“That’s just like Dad to leave evidence lying around,” she said to herself, for even in the anxiety that was flooding her she kept her quiet commonsense.
After searching the horizon carefully to see that 78 nobody was in sight, she got into the rig and drove round the corral to the irrigating ditch. This was a wide lateral of the main canal, used to supply the whole lower valley with water, and just now it was empty. Melissy drove down into its sandy bed and followed its course as rapidly as she could. If she were only in time! If the stage had not yet passed! That was her only fear, the dread of being too late. Not once did the risk of the thing she intended occur to her. Physical fear had never been part of her. She had done the things her brother Dick had done. She was a reckless rider, a good shot, could tramp the hills or follow the round-up all day without knowing fatigue. If her flesh still held its girlish curves and softness, the muscles underneath were firm and compact. Often for her own amusement and that of her father she had donned her brother’s chaps, his spurs, sombrero, and other paraphernalia, to masquerade about the house in them. She had learned to imitate the long roll of the vaquero’s stride, the mannerisms common to his class, and even the heavy voice of a man. More than once she had passed muster as a young man in the shapeless garments she was now wearing. She felt confident that the very audacity of the thing would carry it off. There would be a guard for the treasure box, of course, but if all worked well he could be taken by surprise. Her rifle was not loaded, but the chances were a hundred to one that she would not need to use it. 79
For the first time in his life the roan got the whip from his mistress.
“Git up, Bob. We’ve got to hurry. It’s for dad,” she cried, as they raced through the sand and sent it flying from the wheels.
The Fort Allison stage passed within three miles of the Lee ranch on its way to Mesa. Where the road met in intersection with the ditch she had chosen as the point for stopping it, and no veteran at the business could have selected more wisely, for a reason which will hereafter appear. Some fifty yards below this point of intersection the ditch ran through a grove of cottonwoods fringing the bank. Here the banks sloped down more gradually, and Melissy was able to drive up one side, turn her rig so that the horse faced the other way, and draw down into the ditch again in order that the runabout could not be seen from the road. Swiftly and skilfully she obliterated the track she had made in the sandy bank.
She was just finishing this when the sound of wheels came to her. Rifle in hand, she ran back along the ditch, stooping to pass under the bridge, and waited at the farther side in a fringe of bushes for the coming of the stage.
Even now fear had no place in the excitement which burned high in her. The girl’s wits were fully alert, and just in time she remembered the need of a mask. Her searching fingers found the torn black shirt in a pocket and a knife in another. 80 Hastily she ripped the linen in half, cut out eyeholes, and tied the mask about her head. With perfectly steady hands she picked up the rifle from the ground and pushed the muzzle of it through the bushes.
Leisurely the stage rolled up-grade toward the crossing. The Mexican driver was half asleep and the “shotgun messenger” was indolently rolling a cigarette, his sawed-off gun between his knees. Alan McKinstra was the name of this last young gentleman. Only yesterday he had gone to work for Morse, and this was the first job that had been given him. The stage never had been held up since the “Monte Cristo” had struck its pay-streak, and there was no reason to suppose it would be. Nevertheless, Morse proposed to err on the side of caution.
“I reckon the man that holds down this job don’t earn his salt, José. It’s what they call a sinecure,” Alan was saying at the very instant the summons came.
“Throw up your hands!”