“Yes,” said Jeff.
“THAT AR CLUMP O' BUCKEYE ON THE RIDGE! Ready there!” (Leaning over the box, to the guards within.) A responsive rustle in the coach, which now bounded forward as if instinct with life and intelligence.
“Jeff,” said Bill, in an odd, altered voice, “take the lines a minit.” Jeff took them. Bill stooped towards the boot. A peaceful moment! A peaceful outlook from the coach; the white moonlit road stretching to the ridge, no noise but the steady gallop of the horses!
Then a yellow flash, breaking from the darkness of the buckeye; a crack like the snap of a whip; Yuba Bill steadying himself for a moment, and then dropping at Jeff's feet!
“They got me, Jeff! But—I DRAWED THEIR FIRE! Don't drop the lines! Don't speak! For—they—think I'm YOU and you ME!”
The flash had illuminated Jeff as to the danger, as to Bill's sacrifice, but above all, and overwhelming all, to a thrilling sense of his own power and ability.
Yet he sat like a statue. Six masked figures had appeared from the very ground, clinging to the bits of the horses. The coach stopped. Two wild purposeless shots—the first and last fired by the guards—were answered by the muzzle of six rifles pointed into the windows, and the passengers foolishly and impotently filed out into the road.
“Now, Bill,” said a voice, which Jeff instantly recognized as the blacksmith's, “we won't keep ye long. So hand down the treasure.”
The man's foot was on the wheel; in another instant he would be beside Jeff, and discovery was certain. Jeff leaned over and unhooked the coach lamp, as if to assist him with its light. As if in turning, he STUMBLED, broke the lamp, ignited the kerosene, and scattered the wick and blazing fluid over the haunches of the wheelers! The maddened animals gave one wild plunge forwards, the coach followed twice its length, throwing the blacksmith under its wheels, and driving the other horses towards the bank. But as the lamp broke in Jeff's right hand, his practiced left hand discharged its hidden Derringer at the head of the robber who had held the bit of Blue Grass, and, throwing the useless weapon away, he laid the whip smartly on her back. She leaped forward madly, dragging the other leaders with her, and in the next moment they were free and wildly careering down the grade.
A dozen shots followed them. The men were protected by the coach, but Yuba Bill groaned.