He stood another drink and yet another, and eventually put the doubly widowed Byers to bed in his own room.  These were but details of a larger tribulation,—­and yet he knew instinctively that his cup was not yet full.  The further drop of bitterness came a few days later in a line from Mary Ellen:  “I needn’t tell you that all betwixt you and me is off, and you kin tell your old woman that her selection for a second wife for you wuz about as bad as your own first selection.  Ye kin tell Mr. Byers—­yer great friend whom ye never let on ye knew—­that when I want another husband I shan’t take the trouble to ask him to fish one out for me.  It would be kind—­but confusin’.”

He never heard from her again.  Mr. Byers was duly notified that Mrs. Byers had commenced action for divorce in another state in which concealment of a previous divorce invalidated the marriage, but he did not respond.  The two men became great friends—­and assured celibates.  Yet they always spoke reverently of their “wife,” with the touching prefix of “our.”

“She was a good woman, pardner,” said Byers.

“And she understood us,” said Abner resignedly.

Perhaps she had.

A BUCKEYE HOLLOW INHERITANCE

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.