The Postmistress Of Laurel Run

: Colonel Starbottle's Client And Other Stories

CHAPTER I.





The mail stage had just passed Laurel Run,--so rapidly that the whirling

cloud of dust dragged with it down the steep grade from the summit hung

over the level long after the stage had vanished, and then, drifting

away, slowly sifted a red precipitate over the hot platform of the

Laurel Run post-office.



Out of this cloud presently emerged the neat figure of the postm
stress

with the mailbag which had been dexterously flung at her feet from the

top of the passing vehicle. A dozen loungers eagerly stretched out their

hands to assist her, but the warning: "It's agin the rules, boys, for

any but her to touch it," from a bystander, and a coquettish shake of

the head from the postmistress herself--much more effective than any

official interdict--withheld them. The bag was not heavy,--Laurel Run

was too recent a settlement to have attracted much correspondence,--and

the young woman, having pounced upon her prey with a certain feline

instinct, dragged it, not without difficulty, behind the partitioned

inclosure in the office, and locked the door. Her pretty face,

momentarily visible through the window, was slightly flushed with the

exertion, and the loose ends of her fair hair, wet with perspiration,

curled themselves over her forehead into tantalizing little rings. But

the window shutter was quickly closed, and this momentary but charming

vision withdrawn from the waiting public.



"Guv'ment oughter have more sense than to make a woman pick mail-bags

outer the road," said Jo Simmons sympathetically. "'Tain't in her day's

work anyhow; Guv'mont oughter hand 'em over to her like a lady; it's

rich enough and ugly enough."



"'Tain't Guv'ment; it's that stage company's airs and graces,"

interrupted a newcomer. "They think it mighty fine to go beltin' by,

makin' everybody take their dust, just because STOPPIN' ain't in their

contract. Why, if that expressman who chucked down the bag had any

feelin's for a lady"--but he stopped here at the amused faces of his

auditors.



"Guess you don't know much o' that expressman's feelin's, stranger,"

said Simmons grimly. "Why, you oughter see him just nussin' that bag

like a baby as he comes tearin' down the grade, and then rise up and

sorter heave it to Mrs. Baker ez if it was a five-dollar bokay! His

feelin's for her! Why, he's give himself so dead away to her that we're

looking for him to forget what he's doin' next, and just come sailin'

down hisself at her feet."



Meanwhile, on the other side of the partition, Mrs. Baker had brushed

the red dust from the padlocked bag, and removed what seemed to be a

supplementary package attached to it by a wire. Opening it she found

a handsome scent-bottle, evidently a superadded gift from the devoted

expressman. This she put aside with a slight smile and the murmured

word, "Foolishness." But when she had unlocked the bag, even its

sacred interior was also profaned by a covert parcel from the adjacent

postmaster at Burnt Ridge, containing a gold "specimen" brooch and some

circus tickets. It was laid aside with the other. This also was vanity

and--presumably--vexation of spirit.



There were seventeen letters in all, of which five were for herself--and

yet the proportion was small that morning. Two of them were marked

"Official Business" and were promptly put by with feminine discernment;

but in another compartment than that holding the presents. Then the

shutter was opened, and the task of delivery commenced.



It was accompanied with a social peculiarity that had in time become a

habit of Laurel Run. As the young woman delivered the letters, in turn,

to the men who were patiently drawn up in Indian file, she made that

simple act a medium of privileged but limited conversation on special or

general topics,--gay or serious as the case might be, or the temperament

of the man suggested. That it was almost always of a complimentary

character on their part may be readily imagined; but it was invariably

characterized by an element of refined restraint, and, whether from some

implied understanding or individual sense of honour, it never passed the

bounds of conventionality or a certain delicacy of respect. The

delivery was consequently more or less protracted, but when each man

had exchanged his three or four minutes' conversation with the fair

postmistress,--a conversation at times impeded by bashfulness or

timidity, on his part solely, or restricted often to vague smiling,--he

resignedly made way for the next. It was a formal levee, mitigated by

the informality of rustic tact, great good-humor, and infinite patience,

and would have been amusing had it not always been terribly in earnest

and at times touching. For it was peculiar to the place and the epoch,

and indeed implied the whole history of Mrs. Baker.



She was the wife of John Baker, foreman of "The Last Chance," now for

a year lying dead under half a mile of crushed and beaten-in tunnel at

Burnt Ridge. There had been a sudden outcry from the depths at high

hot noontide one day, and John had rushed from his cabin--his young,

foolish, flirting wife clinging to him--to answer that despairing cry of

his imprisoned men. There was one exit that he alone knew which might be

yet held open, among falling walls and tottering timbers, long enough to

set them free. For one moment only the strong man hesitated between her

entreating arms and his brothers' despairing cry. But she rose suddenly

with a pale face, and said, "Go, John; I will wait for you here." He

went, the men were freed--but she had waited for him ever since!



Yet in the shock of the calamity and in the after struggles of that

poverty which had come to the ruined camp, she had scarcely changed. But

the men had. Although she was to all appearances the same giddy, pretty

Betsy Baker, who had been so disturbing to the younger members, they

seemed to be no longer disturbed by her. A certain subdued awe and

respect, as if the martyred spirit of John Baker still held his arm

around her, appeared to have come upon them all. They held their breath

as this pretty woman, whose brief mourning had not seemed to affect her

cheerfulness or even playfulness of spirit, passed before them. But she

stood by her cabin and the camp--the only woman in a settlement of forty

men--during the darkest hours of their fortune. Helping them to wash and

cook, and ministering to their domestic needs, the sanctity of her cabin

was, however, always kept as inviolable as if it had been HIS tomb. No

one exactly knew why, for it was only a tacit instinct; but even one or

two who had not scrupled to pay court to Betsy Baker during John Baker's

life, shrank from even a suggestion of familiarity towards the woman who

had said that she would "wait for him there."



When brighter days came and the settlement had increased by one or two

families, and laggard capital had been hurried up to relieve the still

beleaguered and locked-up wealth of Burnt Ridge, the needs of the

community and the claims of the widow of John Baker were so well told

in political quarters that the post-office of Laurel Run was created

expressly for her. Every man participated in the building of the pretty

yet substantial edifice--the only public building of Laurel Run--that

stood in the dust of the great highway, half a mile from the settlement.

There she was installed for certain hours of the day, for she could not

be prevailed upon to abandon John's cabin, and here, with all the added

respect due to a public functionary, she was secure in her privacy.



But the blind devotion of Laurel Run to John Baker's relict did not stop

here. In its zeal to assure the Government authorities of the necessity

for a post-office, and to secure a permanent competency to the

postmistress, there was much embarrassing extravagance. During the first

week the sale of stamps at Laurel Run post-office was unprecedented

in the annals of the Department. Fancy prices were given for the first

issue; then they were bought wildly, recklessly, unprofitably, and

on all occasions. Complimentary congratulation at the little window

invariably ended with "and a dollar's worth of stamps, Mrs. Baker." It

was felt to be supremely delicate to buy only the highest priced stamps,

without reference to their adequacy; then mere QUANTITY was sought; then

outgoing letters were all over-paid and stamped in outrageous proportion

to their weight and even size. The imbecility of this, and its probable

effect on the reputation of Laurel Run at the General Post-office, being

pointed out by Mrs. Baker, stamps were adopted as local currency,

and even for decorative purposes on mirrors and the walls of cabins.

Everybody wrote letters, with the result, however, that those SENT were

ludicrously and suspiciously in excess of those received. To obviate

this, select parties made forced journeys to Hickory Hill, the next

post-office, with letters and circulars addressed to themselves at

Laurel Run. How long the extravagance would have continued is not

known, but it was not until it was rumored that, in consequence of

this excessive flow of business, the Department had concluded that a

postMASTER would be better fitted for the place that it abated, and a

compromise was effected with the General Office by a permanent salary to

the postmistress.



Such was the history of Mrs. Baker, who had just finished her afternoon

levee, nodded a smiling "good-by" to her last customer, and closed her

shutter again. Then she took up her own letters, but, before reading

them, glanced, with a pretty impatience, at the two official envelopes

addressed to herself, which she had shelved. They were generally a "lot

of new rules," or notifications, or "absurd" questions which had nothing

to do with Laurel Run and only bothered her and "made her head ache,"

and she had usually referred them to her admiring neighbor at Hickory

Hill for explanation, who had generally returned them to her with the

brief indorsement, "Purp stuff, don't bother," or, "Hog wash, let it

slide." She remembered now that he had not returned the last two. With

knitted brows and a slight pout she put aside her private correspondence

and tore open the first one. It referred with official curtness to an

unanswered communication of the previous week, and was "compelled to

remind her of rule 47." Again those horrid rules! She opened the other;

the frown deepened on her brow, and became fixed.



It was a summary of certain valuable money letters that had miscarried

on the route, and of which they had given her previous information.

For a moment her cheeks blazed. How dare they; what did they mean! Her

waybills and register were always right; she knew the names of every

man, woman, and child in her district; no such names as those borne by

the missing letters had ever existed at Laurel Run; no such addresses

had ever been sent from Laurel Run post-office. It was a mean

insinuation! She would send in her resignation at once! She would get

"the boys" to write an insulting letter to Senator Slocumb,--Mrs.

Baker had the feminine idea of Government as a purely personal

institution,--and she would find out who it was that had put them up to

this prying, crawling impudence! It was probably that wall-eyed old

wife of the postmaster at Heavy Tree Crossing, who was jealous of her.

"Remind her of their previous unanswered communication," indeed! Where

was that communication, anyway? She remembered she had sent it to her

admirer at Hickory Hill. Odd that he hadn't answered it. Of course, he

knew about this meanness--could he, too, have dared to suspect her! The

thought turned her crimson again. He, Stanton Green, was an old "Laurel

Runner," a friend of John's, a little "triflin'" and "presoomin'," but

still an old loyal pioneer of the camp! "Why hadn't he spoke up?"



There was the soft, muffled fall of a horse's hoof in the thick dust of

the highway, the jingle of dismounting spurs, and a firm tread on the

platform. No doubt one of the boys returning for a few supplemental

remarks under the feeble pretense of forgotten stamps. It had been done

before, and she had resented it as "cayotin' round;" but now she was

eager to pour out her wrongs to the first comer. She had her hand

impulsively on the door of the partition, when she stopped with a new

sense of her impaired dignity. Could she confess this to her worshipers?

But here the door opened in her very face, and a stranger entered.



He was a man of fifty, compactly and strongly built. A squarely-cut

goatee, slightly streaked with gray, fell straight from his thin-lipped

but handsome mouth; his eyes were dark, humorous, yet searching. But the

distinctive quality that struck Mrs Baker was the blending of urban ease

with frontier frankness. He was evidently a man who had seen cities and

knew countries as well. And while he was dressed with the comfortable

simplicity of a Californian mounted traveler, her inexperienced

but feminine eye detected the keynote of his respectability in the

carefully-tied bow of his cravat. The Sierrean throat was apt to be

open, free, and unfettered.



"Good-morning, Mrs. Baker," he said, pleasantly, with his hat already in

his hand, "I'm Harry Home, of San Francisco." As he spoke his eye

swept approvingly over the neat inclosure, the primly-tied papers, and

well-kept pigeon-holes; the pot of flowers on her desk; her china-silk

mantle, and killing little chip hat and ribbons hanging against the

wall; thence to her own pink, flushed face, bright blue eyes, tendriled

clinging hair, and then--fell upon the leathern mailbag still lying

across the table. Here it became fixed on the unfortunate wire of the

amorous expressman that yet remained hanging from the brass wards of the

lock, and he reached his hand toward it.



But little Mrs. Baker was before him, and had seized it in her arms. She

had been too preoccupied and bewildered to resent his first intrusion

behind the partition, but this last familiarity with her sacred official

property--albeit empty--capped the climax of her wrongs.



"How dare you touch it!" she said indignantly. "How dare you come in

here! Who are you, anyway? Go outside, at once!"



The stranger fell back with an amused, deprecatory gesture, and a

long silent laugh. "I'm afraid you don't know me, after all!" he said

pleasantly. "I'm Harry Home, the Department Agent from the San Francisco

office. My note of advice, No. 201, with my name on the envelope, seems

to have miscarried too."



Even in her fright and astonishment it flashed upon Mrs. Baker that she

had sent that notice, too, to Hickory Hill. But with it all the feminine

secretive instinct within her was now thoroughly aroused, and she kept

silent.



"I ought to have explained," he went on smilingly; "but you are quite

right, Mrs. Baker," he added, nodding towards the bag. "As far as you

knew, I had no business to go near it. Glad to see you know how to

defend Uncle Sam's property so well. I was only a bit puzzled to

know" (pointing to the wire) "if that thing was on the bag when it was

delivered to you?"



Mrs. Baker saw no reason to conceal the truth. After all, this official

was a man like the others, and it was just as well that he should

understand her power. "It's only the expressman's foolishness," she

said, with a slightly coquettish toss of her head. "He thinks it smart

to tie some nonsense on that bag with the wire when he flings it down."



Mr. Home, with his eyes on her pretty face, seemed to think it a not

inhuman or unpardonable folly. "As long as he doesn't meddle with

the inside of the bag, I suppose you must put up with it," he said

laughingly. A dreadful recollection, that the Hickory Hill postmaster

had used the inside of the bag to convey HIS foolishness, came across

her. It would never do to confess it now. Her face must have shown

some agitation, for the official resumed with a half-paternal,

half-reassuring air: "But enough of this. Now, Mrs. Baker, to come to

my business here. Briefly, then, it doesn't concern you in the least,

except so far as it may relieve you and some others, whom the Department

knows equally well, from a certain responsibility, and, perhaps,

anxiety. We are pretty well posted down there in all that concerns

Laurel Run, and I think" (with a slight bow) "we've known all about you

and John Baker. My only business here is to take your place to-night

in receiving the 'Omnibus Way Bag,' that you know arrives here at 9.30,

doesn't it?"



"Yes, sir," said Mrs. Baker hurriedly; "but it never has anything for

us, except"--(she caught herself up quickly, with a stammer, as

she remembered the sighing Green's occasional offerings) "except a

notification from Hickory Hill post-office. It leaves there," she went

on with an affectation of precision, "at half past eight exactly, and

it's about an hour's run--seven miles by road."



"Exactly," said Mr. Home. "Well, I will receive the bag, open it, and

dispatch it again. You can, if you choose, take a holiday."



"But," said Mrs. Baker, as she remembered that Laurel Run always made a

point of attending her evening levee on account of the superior leisure

it offered, "there are the people who come for letters, you know."



"I thought you said there were no letters at that time," said Mr. Home

quickly.



"No--but--but"--(with a slight hysterical stammer) "the boys come all

the same."



"Oh!" said Mr. Home dryly.



"And--O Lord!"--But here the spectacle of the possible discomfiture of

Laurel Run at meeting the bearded face of Mr. Home, instead of her own

smooth cheeks, at the window, combined with her nervous excitement,

overcame her so that, throwing her little frilled apron over her head,

she gave way to a paroxym of hysterical laughter. Mr. Home waited with

amused toleration for it to stop, and, when she had recovered, resumed.

"Now, I should like to refer an instant to my first communication to

you. Have you got it handy?"



Mrs. Baker's face fell. "No; I sent it over to Mr. Green, of Hickory

Hill, for information."



"What!"



Terrified at the sudden seriousness of the man's voice, she managed to

gasp out, however, that, after her usual habit, she had not opened the

official letters, but had sent them to her more experienced colleague

for advice and information; that she never could understand them

herself,--they made her head ache, and interfered with her other

duties,--but HE understood them, and sent her word what to do.

Remembering also his usual style of indorsement, she grew red again.



"And what did he say?"



"Nothing; he didn't return them."



"Naturally," said Mr. Home, with a peculiar expression. After a few

moments' silent stroking of his beard, he suddenly faced the frightened

woman.



"You oblige me, Mrs. Baker, to speak more frankly to you than I had

intended. You have--unwittingly, I believe--given information to a man

whom the Government suspects of peculation. You have, without knowing

it, warned the postmaster at Hickory Hill that he is suspected; and,

as you might have frustrated our plans for tracing a series of

embezzlements to their proper source, you will see that you might have

also done great wrong to yourself as his only neighbor and the next

responsible person. In plain words, we have traced the disappearance of

money letters to a point when it lies between these two offices. Now,

I have not the least hesitation in telling you that we do not suspect

Laurel Run, and never have suspected it. Even the result of your

thoughtless act, although it warned him, confirms our suspicion of his

guilt. As to the warning, it has failed, or he has grown reckless, for

another letter has been missed since. To-night, however, will settle all

doubt in the matter. When I open that bag in this office to-night, and

do not find a certain decoy letter in it, which was last checked at

Heavy Tree Crossing, I shall know that it remains in Green's possession

at Hickory Hill."



She was sitting back in her chair, white and breathless. He glanced at

her kindly, and then took up his hat. "Come, Mrs. Baker, don't let this

worry you. As I told you at first, YOU have nothing to fear. Even your

thoughtlessness and ignorance of rules have contributed to show your own

innocence. Nobody will ever be the wiser for this; we do not advertise

our affairs in the Department. Not a soul but yourself knows the real

cause of my visit here. I will leave you here alone for a while, so as

to divert any suspicion. You will come, as usual, this evening, and be

seen by your friends; I will only be here when the bag arrives, to open

it. Good-by, Mrs. Baker; it's a nasty bit of business, but it's all in

the day's work. I've seen worse, and, thank God, you're out of it."



She heard his footsteps retreat into the outer office and die out of the

platform; the jingle of his spurs, and the hollow beat of his horse's

hoofs that seemed to find a dull echo in her own heart, and she was

alone.



The room was very hot and very quiet; she could hear the warping

and creaking of the shingles under the relaxing of the nearly level

sunbeams. The office clock struck seven. In the breathless silence that

followed, a woodpecker took up his interrupted work on the roof,

and seemed to beat out monotonously on her ear the last words of the

stranger: Stanton Green--a thief! Stanton Green, one of the "boys" John

had helped out of the falling tunnel! Stanton Green, whose old mother in

the States still wrote letters to him at Laurel Run, in a few hours

to be a disgraced and ruined man forever! She remembered now, as a

thoughtless woman remembers, tales of his extravagance and fast living,

of which she had taken no heed, and, with a sense of shame, of presents

sent her, that she now clearly saw must have been far beyond his means.

What would the boys say? What would John have said? Ah! what would John

have DONE!



She started suddenly to her feet, white and cold as on that day that

she had parted from John Baker before the tunnel. She put on her hat

and mantle, and going to that little iron safe that stood in the corner,

unlocked it and took out its entire contents of gold and silver. She had

reached the door when another idea seized her, and opening her desk she

collected her stamps to the last sheet, and hurriedly rolled them up

under her cape. Then with a glance at the clock, and a rapid survey

of the road from the platform, she slipped from it, and seemed to be

swallowed up in the waiting woods beyond.





CHAPTER II.





Once within the friendly shadows of the long belt of pines, Mrs. Baker

kept them until she had left the limited settlement of Laurel Run far to

the right, and came upon an open slope of Burnt Ridge, where she knew

Jo Simmons' mustang, Blue Lightning, would be quietly feeding. She had

often ridden him before, and when she had detached the fifty-foot reata

from his head-stall, he permitted her the further recognized familiarity

of twining her fingers in his bluish mane and climbing on his back. The

tool-shed of Burnt Ridge Tunnel, where Jo's saddle and bridle always

hung, was but a canter farther on. She reached it unperceived,

and--another trick of the old days--quickly extemporized a side-saddle

from Simmons' Mexican tree, with its high cantle and horn bow, and the

aid of a blanket. Then leaping to her seat, she rapidly threw off her

mantle, tied it by its sleeves around her waist, tucked it under

one knee, and let it fall over her horse's flanks. By this time Blue

Lightning was also struck with a flash of equine recollection and

pricked up his ears. Mrs. Baker uttered a little chirping cry which he

remembered, and the next moment they were both careering over the Ridge.



The trail that she had taken, though precipitate, difficult, and

dangerous in places, was a clear gain of two miles on the stage road.

There was less chance of her being followed or meeting any one. The

greater canyons were already in shadow; the pines on the farther ridges

were separating their masses, and showing individual silhouettes against

the sky, but the air was still warm, and the cool breath of night, as

she well knew it, had not yet begun to flow down the mountain. The lower

range of Burnt Ridge was still uneclipsed by the creeping shadow of

the mountain ahead of her. Without a watch, but with this familiar

and slowly changing dial spread out before her, she knew the time to a

minute. Heavy Tree Hill, a lesser height in the distance, was already

wiped out by that shadowy index finger--half past seven! The stage would

be at Hickory Hill just before half past eight; she ought to anticipate

it, if possible,--it would stay ten minutes to change horses,--she MUST

arrive before it left!



There was a good two-mile level before the rise of the next range. Now,

Blue Lightning! all you know! And that was much,--for with the little

chip hat and fluttering ribbons well bent down over the bluish mane, and

the streaming gauze of her mantle almost level with the horse's back,

she swept down across the long tableland like a skimming blue-jay. A few

more bird-like dips up and down the undulations, and then came the long,

cruel ascent of the Divide.



Acrid with perspiration, caking with dust, slithering in the slippery,

impalpable powder of the road, groggily staggering in a red dusty dream,

coughing, snorting, head-tossing; becoming suddenly dejected, with

slouching haunch and limp legs on easy slopes, or wildly spasmodic

and agile on sharp acclivities, Blue Lightning began to have ideas and

recollections! Ah! she was a devil for a lark--this lightly-clinging,

caressing, blarneying, cooing creature--up there! He remembered her now.

Ha! very well then. Hoop-la! And suddenly leaping out like a rabbit,

bucking, trotting hard, ambling lightly, "loping" on three legs and

recreating himself,--as only a California mustang could,--the invincible

Blue Lightning at last stood triumphantly upon the summit. The evening

star had just pricked itself through the golden mist of the horizon

line,--eight o'clock! She could do it now! But here, suddenly, her first

hesitation seized her. She knew her horse, she knew the trail, she knew

herself,--but did she know THE MAN to whom she was riding? A cold chill

crept over her, and then she shivered in a sudden blast; it was Night at

last swooping down from the now invisible Sierras, and possessing all it

touched. But it was only one long descent to Hickory Hill now, and she

swept down securely on its wings. Half-past eight! The lights of the

settlement were just ahead of her--but so, too, were the two lamps of

the waiting stage before the post-office and hotel.



Happily the lounging crowd were gathered around the hotel, and she

slipped into the post-office from the rear, unperceived. As she stepped

behind the partition, its only occupant--a good-looking young fellow

with a reddish mustache--turned towards her with a flush of delighted

surprise. But it changed at the sight of the white, determined face

and the brilliant eyes that had never looked once towards him, but were

fixed upon a large bag, whose yawning mouth was still open and propped

up beside his desk.



"Where is the through money letter that came in that bag?" she said

quickly.



"What--do--you--mean?" he stammered, with a face that had suddenly grown

whiter than her own.



"I mean that it's a DECOY, checked at Heavy Tree Crossing, and that Mr.

Home, of San Francisco, is now waiting at my office to know if you have

taken it!"



The laugh and lie that he had at first tried to summon to mouth and lips

never reached them. For, under the spell of her rigid, truthful face, he

turned almost mechanically to his desk, and took out a package.



"Good God! you've opened it already!" she cried, pointing to the broken

seal.



The expression on her face, more than anything she had said, convinced

him that she knew all. He stammered under the new alarm that her

despairing tone suggested. "Yes!--I was owing some bills--the collector

was waiting here for the money, and I took something from the packet.

But I was going to make it up by next mail--I swear it."



"How much have you taken?"



"Only a trifle. I"--



"How much?"



"A hundred dollars!"



She dragged the money she had brought from Laurel Run from her pocket,

and counting out the sum, replaced it in the open package. He ran

quickly to get the sealing wax, but she motioned him away as she dropped

the package back into the mail-bag. "No; as long as the money is found

in the bag the package may have been broken ACCIDENTALLY. Now burst open

one or two of those other packages a little--so;" she took out a packet

of letters and bruised their official wrappings under her little foot

until the tape fastening was loosened. "Now give me something heavy."

She caught up a brass two-pound weight, and in the same feverish

but collected haste wrapped it in paper, sealed it, stamped it, and,

addressing it in a large printed hand to herself at Laurel Hill, dropped

it in the bag. Then she closed it and locked it; he would have assisted

her, but she again waved him away. "Send for the expressman, and keep

yourself out of the way for a moment," she said curtly.



An attitude of weak admiration and foolish passion had taken the place

of his former tremulous fear. He obeyed excitedly, but without a word.

Mrs. Baker wiped her moist forehead and parched lips, and shook out

her skirt. Well might the young expressman start at the unexpected

revelation of those sparkling eyes and that demurely smiling mouth at

the little window.



"Mrs. Baker!"



She put her finger quickly to her lips, and threw a world of unutterable

and enigmatical meaning into her mischievous face.



"There's a big San Francisco swell takin' my place at Laurel to-night,

Charley."



"Yes, ma'am."



"And it's a pity that the Omnibus Way Bag happened to get such a shaking

up and banging round already, coming here."



"Eh?"



"I say," continued Mrs. Baker, with great gravity and dancing eyes,

"that it would be just AWFUL if that keerful city clerk found things

kinder mixed up inside when he comes to open it. I wouldn't give him

trouble for the world, Charley."



"No, ma'am, it ain't like you."



"So you'll be particularly careful on MY account."



"Mrs. Baker," said Charley, with infinite gravity, "if that bag SHOULD

TUMBLE OFF A DOZEN TIMES between this and Laurel Hill, I'll hop down and

pick it up myself."



"Thank you! shake!"



They shook hands gravely across the window-ledge.



"And you ain't going down with us, Mrs. Baker?"



"Of course not; it wouldn't do,--for I AIN'T HERE,--don't you see?"



"Of course!"



She handed him the bag through the door. He took it carefully, but in

spite of his great precaution fell over it twice on his way to the

road, where from certain exclamations and shouts it seemed that a like

miserable mischance attended its elevation to the boot. Then Mrs. Baker

came back into the office, and, as the wheels rolled away, threw herself

into a chair, and inconsistently gave way for the first time to an

outburst of tears. Then her hand was grasped suddenly and she found

Green on his knees before her. She started to her feet.



"Don't move," he said, with weak hysteric passion, "but listen to me,

for God's sake! I am ruined, I know, even though you have just saved me

from detection and disgrace. I have been mad!--a fool, to do what I have

done, I know, but you do not know all--you do not know why I did it--you

cannot think of the temptation that has driven me to it. Listen, Mrs.

Baker. I have been striving to get money, honestly, dishonestly--any

way, to look well in YOUR eyes--to make myself worthy of you--to make

myself rich, and to be able to offer you a home and take you away from

Laurel Run. It was all for YOU, it was all for love of YOU, Betsy, my

darling. Listen to me!"



In the fury, outraged sensibility, indignation, and infinite disgust

that filled her little body at that moment, she should have been large,

imperious, goddess-like, and commanding. But God is at times ironical

with suffering womanhood. She could only writhe her hand from his grasp

with childish contortions; she could only glare at him with eyes that

were prettily and piquantly brilliant; she could only slap at his

detaining hand with a plump and velvety palm, and when she found her

voice it was high falsetto. And all she could say was, "Leave me be,

looney, or I'll scream!"



He rose, with a weak, confused laugh, half of miserable affectation and

half of real anger and shame.



"What did you come riding over here for, then? What did you take all

this risk for? Why did you rush over here to share my disgrace--for YOU

are as much mixed up with this now as I am--if you didn't calculate to

share EVERYTHING ELSE with me? What did you come here for, then, if not

for ME?"



"What did I come here for?" said Mrs. Baker, with every drop of red

blood gone from her cheek and trembling lip. "What--did--I--come here

for? Well!--I came here for JOHN BAKER'S sake! John Baker, who stood

between you and death at Burnt Ridge, as I stand between you and

damnation at Laurel Run, Mr. Green! Yes, John Baker, lying under half of

Burnt Ridge, but more to me this day than any living man crawling over

it--in--in"--oh, fatal climax!--"in a month o' Sundays! What did I come

here for? I came here as John Baker's livin' wife to carry on dead John

Baker's work. Yes, dirty work this time, may be, Mr. Green! but his work

and for HIM only--precious! That's what I came here for; that's what

I LIVE for; that's what I'm waiting for--to be up to HIM and his work

always! That's me--Betsy Baker!"



She walked up and down rapidly, tying her chip hat under her chin again.

Then she stopped, and taking her chamois purse from her pocket, laid it

sharply on the desk.



"Stanton Green, don't be a fool! Rise up out of this, and be a man

again. Take enough out o' that bag to pay what you owe Gov'ment, send

in your resignation, and keep the rest to start you in an honest life

elsewhere. But light out o' Hickory Hill afore this time to-morrow."



She pulled her mantle from the wall and opened the door.



"You are going?" he said bitterly.



"Yes." Either she could not hold seriousness long in her capricious

little fancy, or, with feminine tact, she sought to make the parting

less difficult for him, for she broke into a dazzling smile. "Yes, I'm

goin' to run Blue Lightning agin Charley and that way bag back to Laurel

Run, and break the record."



*****



It is said that she did! Perhaps owing to the fact that the grade of the

return journey to Laurel Run was in her favor, and that she could avoid

the long, circuitous ascent to the summit taken by the stage, or that,

owing to the extraordinary difficulties in the carriage of the way

bag,--which had to be twice rescued from under the wheels of the

stage,--she entered the Laurel Run post-office as the coach leaders came

trotting up the hill. Mr. Home was already on the platform.



"You'll have to ballast your next way bag, boss," said Charley, gravely,

as it escaped his clutches once more in the dust of the road, "or you'll

have to make a new contract with the company. We've lost ten minutes in

five miles over that bucking thing."



Home did not reply, but quickly dragged his prize into the office,

scarcely noticing Mrs. Baker, who stood beside him pale and breathless.

As the bolt of the bag was drawn, revealing its chaotic interior, Mrs.

Baker gave a little sigh. Home glanced quickly at her, emptied the bag

upon the floor, and picked up the broken and half-filled money parcel.

Then he collected the scattered coins and counted them. "It's all right,

Mrs. Baker," he said gravely. "HE'S safe this time."



"I'm so glad!" said little Mrs. Baker, with a hypocritical gasp.



"So am I," returned Home, with increasing gravity, as he took the coin,

"for, from all I have gathered this afternoon, it seems he was an old

pioneer of Laurel Run, a friend of your husband's, and, I think, more

fool than knave!" He was silent for a moment, clicking the coins against

each other; then he said carelessly: "Did he get quite away, Mrs.

Baker?"



"I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about," said Mrs. Baker, with

a lofty air of dignity, but a somewhat debasing color. "I don't see why

I should know anything about it, or why he should go away at all."



"Well," said Mr. Home, laying his hand gently on the widow's shoulder,

"well, you see, it might have occurred to his friends that the COINS

WERE MARKED! That is, no doubt, the reason why he would take their good

advice and go. But, as I said before, Mrs. Baker, YOU'RE all right,

whatever happens,--the Government stands by YOU!"



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