From Sand Hill to Pine | Page 7

observant passenger was not there; he and the sole occupant
of the box-seat, they were told, had joined the clearing party some
moments before, and would be picked up by Yuba Bill later on.
Five minutes after Bill had gathered up the reins, they reached the
scene of obstruction. The great pine-tree which had fallen from the
steep bank above and stretched across the road had been partly lopped
of its branches, divided in two lengths, which were now rolled to either
side of the track, leaving barely space for the coach to pass. The huge
vehicle "slowed up" as Yuba Bill skillfully guided his six horses
through this narrow alley, whose tassels of pine, glistening with wet,
brushed the panels and sides of the coach, and effectually excluded any
view from its windows. Seen from the coach top, the horses appeared
to be cleaving their way through a dark, shining olive sea, that parted
before and closed behind them, as they slowly passed. The leaders were
just emerging from it, and Bill was gathering up his slackened reins,
when a peremptory voice called, "Halt!" At the same moment the coach
lights flashed upon a masked and motionless horseman in the road. Bill
made an impulsive reach for his whip, but in the same instant checked
himself, reined in his horses with a suppressed oath, and sat perfectly
rigid. Not so the expressman, who caught up his rifle, but it was
arrested by Bill's arm, and his voice in his ear!
Too late!--we're covered!--don't be a d----d fool!"
The inside passengers, still encompassed by obscurity, knew only that
the stage had stopped. The "outsiders" knew, by experience, that they

were covered by unseen guns in the wayside branches, and scarcely
moved.
"I didn't think it was the square thing to stop you, Bill, till you'd got
through your work," said a masterful but not unpleasant voice, "and if
you'll just hand down the express box, I'll pass you and the rest of your
load through free. But as we're both in a hurry, you'd better look lively
about it."
"Hand it down," said Bill gruffly to the expressman.
The expressman turned with a white check but blazing eyes to the
compartment below his seat. He lingered, apparently in some difficulty
with the lock of the compartment, but finally brought out the box and
handed it to another armed and masked figure that appeared
mysteriously from the branches beside the wheels.
"Thank you!" said the voice; "you can slide on now."
"And thank you for nothing," said Bill, gathering up his reins. "It's the
first time any of your kind had to throw down a tree to hold me up!"
"You're lying, Bill!--though you don't know it," said the voice
cheerfully. "Far from throwing down a tree to stop you, it was I sent
word along the road to warn you from crashing down upon it, and
sending you and your load to h-ll before your time! Drive on!"
The angry Bill waited for no second comment, but laying his whip over
the backs of his team, drove furiously forward. So rapidly had the
whole scene passed that the inside passengers knew nothing of it, and
even those on the top of the coach roused from their stupor and
inglorious inaction only to cling desperately to the terribly swaying
coach as it thundered down the grade and try to keep their equilibrium.
Yet, furious as was their speed, Yuba Bill could not help noticing that
the expressman from time to time cast a hurried glance behind him. Bill
knew that the young man had shown readiness and nerve in the attack,
although both were hopeless; yet he was so much concerned at his set
white face and compressed lips that when, at the end of three miles'
unabated speed, they galloped up to the first station, he seized the
young man by the arm, and, as the clamor of the news they had brought
rose around them, dragged him past the wondering crowd, caught a
decanter from the bar, and, opening the door of a side room, pushed
him into it and closed the door behind them.
"Look yar, Brice! Stop it! Quit it right thar!" he said emphatically,

laying his large hand on the young fellow's shoulder. "Be a man!
You've shown you are one, green ez you are, for you had the sand in
ye--the clear grit to-night, yet you'd have been a dead man now, if I
hadn't stopped ye! Man! you had no show from the beginning! You've
done your level best to save your treasure, and I'm your witness to the
kempany, and proud of it, too! So shet your head and--and," pouring
out a glass of whiskey, "swaller that!"
But Brice waved him aside with burning eyes