Came in yesterday. I ain't--I ain't
exactly feelin' right. I suppose you heard about it?"

The partners looked at him questioningly, but he did not shift his
eyes from the door through which he still appeared to be staring away
into the distance, and it was easy to conjecture, from the expression
of his eyes, that he was seeing a tragedy.

"I'm sort of busted up," he went on, without looking at them. "You see
I had a brother over there. A shift boss, he was. Him and me was more
than brothers. We was friends. It don't seem right that Hiram was down
there, in the dark, when the big cave came--came just as if the whole
mountain wanted to smash them men under it. It don't seem right! I
can't quite get it all yet. I'm goin' over there on the stage in the
mornin'. He's left a widder and a couple of little shavers. I'm goin'
to bring 'em here."

"We don't quite understand you," Dick said, hesitatingly, and with
sympathy in his voice. "We haven't heard about it--whatever it is. I'm
sorry if----"

The trader straightened up from where he had been leaning on his
elbows across the counter and they saw that his face was drawn.

"Oh, I see," he said, in the same slow, hopeless voice. "I forgot you
men don't come down here very often and that my driver never has
anything to say to anybody. Why, it's the Blackbird mine over across
the divide--on the east spur. Bad, old fashioned mine she was, with
crawlin' ground. Lime streaks all through the formation and plenty of
water. Nobody quite knows how it happened. There was a big slip over
there a few days ago on the four-hundred-foot level. Thirty odd men
back of it. Timbers went off, they say, like a gatlin' gun. I just
can't seem to understand how they didn't handle that ground better. It
don't look right to me!"

He stooped and twisted his fingers together and the palms of his hands
gave out dry, rasping sounds. His attitude seemed inconsistent with
the immobility of his face, but Dick surmised that he was trying to
regain control of his emotions. He had a keen desire to know more of
the particulars of the tragedy, but sensed from the storekeeper's
appearance that he was scarcely able to give a coherent account of it.
His words had already told his sorrow. Bill's voice broke the pause.

"We're right sorry we bothered you about the supplies," he said,
softly. "But we didn't know, you see. I reckon we ain't in any big
hurry. You just take your time about fixin' it up. We can live