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The common road to Fairley’s Ranch was by the stage turnpike to a point below the Gin and Ginger Woods, where the prudent horseman usually left his beast and followed the intersecting trail afoot. It was here that the Postmaster suddenly observed on the edge of the wood the figure of an elegantly-dressed woman; she was walking slowly, and apparently at her ease; one hand held her skirts lightly gathered between her gloved fingers, the other slowly swung a riding whip. Was it a picnic of some people from Monterey or Santa Cruz? The spectacle was novel enough to justify his coming nearer. Suddenly she withdrew into the wood; he lost sight of her; she was gone. He remembered, however, that Flip was still to be seen, and as the steep trail was beginning to tax all his energies, he was fain to hurry forward. The sun was nearly vertical when he turned into the canyon, and saw the bark roof of the cabin beyond. At almost the same moment Flip appeared, flushed and panting, in the road before him.

“You’ve got something for me,” she said, pointing to the parcel and letters. Completely taken by surprise, the Postmaster mechanically yielded them up, and as instantly regretted it. “They’re paid for,” continued Flip, observing his hesitation.

“That’s so,” stammered the official of the Crossing, seeing his last chance of knowing the contents of the parcel vanish; “but I thought ez it’s a valooable package, maybe ye might want to examine it to see that it was all right afore ye receipted for it.”

“I’ll risk it,” said Flip, coolly, “and if it ain’t right I’ll let ye know.”

As the girl seemed inclined to retire with her property, the Postmaster was driven to other conversation. “We ain’t had the pleasure of seeing you down at the Crossing for a month o’ Sundays,” he began, with airy yet pronounced gallantry. “Some folks let on you was keepin’ company with some feller like Bijah Brown, and you were getting a little too set up for the Crossing.” The individual here mentioned being the county butcher, and supposed to exhibit his hopeless affection for Flip by making a long and useless divergence from his weekly route to enter the canyon for “orders,” Flip did not deem it necessary to reply. “Then I allowed how ez you might have company,” he continued; “I reckon there’s some city folks up at the summit. I saw a mighty smart, fash’n’ble gal cavorting round. Had no end o’ style and fancy fixin’s. That’s my kind, I tell you. I just weaken on that sort o’ gal,” he continued, in the firm belief that he had awakened Flip’s jealousy, as he glanced at her well-worn homespun frock, and found her eyes suddenly fixed on his own.

“Strange I ain’t got to see her yet,” she replied coolly, shouldering her parcel, and quite ignoring any sense of obligation to him for his extra-official act.

“But you might get to see her at the edge of the Gin and Ginger Woods,” he persisted feebly, in a last effort to detain her; “if you’ll take a pasear there with me.” Flip’s only response was to walk on toward the cabin, whence, with a vague complimentary suggestion of “droppin’ in to pass the time o’ day” with her father, the Postmaster meekly followed.

The paternal Fairley, once convinced that his daughter’s new companion required no pecuniary or material assistance from his hands, relaxed to the extent of entering into a querulous confidence with him, during which Flip took the opportunity of slipping away. As Fairley had that infelicitous tendency of most weak natures, to unconsciously exaggerate unimportant details in their talk, the Postmaster presently became convinced that the butcher was a constant and assiduous suitor of Flip’s. The absurdity of his sending parcels and letters by post when he might bring them himself did not strike the official. On the contrary, he believed it to be a master stroke of cunning. Fired by jealousy and Flip’s indifference, he “deemed it his duty”–using that facile form of cowardly offensiveness–to betray Flip.