“Hands up!”
She supposed that meant her, as well as the men in the car, and she complied, though with a resentful glare at the mask.
Daringly she turned her head and glanced back. Carrington had his hands up, too; and Parsons—and the tourist, and the other man. She did not see Taylor—though she wondered, on the instant, if he, too, would obey the train-robber’s command.
She decided he would—any other course would have been foolhardy; though she could not help remembering that queer gleam in Taylor’s eyes. That gleam, it had seemed to her, was a reflection of—not foolhardiness, but of sheer courage.
However, she had little time to speculate. The masked man advanced, a heavy gun in his right hand, its muzzle moving from side to side, menacing them all.
He halted when he had advanced to within a step of the girl.
“You guys set tight!” he ordered gruffly—in the manner of the train-robber of romance. “If you go to lettin’ down your sky-hooks one little quiver, I bore you so fast an’ plenty that you’ll think you’re a colander!” Then he turned the mask toward the girl; she could feel his eyes burning through it.
“Shell out, lady!” he commanded.
She stared straight back at the eye-slits in the mask, defiance glinting her own eyes.
“I haven’t any money—or anything of value—to give you,” she returned.