Behind this man, back to back with him, was the figure of another man, somewhat taller, holding similar armed dominion over the astounded occupants of the day-coach. This much, and this much only, in a flash of time was seen by Uncle Zach Matthews and Judge Priest's Jeff, as, animated by a joint instantaneous impulse, they slid off their seat at the other end of the car and lay embraced on the floor, occupying a space you would not have believed could have contained one darky--let alone two. And it was seen more fully and at greater length by the gray veterans as their arms with one accord rose stiffly above the level of their heads; and also it was seen by the young matron, the sponsor and the maid of honor, as they huddled together, clinging to one another desperately for the poor comfort of close contact. Little Rita Covington, white and still, looked up with blazing gray eyes into the face of the short man with the pistol. She had the palms of both her hands pressed tightly against her ears. Rita was brave enough--but she hated the sound of firearms. Where she half knelt, half crouched, she was almost under the elbow of the intruder. The whole thing was incredible--it was impossible! Train robberies had passed out of fashion years and years before. Here was this drowsing, quiet country lying just outside the windows, and the populous Junction only a handful of miles away; but, incredible or not, there stood the armed trampish menace in the doorway, shoulder to shoulder with an accomplice. And from outside and beyond there came added evidence to the unbelievable truth of it in the shape of hoarse, unintelligible commands rising above a mingling of pointless outcries and screams. “Is this a joke, sir, or what?” demanded Major Covington, choking with an anger born of his own helplessness and the undignifiedness of his attitude. “Old gent, if you think it's a joke jest let me ketch you lowerin' them arms of yourn,” answered back the yeggman. His words sounded husky, coming muffled through the handkerchief; but there was a grim threat in them, and for just a breathless instant the pistol-barrel stopped wavering and centered dead upon the major's white-vested breast. “Set right still, major,” counseled Judge Priest at his side, not firing his eyes off the muffled face. “He's got the drop on us.” “But to surrender without a blow--and we all old soldiers too!” lamented Major Covington, yet making no move to lower his arms. “I know--but set still,” warned Judge Priest, his puckered glance taking toll sideways of his fellow travelers--all of them with chagrin, amazement and indignation writ large upon their faces, and all with arms up and palms opened outward like a calisthenic class of elderly gray beards frozen stiff and solid in the midst of some lung-expanding exercise. Any other time the picture would have been funny; but now it wasn't. And the hold-up man was giving his further orders.