mercifully benumb his senses; twilight had fallen and the talk had
ceased. The lady had allowed her book to drop in her lap as the
darkness gathered, and had closed her eyes; he closed his own, and
slipped away presently into a dream, in which he saw the profile again
as he had seen it in the darkness of the hollow, only that this time it
changed to a full face, unlike the lady's or any one he had ever seen.
Then the window seemed to open with a rattle, and he again felt the
cool odors of the forest; but he awoke to find that the lady had only
opened her window for a breath of fresh air. It was nearly eight o'
clock; it would be an hour yet before the coach stopped at the next
station for supper; the passengers were drowsily nodding; he closed his
eyes and fell into a deeper sleep, from which he awoke with a start.
The coach had stopped!
CHAPTER IV.
"It can't be Three Pines yet," said a passenger's voice, in which the
laziness of sleep still lingered, "or else we've snoozed over five
mile. I don't see no lights; wot are we stoppin' for?" The other
passengers struggled to an upright position. One nearest the window
opened it; its place was instantly occupied by the double muzzle of a
shot-gun! No one moved. In the awestricken silence the voice of the
driver rose in drawling protestation.
"It ain't no business o' mine, but it sorter strikes me that you chaps
are a-playin' it just a little too fine this time! It ain't three
miles from Three Pine Station and forty men. Of course, that's your
lookout,--not mine!"
The audacity of the thing had evidently struck even the usually
taciturn and phlegmatic driver into his first expostulation on record.
"Your thoughtful consideration does you great credit," said a voice
from the darkness, "and shall be properly presented to our manager; but
at the same time we wish it understood that we do not hesitate to take
any risks in strict attention to our business and our clients. In the
mean time you will expedite matters, and give your passengers a chance
to get an early tea at Three Pines, by handing down that treasure-box
and mail-pouch. Be careful in handling that blunderbuss you keep
beside it; the last time it unfortunately went off, and I regret to say
slightly wounded one of your passengers. Accidents of this kind,
interfering, as they do, with the harmony and pleasure of our chance
meetings, cannot be too highly deplored."
"By gosh!" ejaculated an outside passenger in an audible whisper.
"Thank you, sir," said the voice quietly; "but as I overlooked you, I
will trouble you now to descend with the others."
The voice moved nearer; and, by the light of a flaming bull's-eye cast
upon the coach, it could be seen to come from a stout, medium-sized man
with a black mask, which, however, showed half of a smooth, beardless
face, and an affable yet satirical mouth. The speaker cleared his
throat with the slight preparatory cough of the practiced orator, and,
approaching the window, to Key's intense surprise, actually began in
the identical professional and rhetorical style previously indicated by
the miner.
"Circumstances over which we have no control, gentlemen, compel us to
oblige you to alight, stand in a row on one side, and hold up your
hands. You will find the attitude not unpleasant after your cramped
position in the coach, while the change from its confined air to the
wholesome night-breeze of the Sierras cannot but prove salutary and
refreshing. It will also enable us to relieve you of such so-called
valuables and treasures in the way of gold dust and coin, which I
regret to say too often are misapplied in careless hands, and which the
teachings of the highest morality distinctly denominate as the root of
all evil! I need not inform you, gentlemen, as business men, that
promptitude and celerity of compliance will insure dispatch, and
shorten an interview which has been sometimes needlessly, and, I regret
to say, painfully protracted."
He drew back deliberately with the same monotonous precision of habit,
and disclosed the muzzles of his confederates' weapons still leveled at
the passengers. In spite of their astonishment, indignation, and
discomfiture, his practiced effrontery and deliberate display appeared
in some way to touch their humorous sense, and one or two smiled
hysterically, as they rose and hesitatingly filed out of the vehicle.
It is possible, however, that the leveled shot-guns contributed more or
less directly to this result.
Two masks began to search the passengers under the combined focus of
the bull's-eyes, the shining gun-barrels, and a running but still
carefully prepared commentary from the spokesman. "It is to be
regretted that business men, instead of intrusting their property to
the custody of the regularly constituted express agent, still continue
to secrete it on their persons; a custom that, without enhancing its
security, is not only an injustice to the express company, but a great
detriment to dispatch. We also wish to point out that while we do not
as a rule interfere with the possession of articles of ordinary
personal use or adornment, such as simple jewelry or watches, we
reserve our right to restrict by confiscation the vulgarity and
unmanliness of diamonds and enormous fob chains."
The act of spoliation was apparently complete, yet it was evident that
the orator was restraining himself for a more effective climax.
Clearing his throat again and stepping before the impatient but still
mystified file of passengers, he reviewed them gravely. Then in a
perfectly pitched tone of mingled pain and apology, he said slowly:--
"It would seem that, from no wish of our own, we are obliged on this
present occasion to suspend one or two of our usual rules. We are not
in the habit of interfering with the wearing apparel of our esteemed
clients; but in the interests of ordinary humanity we are obliged to
remove the boots of the gentleman on the extreme left, which evidently
give him great pain and impede his locomotion. We also seldom deviate
from our rule of obliging our clients to hold up their hands during
this examination; but we gladly make an exception in favor of the
gentleman next to him, and permit him to hand us the altogether too
heavily weighted holster which presses upon his hip. Gentlemen," said
the orator, slightly raising his voice, with a deprecating gesture,
"you need not be alarmed! The indignant movement of our friend, just
now, was not to draw his revolver,--for it isn't there!" He paused
while his companions speedily removed the farmer's boots and the
miner's holster, and with a still more apologetic air approached the
coach, where only the lady remained erect and rigid in her corner.
"And now," he said with simulated hesitation, "we come to the last and
to us the most painful suspension of our rules. On these very rare
occasions, when we have been honored with the presence of the fair sex,
it has been our invariable custom not only to leave them in the
undisturbed possession of their property, but even of their privacy as
well. It is with deep regret that on this occasion we are obliged to
make an exception. For in the present instance, the lady, out of the
gentleness of her heart and the politeness of her sex, has burdened
herself not only with the weight but the responsibility of a package
forced upon her by one of the passengers. We feel, and we believe,
gentlemen, that most of you will agree with us, that so scandalous and
unmanly an attempt to evade our rules and violate the sanctity of the
lady's immunity will never be permitted. For your own sake, madam, we
are compelled to ask you for the satchel under your seat. It will be
returned to you when the package is removed."
"One moment," said the professional man indignantly, "there is a man
here whom you have spared,--a man who lately joined us. Is that man,"
pointing to the astonished Key, "one of your confederates?"
"That man," returned the spokesman with a laugh, "is the owner of the
Sylvan Hollow Mine. We have spared him because we owe him some
consideration for having been turned out of his house at the dead of
night while the sheriff of Sierra was seeking us." He stopped, and
then in an entirely different voice, and in a totally changed manner,
said roughly, "Tumble in there, all of you, quick! And you, sir" (to
Key),--"I'd advise you to ride outside. Now, driver, raise so much as
a rein or a whiplash until you hear the signal--and by God! you'll know
what next." He stepped back, and seemed to be instantly swallowed up
in the darkness; but the light of a solitary bull's-eye--the holder
himself invisible--still showed the muzzles of the guns covering the
driver. There was a momentary stir of voices within the closed coach,
but an angry roar of "Silence!" from the darkness hushed it.
The moments crept slowly by; all now were breathless. Then a clear
whistle rang from the distance, the light suddenly was extinguished,
the leveled muzzles vanished with it, the driver's lash fell
simultaneously on the backs of his horses, and the coach leaped forward.
The jolt nearly threw Key from the top, but a moment later it was still
more difficult to keep his seat in the headlong fury of their progress.
Again and again the lash descended upon the maddened horses, until the
whole coach seemed to leap, bound, and swerve with every stroke. Cries
of protest and even distress began to come from the interior, but the
driver heeded it not. A window was suddenly let down; the voice of the
professional man saying, "What's the matter? We're not followed. You
are imperiling our lives by this speed," was answered only by, "Will
some of ye throttle that d--d fool?" from the driver, and the renewed
fall of the lash. The wayside trees appeared a solid plateau before
them, opened, danced at their side, closed up again behind them,--but
still they sped along. Rushing down grades with the speed of an
avalanche, they ascended again without drawing rein, and as if by sheer
momentum; for the heavy vehicle now seemed to have a diabolical energy
of its own. It ground scattered rocks to powder with its crushing
wheels, it swayed heavily on ticklish corners, recovering itself with
the resistless forward propulsion of the straining teams, until the
lights of Three Pine Station began to glitter through the trees. Then
a succession of yells broke from the driver, so strong and dominant
that they seemed to outstrip even the speed of the unabated cattle.
Lesser lights were presently seen running to and fro, and on the
outermost fringe of the settlement the stage pulled up before a crowd
of wondering faces, and the driver spoke.
"We've been held up on the open road, by G--d, not THREE MILES from
whar ye men are sittin' here yawpin'! If thar's a man among ye that
hasn't got the soul of a skunk, he'll foller and close in upon 'em
before they have a chance to get into the brush." Having thus relieved
himself of his duty as an enforced noncombatant, and allowed all
further responsibility to devolve upon his recreant fellow employees,
he relapsed into his usual taciturnity, and drove a trifle less
recklessly to the station, where he grimly set down his bruised and
discomfited passengers. As Key mingled with them, he could not help
perceiving that neither the late "orator's" explanation of his
exemption from their fate, nor the driver's surly corroboration of his
respectability, had pacified them. For a time this amused him,
particularly as he could not help remembering that he first appeared to
them beside the mysterious horseman who some one thought had been
identified as one of the masks. But he was not a little piqued to find
that the fair unknown appeared to participate in their feelings, and
his first civility to her met with a chilling response. Even then, in
the general disillusion of his romance regarding her, this would have
been only a momentary annoyance; but it strangely revived all his
previous suspicions, and set him to thinking. Was the singular
sagacity displayed by the orator in his search purely intuitive? Could
any one have disclosed to him the secret of the passengers' hoards?
Was it possible for HER while sitting alone in the coach to have
communicated with the band? Suddenly the remembrance flashed across
him of her opening the window for fresh air! She could have easily
then dropped some signal. If this were so, and she really was the
culprit, it was quite natural for her own safety that she should
encourage the passengers in the absurd suspicion of himself! His dying
interest revived; a few moments ago he had half resolved to abandon his
quest and turn back at Three Pines. Now he determined to follow her to
the end. But he did not indulge in any further sophistry regarding his
duty; yet, in a new sense of honor, he did not dream of retaliating
upon her by communicating his suspicions to his fellow passengers.
When the coach started again, he took his seat on the top, and remained
there until they reached Jamestown in the early evening. Here a number
of his despoiled companions were obliged to wait, to communicate with
their friends. Happily, the exemption that had made them indignant
enabled him to continue his journey with a full purse. But he was
content with a modest surveillance of the lady from the top of the
coach.
On arriving at Stockton this surveillance became less easy. It was the
terminus of the stage-route, and the divergence of others by boat and
rail. If he were lucky enough to discover which one the lady took, his
presence now would be more marked, and might excite her suspicion. But
here a circumstance, which he also believed to be providential,
