He held out his hand.
“Bound to take what I’ve got, are you?” queried De Bray.
His tone was noticeably cool and his manner steady.
“The pickings were slim before,” flung back Lawless. “This will be a raise worth while, and——”
At that instant something happened. Dropping the money into the bottom of the stage, like lightning De Bray flung himself across the forward wheel, gripped Lawless by the throat, and bore him to the ground.
For an Easterner, inexperienced in Western ways, Reginald de Bray showed an abnormal amount of pluck and rough-and-ready incentive.
Pete, Billings, and Hotchkiss were not slow in following up his attack.
Hotchkiss, already on the ground, sprang to the side of the wagon and pushed the woman into the bottom of the box.
“Down!” he cried, and no sooner had he placed the woman in comparative safety than the rifles of the road-agents began to talk.
Bullets slapped into the side of the wagon, sang through the air, and in other ways made their presence disagreeably apparent.