Snow-Bound at Eagles | Page 4

of the outrage was plain enough to Hale's inexperience now. Yet he could not understand the cool acquiescence of his fellow-passengers, and was furious. His reflections were interrupted by a voice which seemed to come from a greater distance. He fancied it was even softer in tone, as if a certain austerity was relaxed.
"Step in as quick as you like, gentlemen. You've five minutes to wait, Bill."
The passengers reentered the coach; the driver and express messenger hurriedly climbed to their places. Hale would have spoken, but an impatient gesture from his companions stopped him. They were evidently listening for something; he listened too.
Yet the silence remained unbroken. It seemed incredible that there should be no indication near or far of that forceful presence which a moment ago had been so dominant. No rustle in the wayside "brush," nor echo from the rocky canyon below, betrayed a sound of their flight. A faint breeze stirred the tall tips of the pines, a cone dropped on the stage roof, one of the invisible horses that seemed to be listening too moved slightly in his harness. But this only appeared to accentuate the profound stillness. The moments were growing interminable, when the voice, so near as to startle Hale, broke once more from the surrounding obscurity.
"Good-night!"
It was the signal that they were free. The driver's whip cracked like a pistol shot, the horses sprang furiously forward, the huge vehicle lurched ahead, and then bounded violently after them. When Hale could make his voice heard in the confusion--a confusion which seemed greater from the colorless intensity of their last few moments' experience--he said hurriedly, "Then that fellow was there all the time?"
"I reckon," returned his companion, "he stopped five minutes to cover the driver with his double-barrel, until the two other men got off with the treasure."
"The TWO others!" gasped Hale. "Then there were only THREE men, and we SIX."
The man shrugged his shoulders. The passenger who had given up the greenbacks drawled, with a slow, irritating tolerance, "I reckon you're a stranger here?"
"I am--to this sort of thing, certainly, though I live a dozen miles from here, at Eagle's Court," returned Hale scornfully.
"Then you're the chap that's doin' that fancy ranchin' over at Eagle's," continued the man lazily.
"Whatever I'm doing at Eagle's Court, I'm not ashamed of it," said Hale tartly; "and that's more than I can say of what I've done--or HAVEN'T done--to-night. I've been one of six men over-awed and robbed by THREE."
"As to the over-awin', ez you call it--mebbee you know more about it than us. As to the robbin'--ez far as I kin remember, YOU haven't onloaded much. Ef you're talkin' about what OUGHTER have been done, I'll tell you what COULD have happened. P'r'aps ye noticed that when he pulled up I made a kind of grab for my wepping behind me?"
"I did; and you wern't quick enough," said Hale shortly.
"I wasn't quick enough, and that saved YOU. For ef I got that pistol out and in sight o' that man that held the gun--"
"Well," said Hale impatiently, "he'd have hesitated."
"He'd hev blown YOU with both barrels outer the window, and that before I'd got a half-cock on my revolver."
"But that would have been only one man gone, and there would have been five of you left," said Hale haughtily.
"That might have been, ef you'd contracted to take the hull charge of two handfuls of buck-shot and slugs; but ez one eighth o' that amount would have done your business, and yet left enough to have gone round, promiskiss, and satisfied the other passengers, it wouldn't do to kalkilate upon."
"But the express messenger and the driver were armed," continued Hale.
"They were armed, but not FIXED; that makes all the difference."
"I don't understand."
"I reckon you know what a duel is?"
"Yes."
"Well, the chances agin US was about the same as you'd have ef you was put up agin another chap who was allowed to draw a bead on you, and the signal to fire was YOUR DRAWIN' YOUR WEAPON. You may be a stranger to this sort o' thing, and p'r'aps you never fought a duel, but even then you wouldn't go foolin' 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