the girl in
the riding clothes asked, noticing Mary's evident uneasiness; "but you
don't know how good it is to see a girl. I'm so tired of spurs and
sombreros and cattle and dust and distance, and there's nothing else
here."

"Where I come from it's just the other way--too many petticoats and
hat-pins."

The horseman who was no horseman dropped Miss Carmichael's hand and went
into the house. Mary wondered if she ought to have been more cordial.

From the back door came Leander, with dishcloths, which he began to hang
on the line in a dumb, driven sort of way.

"Who is she?" asked Mary.

"Her?" he interrogated, jerking his head in the direction of the house.
"The postmistress, Judith Rodney; yes, that's her name." He dropped his
voice in the manner of one imparting momentous things. "She never wears a
skirt ridin', any more than a man."

Mary felt that she was tempting Leander into the paths of gossip,
undoubtedly his besetting sin, but she could not resist the temptation to
linger. He had disposed of his last dish-cloth, and he withdrew the
remaining clothes-pin from his mouth in a way that was pathetically
feminine.

"She keeps the post-office here, since Mrs. Dax lost the job, and boards
with us; p'r'aps it's because she is my wife's successor in office, or
p'a'ps it's jest the natural grudge that wimmin seem to harbor agin each
other, I dunno, but they don't sandwich none."

Leander having disposed of his last dish-towel, squinted at it through his
half-closed eyes, like an artist "sighting" a landscape, saw apparently
that it was in drawing, and next brought his vision to bear on the back
premises of his own dwelling, where he saw there was no wifely figure in
evidence.

"Sh-sh-h!" he said, creeping towards Mary, his dull face transfigured with
the consciousness that he had news to tell. "Sh-sh--her brother's a
rustler. If 'twan't for her"--Leander went through the grewsome pantomime
of tying an imaginary rope round his neck and throwing it over the limb of
an imaginary tree. "They're goin' to get him for shore this time, soon as
he comes out of jail; but would you guess it from her bluff?"

There was no mistaking the fate of a rustler after Mr. Dax's grisly
demonstration, but of the quality of his calling Mary was as ignorant as
before.

"And why should they do that?" she inquired, with tenderfoot simplicity.

"Stealin' cattle ain't good for the health hereabouts," said Leander, as
one who spoke wi