And dear old careful Uncle, who has wasted more cold cash in archaic systems than any other organization known to ancient or modern history, checked the spigot drainings every three months, unmindful of the bung, and scrupulously filed away the results in the catacombs of Washington, unaware of the negligence of Hawkins, the clerk, but always decidedly mindful of that worthy’s relationship to the elected genius of Spokane Flats. One may now remark that the accounting systems have changed. They have—after years of travail. But Hawkins and his benevolent influence have not changed; Uncle has not changed; and the Chief’s time is still spent checking inefficiency at home and reporting to ignorance abroad. Three times a week, in late afternoon, a solitary horseman, jouncing above his laden saddlebags, would appear over the slight rise beyond the trading-post, coming from the railroad; and a cry would go up from the campus:— “The mail!” That call would cause a stir. What a thing of interest is a newspaper five days old, a fresh magazine or catalogue, in those waste places! And a letter from a friend or loved one is a thing golden. Scarcely would the distribution have ended, with joy or disappointment, when it would be sunset, and the Desert cooling and browning into dusk as the red ball plunged downward into the caverns of the range, trailing behind it a glory that often compensated for the trials and little evils of the day. Sunday brought a pause that seemed unreal, an enforced halt, a marking of time. For those who did not sing “Beulah Land,” it was a long-drawn-out monotony. A thousand miles from anywhere inviting a visit, often without the solace of a kindred spirit, the silence and loneliness settled into one. The clanking pump was hushed, the boiler no longer hissed steam, the whistle did not summon, the mail did not arrive. Everyone arrayed himself in latest fashion, as mail-order catalogues decreed, and sat around in great discomfort. Where to go? There was no hunting, fishing—nothing. One had photographed everything above ground five thousand times. The nearest town was twenty-six miles off, and on Sunday as dead as Julius Cæsar. On such a day I became acquainted with the post trader, a half-breed Navajo, handsome and smiling. I found this lovable fellow in his quarters off the store. The place was bare enough of comforts, but along one wall ran shelves, piled with books and magazines—and such books and magazines! There I found the famous five-foot shelf extended many feet. And old files of Harper’s Monthly, the Atlantic, and Scribner’s. Among the books my hand touched Boswell’s Johnson, and I knew that the volumes I had left behind would be no longer missed. And Dickens, and Irving, and Macaulay, and Spencer, and Huxley, and Darwin. “Why, I had not expected to find such books—here—” He thanked me with a smile.