"Post Office!" replied Babe, proudly. "Yes, sir, Old Good Eye has certainly knocked the persimmon this time and put Verde Crossing on the map. They's lots of ranchers up and down the river—and you, of course, over there at Carrizo—and Crit figured it out some time ago that if he could git 'em to come here for their mail he'd catch their trade in whiskey; so what does he do but apply to the Post Office Department for a mail route from here to Geronimo and bid in the contract himself! Has to send Joe down about once a week, anyhow, you understand, and he might as well git the Government to pay for it. So you can write home to your folks now to send your mail to Verde Crossing—tell your girl too, because if we don't git ten letters a week we lose our route." Pecos twisted uneasily on his chair. Like many another good Texan he was not writing home. "Ain't got no girl," he protested, blushing beneath his tan. "No?" said Angy, "well that's good news for Marcelina—she was inquirin' about you the other day. But say, here's some advertisements in this paper that might interest you. Umm—lemme see, now—'Genuine Diamonds, rings, earrings, and brooches, dollar forty-eight a piece, to introduce our new line.' That's pretty cheap, ain't it! 'Always acceptable to a lady,' it says. Yes, if you don't want 'em yourself you can give 'em away, see? You know, I'm tryin' to git the fellers around here interested, so's they'll write more letters." He threw this out for a feeler and Pecos responded nobly. "Well, go ahead and order me them rings and earrings," he said, "I'm no cheap sport. What else you got that's good?" Angevine Thorne dropped his paper and reached stealthily for a large mail-order catalogue on the counter. "Aprons, bath-tubs, curtains, dishes," he read, running his finger down the index. "Here's some silk handkerchiefs that might suit you; 'green, red, blue, and yaller, sixty cents each; with embroidered initials, twenty cents extra.'" "I'll go you!" cried the cowboy, looking over his shoulder. "Gimme half a dozen of them red ones—no squaw colors for me—and say, lemme look at them aprons." "Aprons!" yelled Angy. "Well—what—the—" "Aw, shut up!" snarled Pecos, blushing furiously. "Can't you take a joke? Here, gimme that catalogue—you ain't the only man on the Verde that can read and write—I've had some schoolin' myself!" He retired to a dark corner with the "poor man's enemy" and pored over it laboriously, scrawling from time to time upon an order blank which Angy had thoughtfully provided. At last the deed was done, all but adding up the total, and after an abortive try or two the cowboy slipped in a twenty-dollar bill and wrote: "Giv me the rest in blue hankerchefs branded M." Then he sealed and directed the letter and called on Babe for a drink.