She shuffled the letters impartially, as a goddess dispensing fate, and barely glanced at the man who had ridden a hundred and fifty miles across sand and cactus to see her. “That’s the difference between them and me.” There was a grim finality in his tone. “What, you’re going to take your place at the end of that line again! I’ll try and find you a circular.” He tried to look at her angrily, but she smiled at him with such good-fellowship that he went off singing significantly that universal anthem of the cow-puncher the West over: “Oh, bury me not on the lone prairie, In a narrow grave just six by three, Where the wild coyotes will howl o’er me. Oh, bury me not on the lone prairie.” “Ain’t there a love letter for me?” The young man who inquired seemed to belong to a different race from these bronzed squires of the saddle. He suggested over-crowded excursion boats on Sunday afternoons in swarming Eastern cities. He buttonholed every one and explained his presence in the West on the score of his health, as though leaving his native asphalt were a thing that demanded apology. “Yes,” answered the postmistress, with a real motherly note, “here is one from Hugous & Co.” A roar went up at this, and the blushing tenderfoot pocketed his third bill for the most theatrical style of Mexican sombrero; it had a brass snake coiled round the crown for a hat-band, and a cow-puncher in good and regular standing would have preferred going bareheaded to wearing it. “She seems to be pressing her suit, son; you better name the day,” one of the loungers suggested. “The blamed thing ain’t worth twenty-five dollars,” the young man from the East declared. A conspicuous silence followed. It seemed to irritate the owner of the hat that no one would defend it. “It ain’t worth it,” he repeated. “I think you allowed you was out here for your health?” the big Texan, who had returned from the corral, inquired. “Betcher life,” swaggered the man with the hat, “N’York’s good enough for me.” “But”—and the Texan smiled sweetly—“the man who sold you the hat ain’t out here for his.” Judith hid her head and stamped letters. The boys were suspiciously quiet, then some one began to chant: “The devil examined the desert well, And made up his mind ’twas too dry for hell; He put up the prices his pockets to swell, And called it a—heal-th resort.” The postmistress waited for the last note of the chorus to die away, and read from a package she held in her hand—“‘Mrs. Henry Lee, Deer Lodge, Wyoming.’ Well, Henry, here’s a wedding-present, I guess. And my congratulations, though you’ve hardly treated us well in never saying a word.” The unfortunate Henry, who hadn’t even a sweetheart, and who was noted as the shyest man in the “Goose Creek Outfit,” had to submit to the mock congratulations of every man in the room and promise to set up the drinks later. “I never felt we’d keep you long, son; them golden curls seldom gets a chance to ripen singly.”