cared. For they found he had already
deliberately transfixed himself through the heart on his own bayonet.

THE POSTMISTRESS OF LAUREL RUN.

CHAPTER I.

The mail stage had just passed Laurel Run,--so rapidly that the whirling
cloud of dust dragged with it down the steep grade from the summit hung
over the level long after the stage had vanished, and then, drifting
away, slowly sifted a red precipitate over the hot platform of the
Laurel Run post-office.

Out of this cloud presently emerged the neat figure of the postmistress
with the mailbag which had been dexterously flung at her feet from the
top of the passing vehicle. A dozen loungers eagerly stretched out their
hands to assist her, but the warning: "It's agin the rules, boys, for
any but her to touch it," from a bystander, and a coquettish shake of
the head from the postmistress herself--much more effective than any
official interdict--withheld them. The bag was not heavy,--Laurel Run
was too recent a settlement to have attracted much correspondence,--and
the young woman, having pounced upon her prey with a certain feline
instinct, dragged it, not without difficulty, behind the partitioned
inclosure in the office, and locked the door. Her pretty face,
momentarily visible through the window, was slightly flushed with the
exertion, and the loose ends of her fair hair, wet with perspiration,
curled themselves over her forehead into tantalizing little rings. But
the window shutter was quickly closed, and this momentary but charming
vision withdrawn from the waiting public.

"Guv'ment oughter have more sense than to make a woman pick mail-bags
outer the road," said Jo Simmons sympathetically. "'Tain't in her day's
work anyhow; Guv'mont oughter hand 'em over to her like a lady; it's
rich enough and ugly enough."

"'Tain't Guv'ment; it's that stage company's airs and graces,"
interrupted a newcomer. "They think it mighty fine to go beltin' by,
makin' everybody take their dust, just because STOPPIN' ain't in their
contract. Why, if that expressman who chucked down the bag had any
feelin's for a lady"--but he stopped here at the amused faces of his
auditors.

"Guess you don't know much o' that expressman's feelin's, stranger,"
said Simmons grimly. "Why, you oughter see him just nussin' that bag
like a baby as he comes tearin' down the grade, and then rise up and
sorter heave it to Mrs. Baker ez if it was a five-dollar bokay! His
feelin's for her! Why, he