, in so far as dressing in their best
was concerned and putting on their "company manners." But Beth and
courtship were their objects, a fact that developed, somewhat crudely
with the smallest possible delay.

One of these persons, Billy Stitts by name, was fairly unobjectionable
as a human being, since he was a quaint, slow-witted, bird-like little
creature, fully sixty years of age and clearly harmless. The others
were as frankly in pursuit of a mate as any two mountain animals.

Beth was frightened, when the purport of their visit flashed upon her.
She felt a certain sense of helplessness. Mrs. Dick was too busy to be
constantly present; Elsa was gone; the ways of such a place were new
and wholly alarming. She felt when she made her escape from the three
that her safety was by no means assured. Her room was her only
retreat. Except for Mrs. Dick, there was not another woman in the
house. She was wholly surrounded by men--a rough, womanless lot whose
excitements, passions, and emotions were subjected to changes
constantly, as well as to heats, by the life all around them in the
mines.

That night was her first of real terror. Every noise in the building,
and some in the streets, made her start awake like a hunted doe, with
imaginings of the most awful description. She scarcely slept at all.

The following day old Billy Stitts called again, very shortly after
breakfast. He proved such an amiable, womanly old chap that he was
almost a comfort to the girl. She sent him to the postoffice, for a
possible letter from Glen. He went with all the pleasure and alacrity
of a faithful dog, apologizing most exuberantly on his return for the
fact that no letter had come.

She remained in the house all day. The afterno