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A chin-whiskered man in Walla-Walla, carrying a line of hope as excess baggage, had grubstaked us; and there we was in the foothills pecking away, with enough grub on hand to last an army through a peace conference. Along one day comes a mail-rider over the mountains from Carlos, and stops to eat three cans of greengages, and leave us a newspaper of modern date.

Yesterday morning there arrived from the Ogallalla Agency, Trooper Brannan of Troop 'A, Eleventh Calvary, who had been ordered hither by Lieutenant Boynton as attendant or escort to the mail-rider. First Sergeant Haney reported to me at ten o'clock that the man had evidently been drinking on the way and was in an advanced stage of intoxication.

"What do you think about allowing the boys to go with me?" "No doubt they would like it, for life has been rather monotonous to them for some time, especially since they lost their horses. Think it would be safe?" "No Indians have been seen on the route for some time." "The 'calm before the storm, I fear." "The mail-rider, Hudson, has seen no signs for a long time." "So he told me.

He did n't care if they had been through the war, as they had, for he fancied an army saddle. The Friend answered for himself that the saddle he rode belonged to a distinguished Union general, and had a bullet in it that was put there by a careless Confederate in the first battle of Bull Run, and the owner would not part with it for money. But the mail-rider said he did n't mind that.

It was locked. Nothing daunted, a stroke of a keen knife slit the upper part of the side seam, the sleeping baby was slipped into the aperture, and Tank Dysart rode off chuckling with glee to think of the dismay of the mail-rider when the mall-pouch should break forth with squeals and quiver with kicks, which embarrassment would probably not befall him until far away in the wilderness with his perplexity, for there had been something stronger on that stopper than milk or cambric tea.

The mail-rider was a lean, sallow, sinewy man, mounted on a sorry sorrel nag, who proved, however, to have blood in her, and to be a fast walker and full of endurance. The mail-rider was taciturn, a natural habit for a man who rides alone the year round, over a lonely road, and has nothing whatever to think of.

A God-forsaken place, that two months of the year can only be reached by a mail-rider once a week, don't look ez if it was goin' to break its back haulin' in goods and settlers. I tell ye what, gentlemen, it makes me sick!" And apparently it had enfeebled him to the extent of interfering with his aim in that expectoration of disgust against the stove with which he concluded his sentence.

Moreover, the hours of the mail-rider were neither fixed nor regular; and on this account I avoided a prolonged absence from the post-office. Six days of this expectancy I endured six days of alternate hope and doubt the latter at times so distressing, that even in the excitement of the chase I could not procure distraction for my thoughts!

The mail-rider was a lean, sallow, sinewy man, mounted on a sorry sorrel nag, who proved, however, to have blood in her, and to be a fast walker and full of endurance. The mail-rider was taciturn, a natural habit for a man who rides alone the year round, over a lonely road, and has nothing whatever to think of.

"The mail-rider done told hit.... Somebody shot five shoots from the laurel.... Purvy hain't died yit.... Some says as how his folks has sent ter Lexington fer bloodhounds." The boy's eyes began to smolder hatefully. "I reckon," he spoke slowly, "he didn't git shot none too soon." "Samson!" The old man's voice had the ring of determined authority.