The long morning passed, and she fretted.  In the afternoon the Goldite News broke its record.  It printed an extra—­a single sheet, in glaring type, announcing the capture of the convicts.  By a bold and daring coup, it said, the entire herd of criminals, all half starved and weakened by privations, had been rounded up and transported back to prison.  Unfortunately, the report was slightly inaccurate.  Matt Barger, the leader in the prison delivery, and the most desperate man in the lot, had escaped the posse’s vigilance.  Of this important factor in the welcome story of the posse’s work Goldite was ignorant, and doomed to be in ignorance a week.

The news to Beth was a source of great relief.  But her troubles in other directions were fated to increase.  That evening three men called formally—­formally, that is to say, in so far as dressing in their best was concerned and putting on their “company manners.”  But Beth and courtship were their objects, a fact that developed, somewhat crudely with the smallest possible delay.

One of these persons, Billy Stitts by name, was fairly unobjectionable as a human being, since he was a quaint, slow-witted, bird-like little creature, fully sixty years of age and clearly harmless.  The others were as frankly in pursuit of a mate as any two mountain animals.

Beth was frightened, when the purport of their visit flashed upon her.  She felt a certain sense of helplessness.  Mrs. Dick was too busy to be constantly present; Elsa was gone; the ways of such a place were new and wholly alarming.  She felt when she made her escape from the three that her safety was by no means assured.  Her room was her only retreat.  Except for Mrs. Dick, there was not another woman in the house.  She was wholly surrounded by men—­a rough, womanless lot whose excitements, passions, and emotions were subjected to changes constantly, as well as to heats, by the life all around them in the mines.

That night was her first of real terror.  Every noise in the building, and some in the streets, made her start awake like a hunted doe, with imaginings of the most awful description.  She scarcely slept at all.

The following day old Billy Stitts called again, very shortly after breakfast.  He proved such an amiable, womanly old chap that he was almost a comfort to the girl.  She sent him to the postoffice, for a possible letter from Glen.  He went with all the pleasure and alacrity of a faithful dog, apologizing most exuberantly on his return for the fact that no letter had come.

She remained in the house all day.  The afternoon brought the two rough suitors of the night before, and two more equally crude.  Mrs. Dick, to Beth’s intense uneasiness, regarded the matter as one to be expected, and quite in accord with reason and proper regulations.  A good-looking girl in camp, with her men-folks all giving her the go-by—­and what could you expect?  Moreover, as some of these would-be courtiers were husky and in line for fortune’s smile, with chances as good as any other man’s, she might do worse than let them come, and hear what they had to say.  It was no girl’s need to be neglected as Searle and Van were patently neglecting Beth.