From Sand Hill to Pine | Page 8

and dry lips.
"You don't know it all, Bill!" he said, with a half choked voice.
"All what?"
"Swear that you'll keep it a secret," he said feverishly, gripping Bill's
arm in turn, "and I'll tell you."
"Go on!"
"THE COACH WAS ROBBED BEFORE THAT!"
"Wot yer say?" ejaculated Bill.
"The treasure--a packet of greenbacks--had been taken from the box
before the gang stopped us!"
"The h-ll, you say!"
"Listen! When you told me to hand down the box, I had an idea--a
d----d fool one, perhaps--of taking that package out and jumping from
the coach with it. I knew they would fire at me only; I might get away,
but if they killed me, I'd have done only my duty, and nobody else
would have got hurt. But when I got to the box I found that the lock
had been forced and the money was gone. I managed to snap the lock
again before I handed it down. I thought they might discover it at once
and chase us, but they didn't."
"And then thar war no greenbacks in the box that they took?" gasped
Bill, with staring eyes.
"No!"
Bill raised his hand in the air as if in solemn adjuration, and then
brought it down on his knee, doubling up in a fit of uncontrollable but
perfectly noiseless laughter. "Oh, Lord!" he gasped, "hol' me afore I
bust right open! Hush," he went on, with a jerk of his fingers towards
the next room, "not a word o' this to any one! It's too much to keep, I
know; it's nearly killing me! but we must swaller it ourselves! Oh,
Jerusalem the Golden! Oh, Brice! Think o' that face o' Snapshot Harry's
ez he opened that treasure box afore his gang in the brush! And he

allers so keen and so easy and so cock sure! Created snakes! I'd go
through this every trip for one sight of him as he just riz up from that
box and cussed!" He again shook with inward convulsions till his face
grew purple, and even the red came back to the younger man's cheek.
"But this don't bring the money back, Bill," said Brice gloomily.
Yuba Bill swallowed the glass of whiskey at a gulp, wiped his mouth
and eyes, smothered a second explosion, and then gravely confronted
Brice.
"When do you think it was taken, and how?"
"It must have been taken when I left the coach on the road and went
over to that settler's cabin," said Brice bitterly. "Yet I believed
everything was safe, and I left two men--both passengers-- one inside
and one on the box, that man who sat the other side of you."
"Jee whillikins!" ejaculated Bill, with his hand to his forehead, "the
men I clean forgot to pick up in the road, and now I reckon they never
intended to be picked up, either."
"No doubt a part of the gang," said Brice, with increased bitterness; "I
see it all now."
"No!" said Bill decisively, "that ain't Snapshot Harry's style; he's a
clean fighter, with no underhand tricks. And I don't believe he threw
down that tree, either. Look yer, sonny!" he added, suddenly laying his
hand on Brice's shoulder, "a hundred to one that that was the work of a
couple o' d----d sneaks or traitors in that gang who kem along as
passengers. I never took any stock in that coyote who paid extra for his
box-seat."
Brice knew that Bill never looked kindly on any passenger who, by
bribing the ticket agent, secured this favorite seat, which Bill felt was
due to his personal friends and was in his own selection. He only
returned gloomily:--
"I don't see what difference it makes to us which robber got the money.
"Ye don't," said Bill, raising his head, with a sudden twinkle in his eyes.
"Then ye don't know Snapshot Harry. Do ye suppose he's goin' to sit
down and twiddle his thumbs with that skin game played on him? No,
sir," he continued, with a thoughtful deliberation, drawing his fingers
slowly through his long beard, "he spotted it-- and smelt out the whole
trick ez soon ez he opened that box, and that's why he didn't foller us!
He'll hunt those sneak thieves into h-ll but what he'll get 'em, and," he

went on still more slowly, "by the livin' hokey! I reckon, sonny, that's
jest how ye'll get your chance to chip in!"
"I don't understand," said Brice impatiently.
"Well," said Bill, with more provoking slowness, as if he were
communing with himself rather than Brice, "Harry's mighty proud and
high toned, and to be given away like this has cut down into his heart,
you bet. It ain't the money he's thinkin' of; it's this split in the gang--the