At present neither pole of her character, as it had been hastily estimated, was even remotely suggested.  The atmosphere in the post-office was, considering the potential violence of its visitors, singularly calm.  And Judith, feeding these wild border lads on scraps of chaff and banter, and retaining their absolute loyalty, was a sight worth seeing.  She had the alertness of a lion-tamer locked in a cage with the lords of the jungle; the rashly confident she humbled, the meek she exalted, and all with such genuine good-fellowship, such an absence of coquetry in the genial game of give and take, that one ceased to wonder at even the devotion of Leander.  And since they were to her, on her own confession, but “spurs and sombreros,” one wondered at the elaboration of the comedy, the endless wire-pulling in the manipulation of these most picturesque marionettes—­until one remembered the outlaw brother and felt that what she did she did for him.

“You right shore there ain’t a letter for me, Miss Judith.  My creditors are pretty faithful ’bout bearing me in mind.”  It was the third time that the big, shambling Texan who had been one of the company at Mrs. Clark’s eating-house had inquired for mail, and seemed so embarrassed by his own bulk that he moved cautiously, as if he might step on a fellow-creature and maim him.  Each time he had asked for a letter he took his place at the end of the waiting-line and patiently bided his time for the chance of an extra word with the postmistress.

“They’ve begun to lose hope, Texas.”

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.