Snow-Bound at Eagles | Page 5

your life away on any such
chances."
Something in the man's manner, as in a certain sly amusement the other
passengers appeared to extract from the conversation, impressed Hale,
already beginning to be conscious of the ludicrous insufficiency of his
own grievance beside that of his interlocutor.
"Then you mean to say this thing is inevitable," said he bitterly, but less
aggressively.
"Ez long ez they hunt YOU; when you hunt THEM you've got the
advantage, allus provided you know how to get at them ez well as they
know how to get at you. This yer coach is bound to go regular, and on
certain days. THEY ain't. By the time the sheriff gets out his posse
they've skedaddled, and the leader, like as not, is takin' his quiet
cocktail at the Bank Exchange, or mebbe losin' his earnings to the
sheriff over draw poker, in Sacramento. You see you can't prove
anything agin them unless you take them 'on the fly.' It may be a part of
Joaquim Murietta's band, though I wouldn't swear to it."

"The leader might have been Gentleman George, from up-country,"
interposed a passenger. "He seemed to throw in a few fancy touches,
particlerly in that 'Good night.' Sorter chucked a little sentiment in it.
Didn't seem to be the same thing ez, 'Git, yer d--d suckers,' on the other
line."
"Whoever he was, he knew the road and the men who travelled on it.
Like ez not, he went over the line beside the driver on the box on the
down trip, and took stock of everything. He even knew I had those
greenbacks; though they were handed to me in the bank at Sacramento.
He must have been hanging 'round there."
For some moments Hale remained silent. He was a civic-bred man,
with an intense love of law and order; the kind of man who is the first
to take that law and order into his own hands when he does not find it
existing to please him. He had a Bostonian's respect for respectability,
tradition, and propriety, but was willing to face irregularity and
impropriety to create order elsewhere. He was fond of Nature with
these limitations, never quite trusting her unguided instincts, and
finding her as an instructress greatly inferior to Harvard University,
though possibly not to Cornell. With dauntless enterprise and energy he
had built and stocked a charming cottage farm in a nook in the Sierras,
whence he opposed, like the lesser Englishman that he was, his own
tastes to those of the alien West. In the present instance he felt it
incumbent upon him not only to assert his principles, but to act upon
them with his usual energy. How far he was impelled by the
half-contemptuous passiveness of his companions it would be difficult
to say.
"What is to prevent the pursuit of them at once?" he asked suddenly.
"We are a few miles from the station, where horses can be procured."
"Who's to do it?" replied the other lazily. "The stage company will
lodge the complaint with the authorities, but it will take two days to get
the county officers out, and it's nobody else's funeral."
"I will go for one," said Hale quietly. "I have a horse waiting for me at
the station, and can start at once."

There was an instant of silence. The stage-coach had left the obscurity
of the forest, and by the stronger light Hale could perceive that his
companion was examining him with two colorless, lazy eyes. Presently
he said, meeting Hale's clear glance, but rather as if yielding to a
careless reflection,--
"It MIGHT be done with four men. We oughter raise one man at the
station." He paused. "I don't know ez I'd mind taking a hand myself,"
he added, stretching out his legs with a slight yawn.
"Ye can count ME in, if you're goin', Kernel. I reckon I'm talkin' to
Kernel Clinch," said the passenger beside Hale with sudden alacrity.
"I'm Rawlins, of Frisco. Heerd of ye afore, Kernel, and kinder spotted
you jist now from your talk."
To Hale's surprise the two men, after awkwardly and perfunctorily
grasping each other's hand, entered at once into a languid conversation
on the recent election at Fresno, without the slightest further reference
to the pursuit of the robbers. It was not until the remaining and
undenominated passenger turned to Hale, and, regretting that he had
immediate business at the Summit, offered to accompany the party if
they would wait a couple of hours, that Colonel Clinch briefly returned
to the subject.
"FOUR men will do, and ez we'll hev to take horses from the station
we'll hev to take the fourth man from there."
With these words he resumed his uninteresting conversation with the
equally uninterested Rawlins, and the