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face turned red as the Wilder girls' hair "They're fancy women."
    Both Caroline and Abby stared at the plain, well-scrubbed spinsters across the aisle Caroline had seen fancy ladies once on a visit to Manhattan Island. These homespun travelers were a far cry from the bejeweled, bewigged beauties who had captured her father's eye.
    "You're...umm...err—" she struggled with the phrasing. "You'll be working in Silver Spur?"
    Jenny Wilder's laughter filled the coach. "I sure hope not," she said with a wink. "I expect to be married before the next harvest."
    Margaret McGuigan tossed her head. "I expect to wed before the Fourth of July."
    Caroline glanced at Abby, relieved to see her maid was as confused as she. "I am afraid I misunderstood. You are all betrothed to men of Silver Spur?"
    Jenny's sister Sarah looked up from her tattered copy of Godey's Ladies Book. "Not yet but we will be. You'll see."
    "But I thought Silver Spur was a rough-and-tumble mining town," Caroline said, thinking of her father's letters describing wild shenanigans that involved pistols, not petticoats. The men Aaron had written about had mayhem, not marriage, on their minds.
    Across from her, Reverend Nelson nodded. "I am under the same impression as you, Miss Bennett. My bishop told me my services in Silver Spur were desperately needed. It's a lawless, godless town."
    "Your services are needed, all right," Margaret retorted. "To perform weddings. Three of my cousins found husbands within six months of going west."
    "Rich husbands," added Jenny. "The silver mines are all over Nevada."
    A sly smile spread across Margaret's plain face. "And Silver Spur's the richest town of all."
    Caroline and Abby listened, spellbound, as the sisters Wilder and McGuigan traded stories about Silver Spur. According to them, it was the flashiest, wealthiest town in the West, built around a mother lode of silver that showed no signs of being exhausted.
    Apparently neither did the miners.
    Marriageable women had first appeared in town two years ago and the rash of nuptials that followed their arrival had sparked a steady stream of spinsters bent on matrimony. Few of them had gone away disappointed.
    "How about you, Miss Bennett?" Margaret asked. "Shouldn't take a pretty girl like you more'n a week to hook a man."
    Jenny gave her a knowing look. "If you ain't betrothed by the time you reach the boarding house, then there ain't no hope for none of us. The sooner we get you taken care of, the sooner the rest of us can have our pick."
    Caroline took note of the sharp, assessing look Jenny's sister Sarah was giving both her and Abby, and the openly hostile murmurings of the McGuigan girls.
    "I'm not looking for a husband," she said. The surprise on their faces was something to behold.
    "You already married?" Margaret asked.
    Caroline shook her head.
    "A widow then?" asked Jenny.
    "I'm going to Silver Spur to claim an inheritance."
    She was spared having to go into the sordid details of Aaron's death by a sharp rap on the roof of the stagecoach.
    "Silver Spur one mile ahead," the driver called down to them. "Last stop!"
    The chatter died as quickly as it had been born. Jenny and Sarah took turns drawing a heavy tortoiseshell comb through their thick manes of shiny red hair. The McGuigan girls helped one another tighten the laces on their calico dresses and tie on matching bonnets.
    "I feel as if I should rouge my cheeks or curl my hair," Caroline whispered to Abby as the others went about their makeshift toilettes. "They're acting like brides on their wedding day."
    Even Penelope Nelson, the reverend's skittish wife, was primping in front of a tiny looking glass Margaret had lent her.
    Abby chuckled softly. "And why should you be any different? You heard what they said: the men are probably linin' the streets waitin' to claim their brides, sight unseen."
    It was Caroline's turn to laugh. "Surely you do not believe that claptrap, do you, Abby? Someone has been selling these girls a