There was not a woman in all Heart's Desire saving those three newcomers in the cabin across the _arroyo_.

Yet these new-comers were acquainted with the etiquette of the land.

There was occasion for public announcement in such matters.
At eleven o'clock in the morning the man from Leavenworth and the Littlest Girl from Kansas came out upon the street.

They were ostensibly bound to get the mail, although there had been no mail stage for three days, and could be none for four days more, even had the man from Leavenworth entertained the slightest thought of getting any mail at this purely accidental residence into which the fate of a tired team had thrown him.

Yet there must be the proper notification that he and his family had concluded to abide in Heart's Desire; that he was now a citizen; that he was now entitled by the length of his beard to be called "'Squire," and to be accepted into all the councils of the town.
This walk along the street was notice to the pure democracy of that land that all might now leave cards at the cabin across the _arroyo_.
One need hardly doubt that the populace of Heart's Desire was lined up along the street to say good morning and to receive befittingly this tacit pledge of its newest citizen.