Yet not he, not any one, could have foreseen the mortifying harmlessness of the outcome.  They swept down upon Separ like all the hordes of legend—­ more egregiously, perhaps, because they were play-acting and no serious horde would go on so.  Our final hundred yards of speed and copious howling brought all dwellers in Separ out to gaze and disappear like rabbits—­all save the new agent in the station.  Nobody ran out or in there, and the horde whirled up to the tiny, defenceless building and leaped to earth—­except Lin and me; we sat watching.  The innocent door stood open wide to any cool breeze or invasion, and Honey Wiggin tramped in foremost, hat lowering over eyes and pistol prominent.  He stopped rooted, staring, and his mouth came open slowly; his hand went feeling up for his hat, and came down with it by degrees as by degrees his grin spread.  Then in a milky voice, he said:  “Why, excuse me, ma’am!  Good-morning.”

There answered a clear, long, rippling, ample laugh.  It came out of the open door into the heat; it made the sun-baked air merry; it seemed to welcome and mock; it genially hovered about us in the dusty quiet of Separ; for there was no other sound anywhere at all in the place, and the great plain stretched away silent all round it.  The bulging water-tank shone overhead in bland, ironic safety.

The horde stood blank; then it shifted its legs, looked sideways at itself, and in a hesitating clump reached the door, shambled in, and removed its foolish hat.

“Good-morning, gentlemen,” said Jessamine Buckner, seated behind her railing; and various voices endeavored to reply conventionally.

“If you have any letters, ma’am,” said the Virginian, more inventive, “I’ll take them.  Letters for Judge Henry’s.”  He knew the judge’s office was seventy miles from here.

“Any for the C. Y.?” muttered another, likewise knowing better.

It was a happy, if simple, thought, and most of them inquired for the mail.  Jessamine sought carefully, making them repeat their names, which some did guiltily:  they foresaw how soon the lady would find out no letters ever came for these names!

There was no letter for any one present.

“I’m sorry, truly,” said Jessamine behind the railing.  “For you seemed real anxious to get news.  Better luck next time!  And if I make mistakes, please everybody set me straight, for of course I don’t understand things yet.”

“Yes, m’m.”

“Good-day, m’m.”

“Thank yu’, m’m.’

They got themselves out of the station and into their saddles.

“No, she don’t understand things yet,” soliloquized the Virginian.  “Oh dear, no.”  He turned his slow, dark eyes upon us.  “You Lin McLean,” said he, in his gentle voice, “you have cert’nly fooled me plumb through this mawnin’.”

Then the horde rode out of town, chastened and orderly till it was quite small across the sagebrush, when reaction seized it.  It sped suddenly and vanished in dust with far, hilarious cries and here were Lin and I, and here towered the water-tank, shining and shining.