But the stage went through the cañon that day without a ripple of excitement. Not a road agent was there.
To be sure of this, when the stage had passed beyond what was considered the danger spot it was halted, and some of the armed men went back, to poke through the bushes.
“Scared ’em off with the big show of fighting men we made,” said the men, when they returned.
It was fully two hours later when the baron, with Austin and Brown, butted into the excitement which the baron had anticipated.
At Eagle Gap, where no trouble of any kind had ever before occurred, two men rose up beside the winding path, and began to shoot as soon as they rose. The men were masked, and they were well armed, each with a repeating rifle and a brace of revolvers.
Austin went down at the first fire, shot through the head, being killed instantly. Brown toppled, falling wounded. The baron threw himself flat on the ground, escaping that first shooting as if by a miracle; though the real reason was that Austin and Brown stopped the first bullets the bandits sent from their repeaters; and before they could fire again the baron was down, and behind a rock.
“Ouch!” he squawked. “I am to pe kilt, huh!”
Then he fired back.
He apparently wounded one of the men, which stopped their rush toward him, and enabled him to take a tumble backward down the steep slope. The baron plowed a reckless furrow, which barked his skin and tore his clothing, but landed him in a rocky hollow some distance down, before the outlaws could get to the top of the slope and shoot at him.
Poking his head out enough to enable him to see, he blazed away again, when he saw one of the men appear; and drove the bandits back once more.