n
the tough and weather-tanned hide of the old stage-driver.

Nor did Cupid stop here with his pranks. Having inoculated the
stage-driver with the virus of romance, madness began to work in the veins
of Chugg. He presented Mountain Pink with the gray woollen stocking--not
extracting a single coin--and urged her to get a divorce from the clodlike
man who had never appreciated her and marry him.

Mountain Pink coyly took the stocking so generously given for the divorce
and subsequent trousseau, and Chugg continued to drive his stage with an
Apollo-like abandon, whistling love-songs the while.

Coincident with Mountain Pink's disappearance Dakotaward, in the interests
of freedom, went also one Bob Catlin, a mule-wrangler. Bosky, with
conspicuous pessimism, hoped for the worst from the beginning, and as time
went on and nothing was heard of either of the wanderers, some of Mountain
Pink's most loyal adherents confessed it looked "romancy." But crusty old
Chugg remained true to his ideal. "She'll write when she gets good and
ready," and then concluded, loyally, "Maybe she can't write, nohow," and
nothing could shake his faith.

When Mountain Pink and the mule-wrangler returned as bride and groom and
set up housekeeping on the remainder of Chugg's stocking, and on his
stage-route, too, so that he had to drive right past the honeymoon cottage
every time he completed the circuit, they lost caste in Carbon County.
Chugg never spoke of the faithlessness of Mountain Pink. His bitterness
found vent in tipping over the stage when his passengers were confined to
members of the former Mrs. Bosky's sex, and, as Leander said, "the flask
in his innerds held more." And these were the only traces of tragedy in
the life of Lemuel Chugg, stage-driver.

Judith had continued her unquiet pacing in the blinding glare while the
group within doors, somnolent from the heat and the incessant shrilling of
the locusts, droningly discussed the faithlessness of Mountain Pink,
dozed, and took up the thread of the romance. Each time she turned Judith
would stop and scan the yellow road, shading her eyes with her hand, and
each time she had turned away and resumed her walk. Mary, who gave the
postmistress no unstinted share of admiration for the courage with which
she faced her difficulties, and who had been seeking an opportunity to
signify her friendship, and now that she saw the last of the gallants
depart, inquired of Judith if she might join her.