No response.

The officer, who had been holding down his men with an unsworded but
masterful hand, raised it suddenly. A dozen shots followed. The men
leaped forward, and dashing Corbin contemptuously aside streamed up the
hill past him.

But he had neither heard nor cared. For they found he had already
deliberately transfixed himself through the heart on his own bayonet.




THE POSTMISTRESS OF LAUREL RUN.


CHAPTER I.


The mail stage had just passed Laurel Run,--so rapidly that the whirling
cloud of dust dragged with it down the steep grade from the summit hung
over the level long after the stage had vanished, and then, drifting
away, slowly sifted a red precipitate over the hot platform of the
Laurel Run post-office.

Out of this cloud presently emerged the neat figure of the postmistress
with the mailbag which had been dexterously flung at her feet from the
top of the passing vehicle. A dozen loungers eagerly stretched out their
hands to assist her, but the warning: "It's agin the rules, boys, for
any but her to touch it," from a bystander, and a coquettish shake of