A heavily built man, older than those who had been keeping the post-office lively, now took advantage of the lull to approach Judith.  He had a twinkling face, all circles and pouches, but it grew graver as he spoke to the postmistress.  He was Major Atkins, formerly a famous cavalry officer, but since his retirement a cattle-man whose herds grazed to the pan-handle of Texas.  As he took his mail, talking meantime of politics, of the heat, of the lack of water, in the loud voice for which he was famous, he managed, with clumsy diplomacy, to interject a word or two for her own ear alone.

“Jim’s out,” he conveyed to her, in a successfully muffled tone.  “He’s out, and they’re after him, hot.  Get him out of the State, Judy—­get him out, quick.  He tried to kill Simpson at Mrs. Clark’s, in town, yesterday.  The little Eastern girl that’s here will tell you.”  Then the major was gone before Judith could perfectly realize the significance of what he had told her.

She threw back her head and the pulse in her throat beat.  Like a wild forest thing, at the first warning sound, she considered:  Was it time for flight?—­or was the warning but the crackling of a twig?  Major Atkins was a cattle-man:  her brother hated all cattle-men.  How disinterested had been the major’s warning!  He had always been her friend.  Mrs. Atkins had been one of the ladies at the post who had helped to send her to school to the nuns at Santa Fe.  She despised herself for doubting; yet these were troublous times, and all was fair between sheep and cattle-men.  Major Atkins had spoken of the Eastern girl; then that pretty, little, curly-haired creature, whom Judith had found standing in the sunshine, had seen Jim—­had heard him threaten to kill.  Should she ask her about it—­ consult her?  Judith’s training was not one to impel her to give her confidence to strangers, still she had liked the little Eastern girl.

These were the perplexities that beset her, sweeping her thoughts hither and thither, as sea-weed is swept by the wash of the waves.  She strove to collect her faculties.  How should she rid the house of her cavaliers?  She had regularly to refuse some half-dozen of them each day that she kept post-office.

In a few minutes more the group in the post-office began to disperse under the skilful manipulation of the postmistress.  To some she sold stamps with an air of “God speed you,” and they were soon but dwindling specks on the horizon.  To others she implied such friendly farewells that there was nothing to do but betake themselves to their saddles.  Others had compromised with the saloon opposite, and their roaring mirth came in snatches of song and shouts of laughter.  She fastened up the little pile of letters that had remained uncalled for with what seemed a deliberate slowness.  Each time any one entered the room she looked up—­then the hope died hard in her face.  Leander came in with catlike tread and removed the pigeon-holes from the table.  The post-office was closed.  Family life had been resumed at the Daxes’.