“But they did not do it, so there is nothing to turn white about,” retorted Mrs. Nichols. “They just swarmed down to the depot, a mob thirty or forty strong. The miners on guard there instantly gave way before them, and passively looked on, if they did not help. The great door was lifted by main force, though how much it weighs I shouldn’t like to make a guess at, and young Dick, with the Chinaman’s coffin, was carried away. Nothing else was meddled with though there was property enough in the shed to have tempted people more honest than they ever professed to be.”
“I know that. It was the fear of its being stolen which bothered me so badly,” sighed Nell.
“Well, nothing was taken, however, and when the first cars reached Camp’s Gulch in the morning, it was to find the place absolutely deserted, except for poor old Mrs. Trip, who was asleep in her house.”
“I can’t think what made Joey go off in such a fashion. I shouldn’t have been half so much afraid if he had been there to keep me company,” Nell remarked.
“The doctor thinks the poor old man clean forgot that the night cars hadn’t come in. The man that keeps the saloon at the Settlement said Joey looked funny that evening, and some of the customers thought he had been drinking; but it is plain the poor man must have had a stroke on the way home, as they found him lying unconscious under the trees at Hobson’s Gap.”
“How is he now?” asked Nell.
“Sam hasn’t heard this morning; but Dr. Russell has gone up to the Settlement to-day, so we shall most likely hear when he comes back.”
“It will be a great change for Sam Peters to live at Camp’s Gulch,” remarked Nell.
“I am very glad he has got the post,” Mrs. Nichols answered. “He did really deserve promotion; but it is not clear to my mind that he would have had it if it had not been for his swarm of children.”
“Why not?” queried Nell, in surprise.