Bucky OConnor | Page 7

lawless and so desperate as this. His vigilant eyes swept
contemptuously up and down the car, rested for a moment on the young
woman in Section 3, and came back to his partner.
"Bah! A flock of sheep--tamest bunch of spring lambs we ever struck.
I'll send Scott in to go through them. If anybody gets gay, drop him."
And the outlaw turned on his heel.

Another of the highwaymen took his place, a stout, squat figure in the
flannel shirt, spurs, and chaps of a cow-puncher. It took no second
glance to tell Collins this bandy-legged fellow had been a rider of the
range.
"Come, gentlemen, get a move on you," Collins implored. "This train's
due at Tucson by eight o'clock. We're more than an hour late now. I'm
holding down the job of sheriff in that same town, and I'm awful
anxious to get a posse out after a bunch of train-robbers. So burn the
wind, and go through the car on the jump. Help yourself to anything
you find. Who steals my purse takes trash. 'Tis something, nothing.
'Twas mine; 'tis his. That's right, you'll find my roll in that left-hand
pocket. I hate to have you take that gun, though. I meant to run you
down with that same old Colt's reliable. Oh, well, just as you say. No,
those kids get a free pass. They're going out to meet papa at Los
Angeles, boys. See?"
Collins' running fire of comment had at least the effect of restoring the
color to some cheeks that had been washed white and of snatching from
the outlaws some portion of their sense of dominating the situation. But
there was a veiled vigilance in his eyes that belied his easy impudence.
"That lady across the aisle gets a pass, too, boys," continued the sheriff.
"She's scared stiff now, and you won't bother her, if you're white men.
Her watch and purse are on the seat. Take them, if you want them, and
let it go at that."
Miss Wainwright listened to this dialogue silently. She stood before
them cool and imperious and unwavering, but her face was bloodless
and the pulse in her beautiful soft throat fluttered like a caged bird.
"Who's doing this job?" demanded one of the hold-ups, wheeling
savagely on the impassive officer "Did I say we were going to bother
the lady? Who's doing this job, Mr. Sheriff?"
"You are. I'd hate to be messing the job like you--holding up the wrong
train by mistake." This was a shot in the dark, and it did not quite hit
the bull's-eye. "I wouldn't trust you boys to rob a hen-roost, the amateur

way you go at it. When you get through, you'll all go to drinking like
blue blotters. I know your kind--hell-bent to spend what you cash in,
and every mother's son of you in the pen or with his toes turned up
inside of a month."
"Who'll put us there?" gruffly demanded the bowlegged one.
Collins smiled at him with confidence superb "Mebbe I will--and if I
don't Bucky O'Connor will--those of you that are left alive when you
go through shooting each other in the back. Oh, I see your finish to a
fare-you-well."
"Cheese it, or I'll bump you off." The first out law drove his gun into
the sheriff's ribs.
"That's all right. You don't need to punctuate that remark. I line up with
the sky-pilot and chew the cud of silence. I merely wanted to frame up
to you how this thing's going to turn out. Don't come back at me and
say I didn't warn you, sonnie."
"You make my head ache," snarled the bandy-legged outlaw sourly, as
he passed down with his sack, accumulating tribute as he passed down
the aisle with his sack, accumulating tribute as he went.
The red-kerchiefed robber whooped when they came to the car
conductor. "Dig up, Mr. Pullman. Go way down into your jeans. It's a
right smart pleasure to divert the plunder of your bloated corporation
back to the people. What! Only fifty-seven dollars. Oh, dig deeper, Mr.
Pullman."
The drummer contributed to the sack eighty-four dollars, a diamond
ring, and a gold watch. His hands were trembling so that they played a
tattoo on the sloping ceiling above him.
"What's the matter, Fatty? Got a chill?" inquired one of the robbers, as
he deftly swept the plunder into the sack.
"For--God's sake--don't shoot. I have--a wife--and five children," he

stammered, with chattering teeth.
"No race suicide for Fatty. But whyfor do they let a sick man like you
travel all by his lone?"
"I don't know--I--Please turn that weapon another way."
"Plumb chuck full of malaria," soliloquized the owner of the weapon,
playfully running its business end over the Chicago man's anatomy.
"Shakes worse'n