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 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
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