Another of the highwaymen took his place, a stout, squat figure in the flannel shirt, spurs, and chaps of a cow-puncher. It took no second glance to tell Collins this bandy-legged fellow had been a rider of the range. “Come, gentlemen, get a move on you,” Collins implored. “This train’s due at Tucson by eight o’clock. We’re more than an hour late now. I’m holding down the job of sheriff in that same town, and I’m awful anxious to get a posse out after a bunch of train-robbers. So burn the wind, and go through the car on the jump. Help yourself to anything you find. Who steals my purse takes trash. ’Tis something, nothing. ’Twas mine; ’tis his. That’s right, you’ll find my roll in that left-hand pocket. I hate to have you take that gun, though. I meant to run you down with that same old Colt’s reliable. Oh, well, just as you say. No, those kids get a free pass. They’re going out to meet papa at Los Angeles, boys. See?” Collins’ running fire of comment had at least the effect of restoring the color to some cheeks that had been washed white and of snatching from the outlaws some portion of their sense of dominating the situation. But there was a veiled vigilance in his eyes that belied his easy impudence. “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.”