The silence was finally broken by a decided-looking red-haired man, who had been neatly beveling the door-post with his knife, and who spoke as if his words only by great difficulty escaped being bitten in two.

“We ken burn down the schoolhouse right before his face and eyes, and then mebbe the State Board’ll git our idees about eddycation.”

“Twon’t be no use, Mose,” said Judge Barber, whose legal title was honorary, and conferred because he had spent some time in a penitentiary in the East.  “Them State Board fellers is wrong, but they’ve got grit, ur they’d never hev got the schoolhouse done after we rode the contractor out uv the Flat on one of his own boards.  Besides, some uv ‘em might think we wuz rubbin’ uv it in, an’ next thing you know’d they’d be buildin’ us a jail.”

“Can’t we buy off these young uns’ folks?” queried an angular fellow from Southern Illinois.  “They’re a mizzable pack of shotes, an’ I b’leeve they’d all leave the camp fur a few ounces.”

“Ye—­es,” drawled the judge, dubiously; “but thar’s the Widder Ginneys—­she’d pan out a pretty good schoolroom-full with her eight young uns, an’ there ain’t ounces enough in the diggin’s to make her leave while Tom Ginneys’s coffin’s roostin’ under the rocks.”

“Then,” said Mose, the first speaker, his words escaping with even more difficulty than before, “throw around keards to see who’s to marry the widder, an’ boss her young uns.  The feller that gits the fust Jack’s to do the job.”

“Meanin’ no insult to this highly respectable crowd,” said the judge, in a very bland tone, and inviting it to walk up to the bar and specify its consolation, “I don’t b’leeve there’s one uv yer the widder’d hev.”  The judge’s eye glanced along the line at the bar, and he continued softly, but in decided accents—­“Not a cussed one.  But,” added the judge, passing his pouch to the barkeeper, “if anything’s to be done, it must be done lively, fur the stage is pretty nigh here.  Tell ye what’s ez good ez ennything.  We’ll crowd around the stage, fust throwin’ keards for who’s to put out his hoof to be accidently trod onto by the infernal teacher ez he gits out.  Then satisfaction must be took out uv the teacher.  It’ll be a mean job, fur these teachers hevn’t the spunk of a coyote, an’ ten to one he won’t hev no shootin’ irons, so the job’ll hev to be done with fists.”

“Good!” said Mose.  “The crowd drinks with me to a square job, and no backin’.  Chuck the pasteboards, jedge—­The—­dickens!” For Mose had got first Jack.

“Square job, and no backin’,” said the judge, with a grin.  “There’s the stage now—­hurry up, fellers!”

The stage drew up with a crash in front of The Nugget, and the passengers, outside and in, but none looking teacherish, hurried into the saloon.  The boys scarcely knew whether to swear from disappointment or gratification, when a start from Mose drew their attention again to the stage.  On the top step appeared a small shoe, above which was visible a small section of stocking far whiter and smaller than is usual in the mines.  In an instant a similar shoe appeared on the lower step, and the boys saw, successively, the edge of a dress, a waterproof cloak, a couple of small gloved hands, a bright muffler, and a pleasant face covered with brown hair, and a bonnet.  Then they heard a cheerful voice say: