They said no more, but mounted the remaining steps to the level above. Fairfax Cary joined the two Churchills and their friends, while Rand, after a just perceptible hesitation, entered the small room where the postmaster was filling, with great leisureliness, the leather mail-bag. Besides himself there was no other there; even the window gave not upon the porch, but on a quiet, tangled garden. He took the letter from his breast pocket and stood looking at it. The postmaster, after the first word of greeting, went on with his work, whistling softly as he handled the stiffly folded, wax-splashed missives of the time. The wind was in the west, and the fitful air came in from the withered garden and breathed upon Rand's forehead. He stood for perhaps five minutes looking at the letter, then with a curious and characteristic gesture of decision he walked to the high counter and with his own hand dropped it into the mail-bag, then waited to see it covered by the drift from the postmaster's fingers. "Don't the world move, sir?" said the latter worthy. "It hasn't been so long since there wasn't any mail for the West anyhow, and now look at this bag! Kentucky, and this new Tennessee, and Mississippi, and Louisiana, and the Lord knows what besides! Letters coming thick and fast to Mr. Jefferson, and letters going out from every one who has a dollar or an acre or a son or brother in those God-forsaken parts where Adam Gaudylock says they don't speak English and you walk uphill to the river! I like things snug, Mr. Rand, and this country's too big and this mail's too heavy. You have correspondents out there yourself, sir." "Yes," answered Rand, with indifference. "As you say, Mr. Smock, all the world writes letters nowadays. Certainly it is natural that from all over the West men should write to Mr. Jefferson." "Natural or not, they do it," quoth Mr. Smock doggedly. "I thought I heard the stage horn?"