As he spoke, a blast of wind from the mountains struck us, and a few needles of cold rain beat against our right cheeks.
We were soon inside again, when, having shut our door, we sat down to a game of checkers, in which we became so absorbed that we failed to note the lapse of time until Tom’s dollar clock, hanging on the wall, banged out the hour of ten.
“To bed, Joe!” I cried, springing out of my chair. “Why, we haven’t been up so late for weeks.”
Stepping into the back room, we soon had mattress and blankets spread upon the floor, when, quickly undressing, I crept into bed, while Joe, returning to the front room, blew out the light.
Five minutes later we were both asleep, with a comfortable consciousness that we had done a good evening’s work; though we little suspected how good an evening’s work it really was. For it is hardly too much to say that had we not put in Tom’s second window that night we might both have been dead before morning.
CHAPTER XII
Tom Connor’s Scare
When Long John Butterfield (it was Yetmore himself who told us all this long afterwards) when Long John, returning from his day’s prospecting up among the foot-hills of Mount Lincoln, had related to his employer the result of his labors, two conclusions instantly presented themselves to the worthy mayor of Sulphide. A man less acute than Yetmore would have understood at once that we had discovered the nature of the black sand in the pool, and that just as he had sent out Long John, so my father had sent out us boys to determine, if possible, which stream it was that had brought down the powdered galena.