FOLKS FROM DIXIE
Jason Andrews, erstwhile foreman of Shaft 11, gazed about him with an eye not wholly unappreciative of the beauty of the scene. Then, shading his eyes with one brawny hand, an act made wholly unnecessary by the absence of the sun, he projected his vision far down into the valley.
His hut, set a little way up the mountain-side, commanded an extended view of the road, which, leaving the slope, ran tortuously through the lower land. Evidently something that he saw down the road failed to please the miner, for he gave a low whistle and re-entered the house with a frown on his face.
"I'll be goin' down the road a minute, Kate," he said to his wife, throwing on his coat and pausing at the door. "There's a crowd gathered down toward the settlement. Somethin' 's goin' on, an' I want to see what's up." He slammed the door and strode away.
"Jason, Jason," his wife called after him, "don't you have nothin' to do with their goin's-on, neither one way nor the other. Do you hear?"
"Oh, I'll take care o' myself." The answer came back out of the darkness.
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