Mavericks | Page 3

busy to read it."
"It's from Tom," he further volunteered.

"Is it?"
She took the paper quietly but with a swift, repressed passion, tore it
across, folded the pieces together, rent them again, and tossed the
fragments through the window to the floor.
"Do you want the mail for the Gordons, too, Mr. Purdy?" she coolly
asked the next in line over the tow head of Bud.
The boy grinned and ducked from his place through the door. Through
the open window there drifted to her presently the sound of a
smothered curse, followed by the rapid thud of a horse's hoofs. Phyllis
did not look, but a wicked gleam came into her black eyes. As well as
if she had seen him she beheld a picture of a sulky youth spurring home
in dudgeon, a scowl of discontent on his handsome, boyish face. He
had come down the mountain trail singing, but no music travelled with
him on his return journey. Nor had she alone known this. Without
deigning to notice it, she caught a wink and a nod from one vaquero to
another. It was certain they would not forget to "rub it in" when next
they met Master Tom. She promised herself, as she handed out
newspapers and letters to the cowmen, sheep-herders, and miners who
had ridden in to the stage station for their mail, to teach that young man
his place.
"I'll take a dollar's worth of two's."
Phyllis turned her head in the slow, disdainful fashion she had inherited
from her Southern ancestors and without a word pushed the sheet of
stamps through the window. That voice, with its hint of sardonic
amusement, was like a trumpet call to battle.
"Any mail for Buck Weaver?"
"No," she answered promptly without looking.
"Sure?"
"Yes."

"Couldn't be overlooking any, could you?"
Her eyes met his with the rapier steel of hostility. He was mocking her,
for his mail all came to Saguaro. The man was her father's enemy. He
had no business here. His coming was of a piece with all the rest of his
insolence. Phyllis hated him with the lusty healthy hatred of youth. She
had her father's generosity and courage, his quick indignation against
wrong and injustice, and banked within her much of his passionate
lawlessness.
"I know my business, sir."
Weaver turned from the window and came front to front with old Jim
Sanderson. The burning black eyes of the Southerner, set in sockets of
extraordinary depths, blazed from a grim, hostile face. Always when he
felt ugliest Sanderson's drawl became more pronounced. His daughter,
hearing now the slow, gentle voice, ran quickly round the counter and
slipped an arm into that of her father.
"This hyer is an unexpected pleasure, Mr. Weaver," he was saying. "It's
been quite some time since I've seen you all in my house before, makin'
you'self at home so pleasantly. It's ce'tainly an honor, seh."
"Don't get buck ague, Sanderson. I'm here because I'm here. That's
reason a-plenty for me," Weaver told him contemptuously.
"But not for me, seh. When you come into my house----"
"I didn't come into your house."
"Why--why----"
"Father!" implored the girl. "It's a government post-office. He has a
right here as long as he behaves."
"H'm!" the old fire-eater snorted. "I'd be obliged just the same, Mr.
Weaver, if you'd transact your business and then light a shuck."
"Dad!" the girl begged.

He patted her head awkwardly as it lay on his arm. "Now don't you
worry, honey. There ain't going to be any trouble--leastways none of
my making. I ain't a-forgettin' my promise to you-all. But I ain't sittin'
down whilst anybody tromples on me neither."
"He wouldn't try to do that here," Phyllis reminded him.
Weaver laughed in grim irony. "I'm surely much obliged to you for
protecting me." And to the father he added carelessly: "Keep your shirt
on, Sanderson. I'm not trying to break into society. And when I do I
reckon it won't be with a sheep outfit I'll trail."
With which parting shot he turned on his heel, arrogant and imperious
to the last virile inch of him.
CHAPTER II
THE NESTER
With the jingle of trailing spur Buck Weaver passed from the
post-office to the porch, where public opinion was wont to formulate
itself while waiting for the mail to be distributed. Here twice a week it
had sat for many years, had heard evidence, passed judgment,
condemned or acquitted. For at this store the Malpais country bought
its ammunition, its tobacco, and its canned goods; and on this porch its
opinions had sifted down to convictions. From this common meeting
ground the gossip of Cattleland was scattered far and wide.
Weaver filled the doorway while he drew on his gauntlets. He was the
owner of the