“Here’s old Harvey Steptoe with the mail contract for sixty dollars a month, three trips a week between Red Gap and Surprise Valley, forty-five miles each way, barely making enough extra on express matter and local freight to come out even after buying horse-feed.  Then comes parcels post, and parties that had had to pay him four bits or a dollar for a large package, or two bits for a small one, can have ’em brought in by mail for nothing.  Of course most of us eased up on him after we understood the hellish injustice of it.  We took pains not to have things sent parcels post and when they come unbeknown to us, like these here to-night, we’d always pay him anyway, just like they was express.  It was only fair and, besides, we would live longer, Harvey Steptoe being morose and sudden.

“Like when old Safety First Timmins got the idea he could have all his supplies sent from Red Gap for almost nothing by putting stamps on ’em.  He was tickled to death with the notion until, after the second load of about a hundred pounds, some cowardly assassin shot at him from the brush one morning about the time the stage usually went down past his ranch.  The charge missed him by about four inches and went into the barn door.  He dug it out and found a bullet and two buckshot.  Old Safety First ain’t any Sherlock Holmes, but even Doctor Watson could of solved this murderous crime.  When Harvey come by the next night he went out and says to him, ’Ain’t you got one of them old Mississippi Yaegers about seventy-five years old that carries a bullet and two buckshot?’ Harvey thought back earnestly for a minute, then says,’Not now I ain’t.  I used to have one of them old hairlooms around the house but I found they ain’t reliable when you want to do fine work from a safe distance; so I threw her away yesterday morning and got me this nice new 30-30 down to Goshook & Dale’s hardware store.’

“He pulled the new gun out and patted it tenderly in the sight of old Timmins.  ‘Ain’t it a cunning little implement?’ he says; ’I tried it out coming up this afternoon.  I could split a hair with it as far, say, as from that clump of buck-brush over to your barn.  And by the way, Mr. Timmins,’ he says, ’I got some more stuff for you here from the Square Deal Grocery—­stuff all gummed up with postage stamps.’  He leans his new toy against the seat and dumps out a sack of flour and a sack of dried fruit and one or two other things.  ’This parcels post is a grand thing, ain’t it?’ says he.

“‘Well—­yes and no, now that you speak of it,’ says old Safety First.  ’The fact is I’m kind of prejudiced against it; I ain’t going to have things come to me any more all stuck over with them trifling little postage stamps.  It don’t look dignified.’  ‘No?’ says Harvey.  ‘No,’ says Safety First in a firm tone.  ’I won’t ever have another single thing come by mail if I can help it.’  ‘I bet you’re superstitious,’ says Harvey, climbing back to his seat and petting