Bucky OConnor | Page 6

at once led her younger brother back to his
section.
"I had hoped it would prove to be more diverting experience for a
tenderfoot," condescended the gentleman of the cloth.
"It's ce'tainly a pleasure to be able to gratify you, sir. You'll be right
pleased to know that it is a train hold-up." He waved his hand toward
the door, and at the word, as if waiting for his cue, a masked man
appeared at the end of the passage with a revolver in each hand.
CHAPTER 2.
TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION
"Hands up!"
There was a ring of crisp menace in the sinister voice that was a spur to
obedience. The unanimous show of hands voted "Aye" with a hasty
precision that no amount of drill could have compassed.
It was a situation that might have made for laughter had there been
spectators to appreciate. But of whatever amusement was to be had one
of the victims seemed to hold a monopoly. Collins, his arm around the
English children by way of comfort, offered a sardonic smile at the
consternation his announcement and its fulfillment had created, but
none of his fellow passengers were in the humor to respond.
The shock of an earthquake could not have blanched ruddy faces more
surely. The Chicago drummer, fat and florid, had disappeared
completely behind a buttress of the company's upholstery.
"God bless my soul!" gasped the Pekin-Bostonian, dropping his
eyeglass and his accent at the same moment. The dismay in his face
found a reflection all over the car. Miss Wainwright's hand clutched at
her breast for an instant, and her color ebbed till her lips were ashen,
but her neighbor across the aisle noticed that her eyes were steady and

her figure tense.
"Scared stiff, but game," was his mental comment.
"Gents to the right and ladies to the left; line up against the walls;
everybody waltz." called the man behind the guns, with grim humor.
The passengers fell into line as directed, Collins with the rest.
"You're calling this dance, son; it's your say-so, I guess," he conceded.
"Keep still, or I'll shoot you full of holes," growled the autocrat of the
artillery.
"Why, sure! Ain't you the real thing in Jesse Jameses?" soothed the
sheriff.
At the sound of Collins' voice, the masked man had started perceptibly,
and his right hand had jumped forward an inch or two to cover the
speaker more definitely. Thereafter, no matter what else engaged his
attention, the gleaming eyes behind the red bandanna never wandered
for a moment from the big plainsman. He was taking no risks, for he
remembered the saying current in Arizona, that after Collins' hardware
got into action there was nothing left to do but plant the deceased and
collect the insurance. He had personal reasons to know the fundamental
accuracy of the colloquialism.
The train-conductor fussed up to the masked outlaw with a ludicrous
attempt at authority. "You can't rob the passengers on this train. I'm not
responsible for the express-car, but the coaches--"
A bullet almost grazed his ear and shattered a window on its way to the
desert.
"Drift, you red-haired son of a Mexican?" ordered the man behind the
red bandanna. "Git back to that seat real prompt. This here's taxation
without representation."
The conductor drifted as per suggestion.

The minutes ticked themselves away in a tense strain marked by
pounding hearts. The outlaw stood at the end of the aisle, watching the
sheriff alertly.
"Why doesn't the music begin?" volunteered Collins, by way of
conversation, and quoted: "On with the dance. Let joy be unconfined."
A dull explosion answered his question. The bandits were blowing
open the safe in the express-car with dynamite, pending which the
looting of the passengers was at a standstill.
A second masked figure joined his companion at the end of the passage
and held a hurried conversation with him. Fragments of their
low-voiced talk came to Collins.
"Only thirty thousand in the express-car. Not a red cent on the old man
himself."
"Where's the rest?" The irritation in the newcomer's voice was
pronounced.
Collins slewed his head and raked him with keen eyes that missed not a
detail. He was certain that he had never seen the man before, yet he
knew at once that the trim, wiry figure, so clean of build and so gallant
of bearing, could belong only to Wolf Leroy, the most ruthless outlaw
of the Southwest. It was written in his jaunty insolence, in the flashing
eyes. He was a handsome fellow, white-toothed, black-haired, lithely
tigerish, with masterful mouth and eyes of steel, so far as one might
judge behind the white mask he wore. Alert, cruel, fearless from the
head to the heel of him, he looked the very devil to lead an enterprise
so