They walked to the post office, quaffing deep of the delicious morning air, Garth glancing sidewise at his exuberant companion, and wondering, like the old lady in the nursery rhyme, if this could really be he. It was a day to make one walk a-tiptoe; the sky overhead bloomed with the exquisite pale tints of a Northern summer's morning; and the bricks of Oliver Avenue were washed with gold.
Natalie's face fell a little at the sight of the stage-coach; for it had nothing in common with the imagined vehicle of romance except the four horses; and they were but sorry beasts. In fact, it was nothing but a clumsy, uncovered wagon, which had never been washed since it was built; and was worn to a dull drab in a long acquaintance with the alternating mud and dust of the trail. Behind the driver's seat was a sort of well, for the mail bags and express packages; and behind that, two excruciatingly narrow seats for the passengers, running lengthwise between the rear wheels. The entrance was by a step at the tail-board.
Everything awaited the word to start. The driver, whip in hand, stood by the front wheel surrounded by a group of idlers; and his two great mongrel huskies, squatted on the pavement with expectant eyes on their master. Garth helped Natalie into the body of the wagon; and, climbing in after her, disposed her baggage with his own already in the well. The eyes of the driver and all his satellites were promptly transferred in wide wonder to the girl with the green wings in her hat. Garth, with a keen sense of difficulties ahead, was indignant and uncomfortable; but Natalie, serenely conscious that everything was in place, dropped her hands in her lap, and chatted away, as if quite unaware of her conspicuousness.
Garth had put Natalie in the right-hand corner of the little cockpit. Another woman passenger was already in place opposite; and the aspect of this lady made an additional element in his uneasiness. She, too, was gotten up bravely according to her lights. She seemed something under forty, tall and angular; her hair, a crass yellow, was tied with a large girlish bow of black ribbon behind; and in her cheeks she had crudely striven to recall the hues of youth. Around her long neck another black ribbon accentuated the scrawny lines it was designed to hide; and on top of all she wore a wide black hat, which had a fresh yet collapsed effect, as if it had long been cherished under the lid of a trunk. Her knees touched Natalie's, and Garth's gorge rose at her nearness to his precious charge—and yet the antique girl greeted them with a sort of anxious, appealing smile, which disarmed him in spite of himself.
Promptly at eight o'clock the door of the post office was opened; and the last bag of mail was thrown into the stage. Still the driver made no move to climb into his seat; and Garth, becoming restless as the minutes passed, got out and approached him.
"Good morning, driver," he said, while the bystanders stared afresh. "What's the delay?"
He gazed at Garth with a mild and cautious blue eye; and spat deliberately before replying. He was one of those withered little men, with a shock of grizzled hair, and deeply seamed face and neck and hands, who might be forty-five or seventy. As it turned out, Paul Smiley was within three years of the latter figure. He had on a pearl Fedora very much over one ear, a new suit of store clothes with a mighty watch chain, and new boots, which seemed like little souls put to torment—they screeched horribly whenever he moved.
"I couldn't start off and leave Nick Grylls," he said deprecatingly. "He has spoke for two seats."
Garth was sensible that he was hearing a great man's name.
"I tell you it ain't often Nick Grylls travels by the stage," continued Smiley, addressing the bystanders impressively. "He hires a rig and a team and a driver to take him to the Landing, he does."