comes
parcels post, and parties that had had to pay him four bits or a dollar
for a large package, or two bits for a small one, can have 'em brought
in by mail for nothing. Of course most of us eased up on him after we
understood the hellish injustice of it. We took pains not to have things
sent parcels post and when they come unbeknown to us, like these here
to-night, we'd always pay him anyway, just like they was express. It was
only fair and, besides, we would live longer, Harvey Steptoe being
morose and sudden.

"Like when old Safety First Timmins got the idea he could have all his
supplies sent from Red Gap for almost nothing by putting stamps on 'em.
He was tickled to death with the notion until, after the second load of
about a hundred pounds, some cowardly assassin shot at him from the
brush one morning about the time the stage usually went down past his
ranch. The charge missed him by about four inches and went into the barn
door. He dug it out and found a bullet and two buckshot. Old Safety
First ain't any Sherlock Holmes, but even Doctor Watson could of solved
this murderous crime. When Harvey come by the next night he went out and
says to him, 'Ain't you got one of them old Mississippi Yaegers about
seventy-five years old that carries a bullet and two buckshot?' Harvey
thought back earnestly for a minute, then says,'Not now I ain't. I used
to have one of them old hairlooms around the house but I found they
ain't reliable when you want to do fine work from a safe distance; so I
threw her away yesterday morning and got me this nice new 30-30 down to
Goshook & Dale's hardware store.'

"He pulled the new gun out and patted it tenderly in the sight of old
Timmins. 'Ain't it a cunning little implement?' he says; 'I tried it out
coming up this afternoon. I could split a hair with it as far, say, as
from that clump of buck-brush over to your barn. And by the way, Mr.
Timmins,' he says, 'I got some more stuff for you here from the Square
Deal Grocery--stuff all gummed up with postage stamps.' He leans his new
toy against the seat and dumps out a sack of flour and a sack of dried
fruit and one or two other things. 'This parcels post is a grand thing,
ain't it?' says he.

"'Well--yes and no, now that you speak of it,' says old Safety First.
'The fact is I'm kind of prejudiced against it; I ain't going to have
things come to me any more all stuck over with them trifling little
postage stamps. It don't look dignified