This afternoon Firmstone was at his office-desk in a meditative and relieved frame of mind. He was meditative over his troubles that, for all his care, seemed to be increasing. Relieved in that, but an hour before, $50,000 in bullion had been loaded into the stage, and was now rolling down the cañon on the way to its legitimate destination. His meditations were abruptly broken, and his sense of relief violently dissipated, when the office-door was thrust open, and hatless, with clothing torn to shreds, the stage-driver stood before him, his beard clotted with blood which flowed from a jagged cut that reached from his forehead across his cheek.
Firmstone sprang to his feet with a startled exclamation. The driver swept his hand over his blood-clotted lips.
"No; 'tain't a hold-up; just a plain, flat wreck. The whole outfit went over the cliff at the Devil's Elbow. I stayed with my job long's I could, but that wa'n't no decades."
Firmstone dragged the man into his laboratory, and carefully began to wash the blood from his face.
"That's too long a process, gov'ner." The driver soused his head into the bucket of cold water which Firmstone had drawn from the faucet.
"Can you walk now?" Firmstone asked.
"Reckon I'll try it a turn. Been flyin', for all I know. Must have been, to get up the cliff. I flew down; that much I know. Lit on a few places. That's where I got this." He pointed to the cut.
Firmstone led the man to his own room adjoining the office, and opening a small chest, took out some rolls of plaster and bandages. He began drying the wound.
The office-door again opened and the bookkeeper entered.
"Go tell Bennie to come down right away," Firmstone ordered, without pausing in his work.