“Chuck up your hands, Johnson, and get down!” he said, curtly. “Come down now, like a good boy, and don’t alarm the passengers.”
The driver peered into the darkness and swore, voices from the top of the coach called out inquiringly and excitedly, then a deep silence followed.
“Persuade him to come down quickly, gentlemen,” said the leader of the gang. “We don’t want any fire-works, but—we mean business. It’s our show, you see, and it’s no use making a fuss.”
Two or three men scrambled down and were instantly surrounded, but the coachman did not move for a minute; then he turned to some one on the seat behind him and said something.
“Are you coming, or not?” demanded the ringleader, impatiently, and he significantly imitated the click of a trigger with his lips.
Johnson looked down.
“Yes; it’s your show,” he said, coolly. “If I’d only a-known jes’ a quarter of a mile back—but that’s neither here nor there. I’m coming. Save your powder!”
Even then he did not hurry, but took off his thick gloves with a deliberation which must have exasperated the man below. Then he climbed down with unnecessary caution, and stood with his hands in his pockets, the revolver still covering him. Two of the gang were at the leaders’ bridles, the others were busy “emptying” the three passengers, and all was going merrily and to the entire satisfaction of Dog’s Ear, when Varley, firing just over the commander’s head, plunged up the other side of the Gulch and rode down upon him.
The startled man swore and tried to swing his horse aside, but Varley was on him with an impetus too swift and irresistible, and coolly knocked him out of his saddle as the man fired.
Instantly the place, wrapped a moment before in the solemn calm of an Australian night, was transformed into a miniature pandemonium. Shots, yells, oaths, the crack of revolvers, and the dull “ping” of the bullets, mingled with the stamping of the rearing horses.