“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.” The drummer contributed to the sack eighty-four dollars, a diamond ring, and a gold watch. His hands were trembling so that they played a tattoo on the sloping ceiling above him. “What’s the matter, Fatty? Got a chill?” inquired one of the robbers, as he deftly swept the plunder into the sack. “For—God’s sake—don’t shoot. I have—a wife—and five children,” he stammered, with chattering teeth. “No race suicide for Fatty. But whyfor do they let a sick man like you travel all by his lone?” “I don’t know—I—Please turn that weapon another way.” “Plumb chuck full of malaria,” soliloquized the owner of the weapon, playfully running its business end over the Chicago man’s anatomy. “Shakes worse’n a pair of dice. Here, Fatty. Load up with quinine and whisky. It’s sure good for chills.” The man behind the bandanna gravely handed his victim back a dollar. “Write me if it cures you. Now for the sky-pilot. No white chips on this plate, parson. It’s a contribution to the needy heathen. You want to be generous. How much do you say?” The man of the cloth reluctantly said thirty dollars, a Lincoln penny, and a silver-plated watch inherited from his fathers. The watch was declined with thanks, the money accepted without. The Pullman porter came into the car under compulsion of a revolver in the hand of a fourth outlaw, one in a black mask. His trembling finger pointed out the satchel and suit-case of Major Mackenzie, and under orders he carried out the baggage belonging to the irrigation engineer. Collin observed that the bandit in the black mask was so nervous that the revolver in his hand quivered like an aspen in the wind. He was slenderer and much shorter than the Mexican, so that the sheriff decided he was a mere boy. It was just after he had left that three shots in rapid succession rang out in the still night air. The red-bandannaed one and his companion, who had apparently been waiting for the signal, retreated backward to the end of the car, still keeping the passengers covered. They flung rapidly two or three bullets through the roof, and under cover of the smoke slipped out into the night. A moment later came the thud of galloping horses, more shots, and, when the patter of hoofs had died away—silence. The sheriff was the first to break it. He thrust his brown hands deep into his pockets and laughed—laughed with the joyous, rollicking abandon of a tickled schoolboy. “Hysterics?” ventured the mining engineer sympathetically.