Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV Drowned Affection NO LATER than the day following Harry North's night of ecstasized authorship in the stage-coach, a distressing truth in regard to his letter came unexpectedly to light while he and his brother were still west-bound passengers. They remained with the crippled conveyance, whose broken part, having been propped up by a sled-like skid, must be slowly dragged along toward the next "home" station for blacksmithing repairs to be made. What the Norths regarded as extraordinary was the lack of inquisitiveness among half-a-dozen mounted men while passing the plodding coach. They asked not a single question regarding the accident which had damaged the stout vehicle. Two men on mules, and the rest on horses, carried rifles. One of the party, abruptly reining in his horse, began to make inquiries about something which must have been considered of vastly more importance than any mere mishap resulting in a broken axle. "Hey, Cap! I say, Cap! Seen anything of a post-office? A post-office in a tent?" The stage driver jocosely answered: "Why? Lost one?" Another of the armed men, a gaunt fellow with tobacco raising a lump in the side of his brown andbristly cheek, gave a spurt of brown juice. He spat and mournfully declared: "It's a chore, so it is; it's a chore to write letters. Costly, too. Four bits to send a letter." The first man added: "They got a tent. Sign on it, 'Fifty Cents to the States.' Maybe, now, you've seen such a tent. Have you?" So eagerly insistent was the demand that Doctor North announced: "I know the place. I posted a letter there." "You did! When? Where 'bouts?" "It would be five miles, perhaps, or more, straight on down the valley." "Was there a board with a slit in it?" Being assured that there had ...