“Railroad been here long?” he asked the conductor.

“Four years.”

“Norada must have been pretty isolated before that.”

“Thirty miles in a coach or a Ford car.”

“I was reading the other day,” said Bassett, “about the Judson Clark case.  Have a cigar?  Got time to sit down?”

“You a newspaper man?”

“Oil well supplies,” said Bassett easily.  “Well, in this article it seemed some woman or other had made a confession.  It sounded fishy to me.”

“Well, I’ll tell you about that.”  The conductor sat down and bit off the end of his cigar.  “I knew the Donaldsons well, and Maggie Donaldson was an honest woman.  But I’ll tell you how I explain the thing.  Donaldson died, and that left her pretty much alone.  The executors of the Clark estate kept her on the ranch, but when the estate was settled three years ago she had to move.  That broke her all up.  She’s always said he wasn’t dead.  She kept the house just as it was, and my wife says she had his clothes all ready and everything.”

“That rather sounds as though the story is true, doesn’t it?”

“Not necessarily.  It’s my idea she got from hoping to moping, so to speak.  She went in to town regular for letters for ten years, and the postmaster says she never got any.  She was hurt in front of the post office.  The talk around here is that she’s been off her head for the last year or two.”

“But they found the cabin.”

“Sure they did,” said the conductor equably.  “The cabin was no secret.  It was an old fire station before they put the new one on Goat Mountain.  I spent a month in it myself, once, with a dude who wanted to take pictures of bear.  We found a bear, but it charged the camera and I’d be running yet if I hadn’t come to civilization.”

When he had gone Bassett fell into deep thought.  So Maggie Donaldson had gone to the post office for ten years.  He tried to visualize those faithful, wearisome journeys, through spring mud and winter snow, always futile and always hopeful.  He did not for a moment believe that she had “gone off her head.”  She had been faithful to the end, as some women were, and in the end, too, as had happened before, her faith had killed her.

And again he wondered at the curious ability of some men to secure loyalty.  They might go through life, tearing down ideals and destroying illusions to the last, but always there was some faithful hand to rebuild, some faithful soul to worship.

He was somewhat daunted at the size and bustling activity of Norada.  Its streets were paved and well-lighted, there were a park and a public library, and the clerk at the Commercial Hotel asked him if he wished a private bath!  But the development was helpful in one way.  In the old Norada a newcomer might have been subjected to a friendly but inquisitive interest.  In this grown-up and self-centered community a man might come and go unnoticed.