told him! Just think of it! Bill, who was a match for anybody! Bill,
who was never caught napping! Bill, who only wanted supreme control
of things to wipe me off the face of the earth! Bill, who knew how
everything was done, and could stop it if he chose, and then to have
been ROBBED TWICE IN ONE EVENING BY MY GANG! Yes, sir! Yuba Bill and
his rotten old coach were GONE THROUGH TWICE INSIDE HALF AN HOUR by the
gang!"
"Then you knew of it too?" said Brice, in uneasy astonishment.
"Afterwards, my young friend--like Yuba Bill--afterwards." He stopped;
his whole expression changed. "It was done by two sneaking hounds," he
said sharply; "one whom I suspected before, and one, a new hand, a pal
of his. They were detached to watch the coach and be satisfied that the
greenbacks were aboard, for it isn't my style to 'hold up' except
for something special. They were to take seats on the coach as far as
Ringwood Station, three miles below where we held you up, and to get out
there and pass the word to us that it was all right. They didn't; that
made us a little extra careful, seeing something was wrong, but never
suspecting THEM. We found out afterwards that they got one of my scouts
to cut down that tree, saying it was my orders and a part of our game,
calculating in the stoppage and confusion to collar the swag and get off
with it. Without knowing it, YOU played into their hands by going into
Tarbox's cabin."
"But how did you know this?" interrupted Brice, in wonder.
"They forgot one thing," continued Snapshot Harry grimly. "They forgot
that half an hour before and half an hour after a stage is stopped we
have that road patrolled, every foot of it. While I was opening the box
in the brush, the two fools, sneaking along the road, came slap upon one
of my patrols, and then tried to run for it. One was dropped, but before
he was plugged full of holes and hung up on a tree, he confessed, and
said the other man who escaped had the greenbacks."
Brice's face fell. "Then they are lost," he said bitterly.
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