They pushed along up the road until finally they arrived, within a few miles of their own homesteads, at the little roadside store and postoffice kept by old Pop Bentley.

They would have pulled up here, but as they approached the dusty figure of the mail carrier of that route came out, and held up a hand.
"Hold on, Sim," said he.

"I heard at Nels Jensen's place that you had gone down the river.

Well, it's time you was gettin' back." Sim Gage smiled with a sense of his own importance as he took the letter, turning it over in his hand.

"What's it say, Wid ?" said he.
His neighbor looked at the inscription.