friend—like Yuba Bill—afterwards.” He stopped; his whole expression changed. “It was done by two sneaking hounds,” he said sharply; “one whom I suspected before, and one, a new hand, a pal of his. They were detached to watch the coach and be satisfied that the greenbacks were aboard, for it isn't my style to 'hold up' except for something special. They were to take seats on the coach as far as Ringwood Station, three miles below where we held you up, and to get out there and pass the word to us that it was all right. They didn't; that made us a little extra careful, seeing something was wrong, but never suspecting THEM. We found out afterwards that they got one of my scouts to cut down that tree, saying it was my orders and a part of our game, calculating in the stoppage and confusion to collar the swag and get off with it. Without knowing it, YOU played into their hands by going into Tarbox's cabin.”
“But how did you know this?” interrupted Brice, in wonder.
“They forgot one thing,” continued Snapshot Harry grimly. “They forgot that half an hour before and half an hour after a stage is stopped we have that road patrolled, every foot of it. While I was opening the box in the brush, the two fools, sneaking along the road, came slap upon one of my patrols, and then tried to run for it. One was dropped, but before he was plugged full of holes and hung up on a tree, he confessed, and said the other man who escaped had the greenbacks.”
Brice's face fell. “Then they are lost,” he said bitterly.
“Not unless he eats them—as he may want to do before I'm done on him, for he must either starve or come out. That road is still watched by my men from Tarbox's cabin to the bridge. He's there somewhere, and can't get forward or backward. Look!” he said, rising and going to the door. “That road,” he pointed to the stage road—a narrow ledge flanked on one side by a precipitous mountain wall, and on the other by an equally precipitate descent—“is his limit and tether, and he can't escape on either side.”
“But the trail?”
“There is but one entrance to it—the way you came, and that is guarded too. From the time you entered it until you reached the bottom, you were signaled here from point to point! HE would have been dropped! I merely gave YOU a hint of what might have happened to you, if you were up to any little game! You took it like a white man. Come, now! What is your business?”
Thus challenged, Brice plunged with youthful hopefulness into his plan; if, as he voiced it, it seemed to him a little extravagant, he was buoyed up by the frankness of the highwayman, who also had treated the double robbery with a levity that seemed almost as extravagant. He suggested that they should work together to recover the money; that the express company should know that the unprecedented stealthy introduction of robbers in the guise of passengers was not Snapshot Harry's method, and he repudiated it as unmanly and unsportsmanlike; and that, by using his superior skill and knowledge of the locality to recover the money and deliver the culprit into the company's hands, he would not only earn the reward that they should offer, but that he would evoke a sentiment that all Californians would understand and respect. The highwayman listened with a tolerant smile, but, to Brice's surprise, this appeal to his vanity touched him less than the prospective punishment of the thief.
“It would serve the d——d hound right,” he muttered, “if, instead of being shot like a man, he was made to 'do time' in prison, like the ordinary sneak thief that he is.” When Brice had concluded, he said briefly, “The only trouble with your plans, my young friend, is that about twenty-five men have got to consider them, and have THEIR say about it. Every man in my gang is a shareholder in these greenbacks, for I work on the square; and it's for him to say whether he'll give them up for a reward and the good opinion of the express company. Perhaps,” he went on, with a peculiar smile, “it's just as well that you tried it on me first! However, I'll sound the boys, and see what comes of it, but not until you're safe off the premises.”
“And you'll let me assist you?” said Brice eagerly.
Snapshot Harry smiled again. “Well, if you come across the d——d thief, and you recognize him and can get the greenbacks from him, I'll pass over the game to you.” He rose and added, apparently by way of farewell, “Perhaps it's just as well that I should give you a guide part of the way to prevent accidents.” He went to a door leading to an adjoining room, and called “Flo!”
Brice's heart leaped! If he had forgotten her in the excitement of his interview, he atoned for it by a vivid blush. Her own color was a little heightened as she slipped into the room, but the two managed to look demurely at each other, without a word of recognition.
“This is my niece, Flora,” said Snapshot Harry, with a slight wave of the hand that was by no means uncourtly, “and her company will keep you from any impertinent questioning as well as if I were with you. This is Mr. Brice, Flo, who came to see me on business, and has quite forgotten my practical joking.”
The girl acknowledged Brice's bow with a shyness very different from her manner of the evening before. Brice felt embarrassed and evidently showed it, for his host, with a smile, put an end to the constraint by shaking the young man's hand heartily, bidding him good-by, and accompanying him to the door.
Once on their way, Mr. Brice's spirits returned. “I told you last night,” he said, “that I hoped to meet you the next time with a better introduction. You suggested your uncle's. Well, are you satisfied?”
“But you didn't come to see ME,” said the girl mischievously.
“How do you know what my intentions were?” returned the young man gayly, gazing at the girl's charming face with a serious doubt as to the singleness of his own intentions.
“Oh, because I know,” she answered, with a toss of her brown head. “I heard what you said to uncle Harry.”
Mr. Brice's brow contracted. “Perhaps you saw me, too, when I came,” he said, with a slight touch of bitterness as he thought of his reception.
Miss Flo laughed. Brice walked on silently; the girl was heartless and worthy of her education. After a pause she said demurely, “I knew he wouldn't hurt you—but YOU didn't. That's where you showed your grit in walking straight on.”
“And I suppose you were greatly amused,” he replied scornfully.
The girl lifted her arms a little wearily, as with a half sigh she readjusted her brown braids under her uncle's gray slouch hat, which she had caught up as she passed out. “Thar ain't much to laugh at here!” she said. “But it was mighty funny when you tried to put your hat straight, and then found thur was that bullet hole right through the brim! And the way you stared at it—Lordy!”
Her musical laugh was infectious, and swept away his outraged dignity. He laughed too. At last she said, gazing at his hat, “It won't do for you to go back to your folks wearin' that sort o' thing. Here! Take mine!” With a saucy movement she audaciously lifted his hat from his head, and placed her own upon it.
“But this is your uncle's hat,” he remonstrated.
“All the same; he spoiled yours,” she laughed, adjusting his hat upon her own head. “But I'll keep yours to remember you by. I'll loop it up by this hole, and it'll look mighty purty. Jes' see!” She plucked a wild rose from a bush by the wayside, and, passing the stalk through the bullet hole, pinned the brim against the crown by a thorn. “There,” she said, putting on the hat again with a little affectation of coquetry, “how's that?”
Mr. Brice thought it very picturesque and becoming to the graceful head and laughing eyes beneath it, and said so. Then, becoming in his turn audacious, he drew nearer to her side.
“I suppose you know the forfeit of putting on a gentleman's hat?”
Apparently she did, for she suddenly made a warning gesture, and said, “Not here! It would be a bigger forfeit than you'd keer fo'.” Before he could reply she turned aside as if quite innocently, and passed into the shade of a fringe of buckeyes. He followed quickly. “I didn't mean that,” she said; but in the mean time he had kissed the pink tip of her ear under its brown coils. He was, nevertheless, somewhat discomfited