Seven Mile Ranch lay rooted at the desert terminus among the foothills,
a gateway between the mountains and the Malpais Plain. Below was a
shimmering stretch of sand and cactus tortured beneath a blazing sun.
Into that caldron with its furnace-cracked floor the sun had poured
itself torridly for countless eons. It was a Sahara of mirage and
desolation and death.

To the left was a flat-topped mesa eroded to fantastic mockery of some
bastioned fort. In the round-topped hills behind it was Noches, fifty
miles away. Beyond lay the tangle of hills, rising to the saw-toothed
range now painted with orange and mauve and a hint of deepening purple.
For dusk was already slipping down over the peaks.

"Mail's been open half an hour, boys," Phyllis announced through the
open window.

They dropped in to the store, as noisy as schoolboys, but withal
deferential. It was clear the young postmistress reigned a queen among
the younger ones, but a queen that deigned to friendship with her
subjects. Some of them called her Miss Sanderson, one or two of them
Phyllie.

Among these last was Healy, who appeared on very good terms with her
indeed. He appointed himself a sort of master of ceremonies, and handed
to each man his mail with appropriate jocular comments designed to
embarrass the recipient. He knew them all, and his hits were greeted
with gay laughter. To the man standing in the doorway with his back to
them, they seemed all one happy family--and himself a rank outsider. He
trailed down the steps and swung himself to the saddle. As he loped away