Cressy The twins of Table Mountain Author:Bret Harte Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE GEEAT DEADWOOD MYSTEET It was growing quite dark in the telegraph-office at Cottonwood, Tuolumne County, California. The office, a box-like enclosure, wa... more »s separated from the public room of the Miners' Hotel by a thin partition ; and the operator, who was also news and express agent at Cottonwood, had closed his window, and was lounging by his news-stand preparatory to going home. Without, the first monotonous rain of the season was dripping from the porches of the hotel in the waning light of a December day. The operator, accustomed as he was to long intervals of idleness, was fast becoming bored. The tread of mud-muffled boots on the veranda, and the entrance of two men, offered a momentary excitement. He recognized in the strangers two prominent citizens of Cottonwood; and their manner bespoke business. One of them proceeded to the desk, wrote a despatch, and handed it to the other interrogatively. "That's about the way the thing p'ints," responded his companion assentingly. "I reckoned it only squar to use his dientical words ?" "That's so." The first speaker turned to the operator with the despatch. "How soon can you shove her through ?" The operator glanced professionally over the address and the length of the despatch. "Now," he answered promptly. "And she gets there ?" "To-night. But there's no delivery until to-morrow." "Shove her through to-night, and say there's an extra twenty left here for delivery." The operator, accustomed to all kinds of extravagant outlay for expedition, replied that he would lay this proposition with the despatch, before the San Francisco office. He then took it and read it—and re-read it. He preserved the usual professional apathy,—had doubtless sent many more enigmatical and mysterious messages, — butn...« less