d, as he grew more
intoxicated, the danger to the child in his erratic grasp became
apparent.

"I got ter put him in a safe place--a Christmas gift," he now and then
stuttered.

When he came at last within reach of a human habitation he had been for
some time consciously on the point of falling from the saddle with the
infant, who was now quietly asleep. He noted, as in a dream, the
Crossroads' store, which was also the post-office; standing in front of
the log cabin was a horse already saddled hanging down a dull,
dispirited head as he awaited the mail-rider through a long, cold
interval, and bearing a United States mail-pouch, mouldy, flabby, nearly
empty. The door of the store was closed against the cold; the
blacksmith's shop was far down the road; the two or three scattered
dwellings showed no sign of life but the wreaths of blue smoke curling
up from the clay-and-stick chimneys.

Perhaps it was the impunity of the moment that suggested the idea to
Dysart's whimsical drunken fancy. He never knew. He suddenly tried the
mouth of the pouch. It was locked. Nothing daunted, a stroke of a keen
knife slit the upper part of the side seam, the sleeping baby was
slipped into the aperture, and Tank Dysart rode off chuckling with glee
to think of the dismay of the mail-rider when the mail-pouch should
break forth with squeals and quiver with kicks, which embarrassment
would probably not befall him until far away in the wilderness with his
perplexity, for there had been something stronger on that stopper than
milk or cambric tea.

As Tank went he muttered something about the security of the United
States mail, wherein he had had the forethought to deposit his Christmas
gift, and forthwith he flung himself into the shuck-pen, where he fell
asleep, and was not found till half-frozen, his whereabouts being at
last disclosed to the storekeeper by the persistent presence of his
faithful steed standing hard by. Tank was humanely cared for by this
functionary, but several days elapsed before he altogether recovered
consciousness; it was naturally a confused, disconnected train of
impressions which his mind retained. At first, in a maudlin state, he
demanded of the storekeeper, in his capacity as postmaster also, a
package, a Christmas gift, which he averred he should receive by mail.
Albeit this was esteemed merely an inebriated fancy, such is the
sensitiveness of the United States postal service on the subject of
missing mail m