enty miles from here.

"Any for the C. Y.?" muttered another, likewise knowing better.

It was a happy, if simple, thought, and most of them inquired for the
mail. Jessamine sought carefully, making them repeat their names, which
some did guiltily: they foresaw how soon the lady would find out no
letters ever came for these names!

There was no letter for any one present.

"I'm sorry, truly," said Jessamine behind the railing. "For you seemed
real anxious to get news. Better luck next time! And if I make mistakes,
please everybody set me straight, for of course I don't understand
things yet."

"Yes, m'm."

"Good-day, m'm."

"Thank yu', m'm."

They got themselves out of the station and into their saddles.

"No, she don't understand things yet," soliloquized the Virginian. "Oh
dear, no." He turned his slow, dark eyes upon us. "You Lin McLean," said
he, in his gentle voice, "you have cert'nly fooled me plumb through this
mawnin'."

Then the horde rode out of town, chastened and orderly till it was quite
small across the sagebrush, when reaction seized it. It sped suddenly
and vanished in dust with far, hilarious cries and here were Lin and I,
and here towered the water-tank, shining and shining.

Thus did Separ's vigilante take possession and vindicate Lin's knowledge
of his kind. It was not three days until the Virginian, that lynx
observer, fixed his grave eyes upon McLean "'Neighbor' is as cute a name
for a six-shooter as ever I heard," said he. "But she'll never have need
of your gun in Separ--only to shoot up peaceful playin'-cyards while she
hearkens to your courtin'."

That was his way of congratulation to a brother lover. "Plumb strange,"
he said to me one morning after an hour of riding in silence, "how a man
will win two women while another man gets aged waitin' for one."

"Your hair seems black as ever," said I.

"My hopes ain't so glossy any more," he answered. "Lin has done better
this second trip."

"Mrs. Lusk don't count," said I.

"I reckon she counted mighty plentiful when he thought he'd got her
clamped to him by lawful marriage. But Lin's lucky." And the Virginian
fell silent again.

Lucky Lin bestirred him over his work, his plans, his ranch on Box Elder
that was one day to be a home for his lady. He came and went, seeing his
idea triumph and his girl respected. Not only was she a girl, but a
good shot too. And as if she and her small, neat home were a sort of
possession, the cow-