John Cassidy was an express messenger whose run was over this route and whose heart and its secret were in the keeping of Nora O'Neal.
From day to day, from week to week, he had waited her answer, which was to come to him "by Christmas."
And now, as only two days remained, he dreaded it, as he had hoped and prayed for it since the aspen leaves began to gather their gold. He knew by the troubled look she wore when off her guard that Nora was thinking.
Most of the men who were gunning in Gunnison in the early 80's were fearless men, who, when a difference of opinion arose, faced each other and fought it out; but there had come to live at La Veta a thin, quiet, handsome fellow, who moved mysteriously in and out of the camp, slept a lot by day, and showed a fondness for faro by night. When a name was needed he signed "Buckingham." His icy hand was soft and white, and his clothes fitted him faultlessly. He was handsome, and when he paid his bill at the end of the fourth week he proposed to Nora O'Neal. He was so fairer, physically, than Cassidy and so darker, morally, that Nora could not make up her mind at all, at all.
In the shadow time, between sunset and gas-light, on the afternoon of the last day but one before Christmas, Buck, as he came to be called, leaned over the office counter and put a folded bit of white paper in Nora's hand, saying, as he closed her fingers over it: "Put this powder in Cassidy's cup." He knew Cassidy merely as the messenger whose freight he coveted, and not as a contestant for Nora's heart and hand,—a hand he prized, however, as he would a bob-tailed flush, but no more.
As for Cassidy, he would be glad, waking, to find himself alive; and if this plan miscarried, Buck should be able to side-step the gallows. Anyway, dope was preferable to death.
Nora opened her hand, and in utter amazement looked at the paper. Some one interrupted them. Buck turned away, and Nora shoved the powder down deep into her jacket pocket, feeling vaguely guilty.
No. 7, the Salt Lake Limited, was an hour late that night. The regular dinner (we called it supper then) was over when Shanley whistled in.