hem very badly, and that
was plain even at this distance. Nor did he give us a homestretch,
after all. The bald-faced horse made a number of evolutions and returned
beside the wagon.

"Showin' off," remarked Lin. "Tommy's showin' off." Suspicion crossed
his face, and then certainty. "Why, we might have knowed that!" he
exclaimed, in dudgeon. "It's her." He hastened outside for a better
look, and I came to the door myself. "That's what it is," said he. "It's
the girl. Oh yes. That's Taylor's buckskin pair he traded Balaam for.
She come by the stage all right yesterday, yu' see, but she has been
too tired to travel, yu' see, or else, maybe, Taylor wanted to rest his
buckskins--they're four-year-olds. Or else--anyway, they laid over last
night at Powder River, and Tommy he has just laid over too, yu'
see, holdin' the mail back on us twenty-four hours--and that's your
postmaster!"

It was our postmaster, and this he had done, quite as the virtuously
indignant McLean surmised. Had I taken the same interest in the new
girl, I suppose that I too should have felt virtuously indignant.

Lin and I stood outside to receive the travellers. As their cavalcade
drew near, Mr. McLean grew silent and watchful, his whole attention
focused upon the Taylors' vehicle. Its approach was joyous. Its gear
made a cheerful clanking, Taylor cracked his whip and encouragingly
chirruped to his buckskins, and Tommy's apparatus jingled musically. For
Tommy wore upon himself and his saddle all the things you can wear in
the Wild West. Except that his hair was not long, our postmaster might
have conducted a show and minted gold by exhibiting his romantic person
before the eyes of princes. He began with a black-and-yellow rattlesnake
skin for a hat-band, he continued with a fringed and beaded shirt of
buckskin, and concluded with large, tinkling spurs. Of course, there
were things between his shirt and his heels, but all leather and deadly
weapons. He had also a riata, a cuerta, and tapaderos, and frequently
employed these Spanish names for the objects. I wish that I had not lost
Tommy's photograph in Rocky Mountain costume. You must understand that
he was really pretty, with blue eyes, ruddy cheeks, and a graceful
figure; and, besides, he had twenty-four hours' start of poor dusty Lin,
whose best clothes were elsewhere.

You might have supposed that it would be Mrs. Taylor who should present
us to her friend from Sidney, Nebraska; but Tommy on his h