getting a little too
set up for the Crossing." The individual here mentioned being the county
butcher, and supposed to exhibit his hopeless affection for Flip by
making a long and useless divergence from his weekly route to enter the
canyon for "orders," Flip did not deem it necessary to reply. "Then I
allowed how ez you might have company," he continued; "I reckon there's
some city folks up at the summit. I saw a mighty smart, fash'n'ble gal
cavorting round. Had no end o' style and fancy fixin's. That's my kind,
I tell you. I just weaken on that sort o' gal," he continued, in the
firm belief that he had awakened Flip's jealousy, as he glanced at her
well-worn homespun frock, and found her eyes suddenly fixed on his own.

"Strange I ain't got to see her yet," she replied coolly, shouldering
her parcel, and quite ignoring any sense of obligation to him for his
extra-official act.

"But you might get to see her at the edge of the Gin and Ginger Woods,"
he persisted feebly, in a last effort to detain her; "if you'll take a
pasear there with me." Flip's only response was to walk on toward the
cabin, whence, with a vague complimentary suggestion of "droppin' in to
pass the time o' day" with her father, the Postmaster meekly followed.

The paternal Fairley, once convinced that his daughter's new companion
required no pecuniary or material assistance from his hands, relaxed
to the extent of entering into a querulous confidence with him, during
which Flip took the opportunity of slipping away. As Fairley had that
infelicitous tendency of most weak natures, to unconsciously exaggerate
unimportant details in their talk, the Postmaster presently became
convinced that the butcher was a constant and assiduous suitor of
Flip's. The absurdity of his sending parcels and letters by post when he
might bring them himself did not strike the official. On the contrary,
he believed it to be a master stroke of cunning. Fired by jealousy and
Flip's indifference, he "deemed it his duty"--using that facile form of
cowardly offensiveness--to betray Flip.

Of which she was happily oblivious. Once away from the cabin, she
plunged into the woods, with the parcel swung behind her like a
knapsack. Leaving the trail, she presently struck off in a straight line
through cover and underbrush with the unerring instinct of an animal,
climbing hand over hand the steepest ascent, or fluttering like a bird
from branch to branch down the deepest declivity. S