“That lady across the aisle gets a pass, too, boys,” continued the sheriff. “She’s scared stiff now, and you won’t bother her, if you’re white men. Her watch and purse are on the seat. Take them, if you want them, and let it go at that.”
Miss Wainwright listened to this dialogue silently. She stood before them cool and imperious and unwavering, but her face was bloodless and the pulse in her beautiful soft throat fluttered like a caged bird.
“Who’s doing this job?” demanded one of the hold-ups, wheeling savagely on the impassive officer “Did I say we were going to bother the lady? Who’s doing this job, Mr. Sheriff?”
“You are. I’d hate to be messing the job like you—holding up the wrong train by mistake.” This was a shot in the dark, and it did not quite hit the bull’s-eye. “I wouldn’t trust you boys to rob a hen-roost, the amateur way you go at it. When you get through, you’ll all go to drinking like blue blotters. I know your kind—hell-bent to spend what you cash in, and every mother’s son of you in the pen or with his toes turned up inside of a month.”
“Who’ll put us there?” gruffly demanded the bowlegged one.
Collins smiled at him with confidence superb “Mebbe I will—and if I don’t Bucky O’Connor will—those of you that are left alive when you go through shooting each other in the back. Oh, I see your finish to a fare-you-well.”
“Cheese it, or I’ll bump you off.” The first out law drove his gun into the sheriff’s ribs.
“That’s all right. You don’t need to punctuate that remark. I line up with the sky-pilot and chew the cud of silence. I merely wanted to frame up to you how this thing’s going to turn out. Don’t come back at me and say I didn’t warn you, sonnie.”
“You make my head ache,” snarled the bandy-legged outlaw sourly, as he passed down with his sack, accumulating tribute as he passed down the aisle with his sack, accumulating tribute as he went.
The red-kerchiefed robber whooped when they came to the car conductor. “Dig up, Mr. Pullman. Go way down into your jeans. It’s a right smart pleasure to divert the plunder of your bloated corporation back to the people. What! Only fifty-seven dollars. Oh, dig deeper, Mr. Pullman.”