Up and down the line behind him men were waving and gesticulating and shouting. “Don’t let him pass you!” yelled Wilkerson. That instruction ran up and down the line, clothed in a variety of picturesque and forcible utterances. But no instruction was needed by the horses in front of Gregg. They understood, and scarcely had the other stage turned into the main road ahead when they at one jump broke from a walk into a gallop. George William saw and gave his four the rein and the whip. Glancing back, Gregg watched the whole procession change from a line of decorous dignity to one of active excitement. Dust began to rise, men on horseback passed men on mules; men in buckboards passed men on lumber wagons. George William held the road, and with it a great advantage. To pass him it would be necessary to go out among the rocks and the sage-brush, and the white four were racing swiftly, rolling out behind them a blinding cloud of dust. Gregg set his teeth, and spoke encouragingly to his horses. George William turned and shouted back an insult: “You needn’t hurry; we’ll tell them you’ll be there to-morrow. ’Tend to your new business; there is nothing in the other for you. We’re going into town first.”
“Maybe,” said Gregg grimly—and loosened his whip. The four lifted themselves together at its crack; in another half mile they were ready to turn out to go around. Gregg watched for a place anxiously. Brush and boulders seemed everywhere, but finally he chose a little sandy wash along which ran the road for a way.
Turning out he went into the sand and lost ten yards. He heard George William laugh sarcastically. But the old stage horses had been in sand before, and had but one passenger besides their driver. In a little while they were abreast the leaders, and here they stayed and could gain no farther. For George William laid on the lash, and the road was good. On they went, the one stage running smoothly on the hard road, the other swaying, bounding, rocking, among the rocks and gullies. A little while they ran thus, and then the road began to tell. Pike shouted triumphantly. Gregg, with despair in his heart, watched with grief the loss of inch after inch. “What can I do?” he groaned—and turning, he found himself face to face with Uncle Hank. The reins dropped from his nerveless hands, and his face went white.
“Give me a hand!” shouted Uncle Hank, and over the swinging door he crawled on the seat—and Gregg perceived he was flesh and blood. The old fire was in his eyes, he stood erect and loosened his whip with his left hand easily as of yore. And then something else happened. The line behind was scattered and strung out to perhaps a mile in length, but every eye was on the racing coaches. They saw the familiar figure of the old stage driver, saw him gather up the reins; saw and understood that he had come back to life again, and up and down that line went a cheer such as Paradise Bar will seldom hear again. Uncle Hank sent the whip waving over the backs of his beloved. “Nebuchadnezzar! Moloch! Rome! Athens! Come! No loafing now. This is our road, our stage—and our camp is shouting. Don’t you hear the boys! Ten years together, you’n me. Whose dust have we taken? Answer me! Good, Athens, good—steady, Rome, you blessed whirlwind. Reach out, Neb—that’s it—reach. Easy, Moloch, easy; never mind the rocks. Yo-ho! Yo-ho-o-o! In we go!”
At the first words of the master, the four lifted themselves as if inspired. Then they stretched lowly and ran; ran because they knew as only horses can know; ran as his voice ran, strong and straight. In three minutes they turned in ahead of the white horses and the funeral stage. The race was practically won. Uncle Hank with the hilarious Gregg alongside, drove into Meadow Lark ten minutes ahead of all others—and Meadow Lark in its astonishment almost stampeded. After a while the rest of Paradise Bar arrived, two of its leading citizens, who had started out in a certain black stage drawn by four horses, coming in on foot. They were quite non-committal in their remarks, but it was inferred from a few words dropped casually that, after the stage stopped, they lost some time in chasing the driver back into the foothills; and it was observed that they were quite gloomy over their failure to capture him.
“Oh, never mind,” said Morosin’ Jones, in an ecstasy of joy. “What’s the good of cherishin’ animosity? Why, for all I care he kin wear that red necktie now if he wants to”—then after a pause—“yes, and the silk hat, too, if he’s bound to be a cabby.”
Uncle Hank was smiling and shaking hands with everybody and explaining how the familiar motion of the stage had brought him out of his trance. “I’m awful glad to have you here, boys; mighty glad to see you. The hosses and me are proud. I’ll admit it. We oughter be. Ain’t Paradise Bar with us, and didn’t we win two out of three, after all?”—From The Black Cat, June, 1902, copyright by Short Story Publishing Co., and used by their kind permission.