All this, he saw, as with one purely automatic swing, his Winchester came to his shoulder on a line with the masked man at the horses' heads; but swifter still was the dart of his fist, sending the supposed tenderfoot backward to the ground; then, seeing two more men spring out from nowhere in particular, he turned his rifle toward them, working the lever until it sung, the next instant down beside them. Colt in hand, to be nailed to the spot by the sight which met his eyes: the man at the leaders' heads still held the bits; the other two covered Leredo; the man he had struck, awaited him weakly but with smiling steadiness: not a man had he brought down.

Dazed, for he knew his aim at twice that distance to be infallible, he stared about him, to be at last recalled again by the leader's voice: "Don't blame yourself; your aim was all right: the trouble was, you used blank cartridges."

"There would have been no alternative! But now?"

"Only the formality of taking away the things we had to have."

"You haven't got them yet!" With the words, he was at them, extinguishing the nearest lamp as he sprang. Leredo's shout, as he gave the four the lash, the grind of gravel under frenzied feet, then two shots and the brave wheelers down, and for a second time the stage was still, this time, with cut traces, anchored, motionless; and round it, one tall, reckless, heroic figure, fighting fearful odds, refusing to surrender while he lived. Then one lone shot, well aimed, the pleasant voice speaking regretfully: "He made me do it: I'd have spared him if I could." And the road agent, slowly mounting with the box and bag he had stopped the up-stage to have, looked back to where the Messenger, after reeling in an aimless circle, wavered and then sank, still resisting, to ground.

the

Behind, the stage, its one lantern shad

owed in the gloom; a voice, Leredo's, as he sought, but could not find: "They've took him with 'em; the poor lad's got his, either way you play the shot." Then, with an oath of vengeance, fearful in its primordial intensity, he rolled out the dead wheelers, forced the leaders into place, sprang to his seat before before the newly affrighted passengers, and the up-stage had passed.

Darkness, the deeper, as the forest silence settled down; the night wind, wandering cool from far Sierran silvan heights, soughed gently, then ceased, and life seemed suspended, in the utter quiescence of the mountain road.

Then in the deeper blackness off the traveled way, came a flash as of a briskly ignited match, a low laugh, and John Wade, Express Messenger, whose obituary was at that moment being composed by loyal Dick, puffed strongly on a stubby briar wood pipe. And, that done, his back against a giant redwood, he gave himself leisurely to thought:

"It's my best move to lie here, for they may double, and I'm not armed too well just yet. They'll make for Toluma, the nearest railroad stop. No, not that. though, for they know Dick'll wire, and every place be on the watch. They'll strike one for the camps after getting supplies at the worst town they can pick out; and then back into the defiles until the posse has got tired of getting lost. And, after that, off to the south somewhere, probably into New Mexico.

"With friends in every low joint that bucks the law, and money to bribe with, they think they're safe. And they are unless-unless I can get to them before their friends have hidden them away. Until morning, then." And plunging for a noiseless hundred yards still further off the beaten track, beneath a scrub oak, he went immediately to sleep.

With the faintest dawn, he awoke, and hurried back to the deserted way, where good luck awaited him: for there lay a sawed-off Winchester, half-visible under a limb of the tree which had been dropped to block the road.

It had evidently been thrown there in the struggle. He lifted it, and something in its hang made him stare eagerly in another second he had crammed his hand

kerchief into its muzzle, removing it, to find it clean: yes, it was his own gun, sighted to his eye, and charged with ball, not blanks.

In a second, he understood it the road agent had been the victim of his own device, for, after being hurled from the stage by the Messenger, he had snatched up a Winchester, not Wade's, as he thought, but the blank-charged duplicate; it was with this that he had fired when, after his handto-hand onslaught, the Messenger had charged. Wade's well-studied fall had assisted the deceit; and the highwaymen had left for dead the man by whom, at that very instant, their capture was being planned.

John saw it, laughed aloud, then paled, looking narrowly about him, in fear of what seemed too perfect luck. But all was soundless, himself the only thing that stirred. Then, alert and armed as even he could wish, he was out, eyes on the road, fast upon their track.

For the first three miles, the fugitives had kept the stage road; but then their trail disappeared utterly, the only hoofprints coming toward him in the direction taken by the stage.

Again and again he covered the fifty vards on each side of where the track had dropped, but he could find only the familiar foot-prints of the four. It was true that, not long before, three horsemen had ridden in from the West, but this did not help him-those he wanted were not coming from but leading there. Examining these more closely, however, he saw that the bounds of these three horses were not uniform, for, in the case of two, leaps were longer than those taken by the third: the three were hurrying, but the third horse had labored in his stride, a fact indicated further by his tracks, the weight instead of coming forward primarily to the toe, was lightest there, the deepest indertation being at the "corks." Then, in a flash, he saw it: the 'tourist,' with new cleverness, had reversed the horses' shoes, and four men were on the three: the third horse had done well to keep even stride he did, for he was carrying double weight.

the

Yes, the trick was well out of the ordinary. But Wade admired it only as he as he hurried on, an hour later to come out,

with their trail, at the tumble-down cabin of a mountaineer.

He approached the house cautiously; but, entering suddenly, found it untenanted.

The road-agents had, however, been on terms of intimacy with, even if they had not constituted, the inmates of the place, for there were two bunks, and two blankets laid out with some care to neatness on the floor, and all were fresh-used, for no dust had settled down.

In an open box in one corner, he found that local rarity, a razor and accessories, and, in the bottom, two or three rough suits of clothing, and the outfit of a prospector, bag and pick and pan.

Thought was action, with the Messenger, and when, ten minutes later flames broke out almost instantly to envelop the sun-baked roof, the clean-shaven young fellow who was their only witness, looked on contentedly: "It was the only way, for I hadn't time to 'cache' my outfit properly. Arson's a poor return for hospitality; but, some day, I'll take a vacation and put the shack up again. And, when I do it, she'll But I've got to get those moccasins for her, first, and they're in the outer bag that holds the inner and the mail." Then, he laughed frankly, for he had realized that his first thought had not been of the mail, but of the moccasins. "Gad, I'd better be moving!" And, with a swinging step, he again took up the trail.

And when, three hours later, the posse drew rein at the smoking ruins to breathe their horses and try to guess the secret of the blaze, the silent ashes helped them as little as the man who, further down, stepped off the road to let them pass. The pick on his wide shoulder showed what his calling was, and, already delayed, they did not stop to question him.

Still further on, a prostrate inebriate answered in fear and secrecy. "Four of 'em," he said, "come out here right early in the day, and, when they saw I marked 'em, they sent me a shot and doubled back that way."

As they turned in the named direction the posse admitted gratitude, and wanted to "make it right." But he would accept nothing: it hadn't cost him anything, he said, and he was willing to give the in

formation free of charge. As a matter of fact he could afford to, for others had paid him well for doing it.

was

At "The Morning Star" at Toluma, the crowd was large, that day, and the trade. unusually brisk. Conversation, too rampant, such shop-worn and stagnant topics as miners' brawls and differences at cards being gratefully abandoned in favor of the holding up of the Carquez stage, an incident whose happening, struck them, for this reason among others, as a direct act of Providence.

There was more than interest: there was a keen satisfaction in the way they spoke of it. And, oddly enough, they seemed to have known of it from the moment that it took place. Its success, they regarded with complacency; it was, they agreed, "a good one on the company."

Ready money had made the business thrive, and themselves garrulous. When the money was gone, they mounted and departed leisurely, almost the last to go being four men who, during the talk, had 'ordered' and drank from their saddles at the door, and these rode away quite deliberately in the direction in which their friends had gone.

Three minutes later, a traveler entered "The Morning Star." He had come far, from San Rafael, he said, as he ordered the local stimulant.

"Cooking for Hurlburt," asked the barkeep, carelessly.

"No," answered the big miner; "playing the hand alone."

He might have been questioned further, but an interruption came from a table in the rear end of the room. "That cleans me, by! No, there's my horse, that buckskin-goes for $100 down.”

"Done," said the imperturbable winner, and the game went on.

Of the crowd, now only four or five remained. They sat idly, and, when they spoke, it was of the weather, the "strikes" at Goldfield, or the burning out of Fallon, at the Flats; of anything, in short, except the stage robbery.

The young miner waited with the best patience that he could simulate. He knew that, in all probability, the men before him could tell him all that he wished to know; but he knew, too, that any haste, in fact any inkling of his mission, would

terminate his chance. He went further, admitting that the fact that he had not been fired on, when he entered, showed that he had not been recognized.

In the meantime, his men were escaping. In ten minutes, five, they would be gone unredeemably. Yet he could only wait for some incautious word, some hint thrown out by a tongue loose from drink, from anger or from temperament.

Then, just as he was at snapping tension, the losing gambler spoke again: "That does it, unless some one 'll give me five for these." The man turned, expecting still to see the crowd, but only the young miner answered him: "What have you got? I may be able to manage the five." "Just these," and heedless of a warning sent by some one in the room, he threw something soft and yellow on the floor.

"I'll take them." There was an exchange, and John Wade thrust into the breast of his shirt the moccasins which he had bought on the preceding afternoon. "Got any more," he asked, facing the other with a steady smile. "I'd like to get some of a larger size."

Careless of what came, for he had lost heavily and was mad with alcohol, the man laughed recklessly: "I haven't any more, but you might try the fellow that just left on the piebald; they's no telling what he an' his outfit's taken on."

Wade turned to the man who was winning: "That buckskin you just bought: is he for sale again?"

The other looked keenly at him, half shrugged his shoulders, and relaxed: "Why, yes. An'," coolly, "he's faster than that piebald, if that's what you mean.”

"That's what I mean." As he spoke, Wade wheeled, and the bar-keep, whose hand had slipped absent-mindedly toward his hip, went, with its fellow, empty above his head. "That's right," the young miner said, glinting his eyes across the bar, "and just keep them up there until I say you can drop them. I'm John Wade, the Carquez Messenger," and, his hands in his pockets, he advanced upon the whiteaproned man.

Sure that he was "covered" by a gun in one of the Messenger's unseen hands, the bar-keep allowed himself to be disarmed. And no one spoke or moved as "Law and

Order" Wade backed swiftly from the room. Indeed, so well known was his skill that, as motionless, they watched him spring into the saddle, and ride out upon the piebald's trail.

After making sure of his seat and the qualities of his mount, Wade forced the horse to be satisfied with a moderate lope, unslung his Winchester from the bag in which he had hidden it, his eyes ever on the four men still visible ahead on the level, unbroken track.

The box had, of course, long since been forced open, but they still had the bulk of its fifty thousand and the mail. They would undoubtedly fight to keep it; but, armed as he was, he knew they were his. After a mile or two, he let his mount have his head, and soon flew by them, the buckskin's main and tail astream with the fury of his stride, and behind the next turn, with the sun behind his head awaited them.

At his command, they swerved, each reaching for his gun, but he swung his horse on them with the pressure of his knees. "Hands up!" he cried again, and this time they obeyed.

"What's the game?" came in the 'tourist's' pleasant voice.

"Just that

that fifty thousand and the

mails!" For a moment, dead silence. Then"By the Messenger!"

"Exactly. Your guns first, and then the rest of it. And carefully, for this time, remember, I'm not using blanks!"

The four Colt's dropped simultaneously from the upraised hands, and, though he seemed not to have moved, a bullet from Wade's rifle caught each, descending, and spun it in the air.

"Some shooting," said the familiar, pleasant voice. "Say, it's all yours. It's here in the bag. If you want, you can see. I'll cut it loose for you."

"Thank you, but I'll do that for myself." He did so, the four sitting their horses rigidly.

"And now?" There was, for the first

time, a note of anxiety in the "tourist's" voice.

Wade laughed. "Well, it's about this way: I've got you covered; but you've got too many friends around, for me to take you out of here. you out of here. If the posse had kept with meBut they didn't. So all I'm going to ask of you is some decent whisky. I bought some back there, but, considering where I was, it seemed wiser not to swallow it."

Before he had finished, a silver-mounted flask fell at his feet. "As a souvenir?" asked the pleasant voice.

"As a souvenir," Wade answered. The next moment his was the only figure on the road.

It took him some time to explain it to the company, and, even after he had finished they were disgruntled at his leaving the road agents at large. But Lerado, joyed into incoherency at John's return, swore violently as to the exact degree the Messenger knew his business better than his employers did, reminded them that they had the treasure anyway, and they became satisfied.

There was, however, one who was deeply puzzled: it was upon receiving, in a roughly wrapped and dust-covered package, a pair of moccasins; and what puzzled her most was that, on the outside, there was written the word, "Delayed."

She asked her father, on the next day, and, on the next, Lerado Dick. But the grim driver would tell nothing. "I ain't the one to give that there away. They's only one man that's got a right to, and he's the Messenger; don't suppose you ever noticed him, when we was going through?" And, John coming up at that instant: "Here, she wants to know who sent these things, and why they was 'delayed.""

Again the honest eyes laughed into his. "Do you know?" she asked him. "I do," John answered. "Will you tell me?" And he did.