"I wish to protect you from the James Boys."
"Say, now, is them varmints around?"
"Laying for this stage,"
"Wow!" gasped Sandy. "That"s terrible, so it is!"
Jack gave all hands an account of what happened, and when he finished the stage pa.s.sengers were in a cold sweat.
They wanted to turn right back.
But Jack wouldn"t allow this.
"I ain"t sure whether they"re ahead or behind us," said he. "At any rate you can"t turn back now."
"But they may kill us!" said a fat man in the stage.
"They"re bound to rob as anyway," a.s.serted a man with a valise filed with genuine diamond jewelry samples.
"That depends entirely upon all hands present," said Jack. "Are all of you armed?"
Every one but a woman in the stage a.s.sented, and Sandy pulled out a big navy revolver from his boot leg, and remarked:
"You can just gamble on it I am."
"Any of you afraid to fight, if it became necessary?"
"I"d rather not if I could avoid It," replied a thin fellow, with a hacking cough. "Fighting isn"t my fort."
"Waal, I guess you"ll pull a trigger if you saw a gang of masked bandits trying to bore a hole in your head."
"I fancy I would."
"That"s settled then. Now you see my stage?"
"Yes, and a queer one she is!" commented Sandy.
"She is bullet proof. I propose that as she is safer than your ramshackle old wooden affair, all hands get inside of her, and let me carry you through."
"But what about my horses?" asked Sandy.
"Hitch them on to this vehicle. Throw those rubbers over my stage to hide her outline. You can also put your lamps on here and drive for us.
That will draw the bandits from cover. My friends are all armed and ready to fire the moment they show their noses."
Every one but the lady liked the plan.
She, of course, was averse to fighting of any kind.
As there was no way out of their dilemma, and Jack"s offer gave promise of protecting them from robbery and, perhaps, death, every-one got into the Terror.
The lamps and horses were transferred.
"You can leave the stage here," said Jack to Sandy.
"No one will molest it until you return for it to-morrow."
"Are you pretty sure about them there James Boys?"
"Decidedly, or I wouldn"t have troubled myself to do this for you,"
replied Jack.
"Well, it would do no harm, even if we are disappointed about meeting them," said the old driver.
They had been obliged to tie the traces to the Terror, but there was no pull on them as Sandy had only to keep his horses trotting while Jack made the machine run itself.
Owing to the gloom of the night, the rubbers on the body of the Terror, the horses, lamps and driver any one would have imagined it was the regular old stage coach.
The people inside talked in low tones and every man aboard held his weapon ready for use.
Down pattered the rain drops with a monotonous sound, and the hoofs of the four horses splashed up the muddy water from the puddles in the road and beat on the hard ground with the regularity of clockwork.
They rattled along in this manner for quarter of an hour and ran from the regular road into a dark canyon.
Here the walls towered up hundreds of feet.
It was a very gloomy place.
"We must be pretty near the ledge road now, ain"t we?" Jack asked.
"Yes; in five minutes this "ere canyon will swing us out on it," replied Sandy. "That"s where we"re to look for them, ain"t it?"
"Yes--if not sooner---"
"Hark! D"you hear that?"
Jack listened intently.
The wind was howling over the crags.
All the trees and bushes were loudly rustling.
But it was not this that attracted the driver"s attention.
Jack quickly caught the sound of pattering hoofs coming toward the vehicle from both sides.
Then a stentorian voice roared out:
"Halt!"