She was the wife of John Baker, foreman of "The Last Chance," now for
a year lying dead under half a mile of crushed and beaten-in tunnel at
Burnt Ridge. There had been a sudden outcry from the depths at high
hot noontide one day, and John had rushed from his cabin--his young,
foolish, flirting wife clinging to him--to answer that despairing cry of
his imprisoned men. There was one exit that he alone knew which might be
yet held open, among falling walls and tottering timbers, long enough to
set them free. For one moment only the strong man hesitated between her
entreating arms and his brothers' despairing cry. But she rose suddenly
with a pale face, and said, "Go, John; I will wait for you here." He
went, the men were freed--but she had waited for him ever since!

Yet in the shock of the calamity and in the after struggles of that
poverty which had come to the ruined camp, she had scarcely changed. But
the men had. Although she was to all appearances the same giddy, pretty
Betsy Baker, who had been so disturbing to the younger members, they
seemed to be no longer disturbed by her. A certain subdued awe and
respect, as if the martyred spirit of John Baker still held his arm
around her, appeared to have come upon them all. They held their breath
as this pretty woman, whose brief mourning had not seemed to affect her
cheerfulness or even playfulness of spirit, passed before them. But she
stood by her cabin and the camp--the only woman in a settlement of forty
men--during the darkest hours of their fortune. Helping them to wash and
cook, and ministering to their domestic needs, the sanctity of her cabin
was, however, always kept as inviolable as if it had been HIS tomb. No
one exactly knew why, for it was only a tacit instinct; but even one or
two who had not scrupled to pay court to Betsy Baker during John Baker's
life, shrank from even a suggestion of familiarity towards the woman who
had said that she would "wait for him there."

When brighter days came and the settlement had increased by one or two
families, and laggard capital had been hurried up to relieve the still
beleaguered and locked-up wealth of Burnt Ridge, the needs of the
community and the claims of the widow of John Baker were so well told
in political quarters that the post-office of Laurel Run was created
expressly for her. Every man participated in the building of the pretty
yet substantial edifice--the only public building of Laurel Run--that
stood