"Suppose they should try to hold you up now, what would you do?" asked Wickersham.
"Oh, I don't think there is any danger now," said Keith. "I have driven over here at all hours and in all weathers. We are getting too civilized for that now, and most of the express comes over in a special wagon. It's only the mail and small packages that come on this stage."
"But if they should?" demanded Wickersham.
"Well, I suppose I'd whip up my horses and cut for it," said Keith.
"I wouldn't," asserted Wickersham. "I'd like to see any man make me run when I have a gun in my pocket."
Suddenly, as if in answer to his boast, there was a flash in the road, and the report of a pistol under the very noses of the leaders, which made them swerve aside with a rattling of the swingle-bars, and twist the stage sharply over to the side of the road. At the same instant a dark figure was seen in the dim light which the lamp threw on the road, close beside one of the horses, and a voice was heard:
"I've got you now, ---- you!"
It was all so sudden that Wickersham had not time to think. It seemed to him like a scene in a play rather than a reality. He instinctively shortened the reins and pulled up the frightened horses. Keith seized the reins with one band and snatched at the whip with the other; but it was too late. Wickersham, hardly conscious of what he was doing, was clutching the reins with all his might, trying to control the leaders, whilst pandemonium broke out inside, cries from the women and oaths from the men.
There was another volley of oaths and another flash, and Wickersham felt a sharp little burn on the arm next Keith.
"Hold on!" he shouted. "For God's sake, don't shoot! Hold on! Stop the horses!"