"I guess not," rejoined Nat, "we're well hidden in the shadow here. There's not a chance of their seeing us."
"Well I hope not."
But the arrival of the horsemen on the trail put a stop to further conversation right then. There were two of them, both, so far as the boys could see, big, heavy men, mounted on active little ponies. Their long tapaderos, or leather stirrup coverings, almost touched the ground as they rode.
"Hello, Al," exclaimed one of them, as the black mustached man came forward to meet them.
"Hello, boys," was the rejoinder in an easy tone as if the speaker had no fear of being overheard, "well, you pulled it off I see."
"Yes, and we'd have got more than the express box too if it hadn't been for the allfiredest noise you ever heard at the top of the trail all of a sudden. It came just as we was about ter go through ther pockets of the passengers. Sounded like a boiler factory or suthin'. I tell you we lit out in a hurry."
The speaker was one of the pony riders. As he spoke Nat gave Joe a nudge and the other replied with a look of understanding. The men who stood talking not a score of paces from them had taken part in the stage-robbery.
The man on foot seemed immensely amused at the mention of the "terrible noise" his companions said they had been alarmed by.
"Why, that was an automobubble," he laughed.
"A bubble!" exclaimed one of the others, "what in the name of the snow-covered e-tarnal hills is one of them coal oil buckboards doin' in this neck of ther woods?"