“Stop the stage!” he thundered to the driver, “or I will put a bullet through your head.”
The driver, as had been directed, instantly obeyed.
CHAPTER XXVII. COL. WARNER CHANGES FRONT.
It may seem a daring thing for one man to stop a stage full of passengers, and require them to surrender their money and valuables, but this has been done time and again in unsettled portions of the West. For the most part the stage passengers are taken by surprise, and the road agent is known to be a desperado, ready to murder in cold blood anyone who dares oppose him.
In the present instance, however, the passengers had been warned of their danger and were ready to meet it.
Brown—for, of course, the masked man was the landlord—saw four revolvers leveled at him from inside the stage.
“Let go that horse, my friend, or you are a dead man!” said Conrad Stiefel, calmly. “Two can play at your game.”
Brown was taken by surprise, but he was destined to be still more astonished.
Col. Warner protruded his head from the window, saying: