Rand looked at his watch. "Not yet. It lacks some minutes of its time," he said, and, leaning on the counter, waited until he saw the mail-bag filled and securely fastened. Lounging there, he took occasion to ask after the health of Mr. Smock's wife, and to commiserate the burnt garden without the window. If the expression of interest was calculated, the interest itself was genuine enough. A shrewd observer might have said that in dealing with the voters of his county Rand exhibited a fine fusion of the subtle politician with the well-wishing neighbour. The facts that he was quite simply and sincerely sorry for the postmaster's ailing wife, and that he had the yeoman's love for fresh and springing green instead of withered leaf and stalk, in no wise militated against that other fact that it was his cue to conciliate, as far as might be, the minds of men. He almost never neglected his cue; when he did so, it was because uncontrollable passion had intervened. Now the postmaster, too, shook his head over the ruined garden, entered with particularity into the doctor's last report, and by the time that Rand, with a nod of farewell, left the room, had voted him into the Governor's chair, or any other seat of honour to which he might aspire. "Brains, brains!" thought Mr. Smock. "And a plain man despite his fine marriage! If there were more like him, the country would be safer than it is to-day. There is the horn!" The stage with its four horses and flapping leather hanging, its heated, red-coated driver and guard, and its dusty passengers swung into town with great cracking of a whip and blowing of a horn, drew up at the post-office just long enough to deliver a plethoric mail-bag, and then rolled on in a pillar of dust to the Eagle. The crowd about the post-office increased, men gathering on the steps as well as upon the porch above and on the parched turf beneath the mulberries. There was a principle of division. The Federalists, who were in the minority, held one end of the porch; the more prominent Republicans the other, while the steps were free to both, and the space below was given over to a rabble almost entirely Republican. Rand, with several associates, lawyers or planters, stood near the head of the steps;--all waited for the sorting and distribution of the mail. The sun was low over the Ragged Mountains, and after the breathless heat of the day, a wind had arisen that refreshed like wine.