“I took the precaution to have a clean shave before I started,” he explained airily, but quietly; “so this will work all right.” The whip of the driver was cracking from the top of the stage, and the wheels were jarring heavily, so that the stage pitched about; yet the pitching did not seem to discommode him. He worked quickly and with skill. On his cheeks he put some of the paint which the woman had applied so liberally to her own; he looked at her sharply from time to time, then consulted the mirror. To her amazement, she saw that he was transforming himself into a clever counterfeit resemblance--that his features were becoming marvelously like hers, even to the heavily laid on paint and powder. Besides, he had a wonderful facial ability, enabling him to twist his face into a fair counterfeit presentment of hers. “I’ve sometimes thought I made my mistake in life in not going on the stage,” he remarked casually. “As you’ve had experience, you may be able to judge of that better than I can. This road-agent business is horribly dangerous, as you may guess; and it isn’t any fun to be breaking jail one week, and running away from Buffalo Bill the next; which you know has been my awful lot. Yet there is still a lot of fun in it, and whole worlds of keen excitement. And what is life, if it is barren of excitement?” He had brought into the stage a small hand bag; which now, after he had made the desired changes in his appearance, he opened. From it he took the contents, and transferred them to her hand bag. Again he looked out of the window; but though his eyes were turned on the landscape speeding past the stage, his ears were keen; for when in desperation she moved, with the wild intention of trying to get his revolver, he lifted it from the seat beside him, and pointed it at her. “I wouldn’t try it, my dear!” he said, in his smooth voice. He looked again at her. She had dropped once more back against the cushions, with a gasp of terror. “You see, I should hate awfully to be compelled to shoot you!” he explained, in a cold-blooded tone that made her shudder. “It would be bad for both of us; and bad to muss up the stage, you know; it’s really a very good stage, and newly recushioned. So you understand how I feel about it.” “You are a devil!” she gasped again. “Only a man determined to protect himself at all hazards. I wanted to look out and see if we aren’t reaching the vicinity of Stag Mountain. In the cañon, just beyond it, as you doubtless know, there have been a lot of stage hold-ups lately; it may be we will meet trouble there. We are nearing the place right now. Our Jehu above seems to be laying on the whip a little more heavily, and I judge that he is thinking of that place, too. He has been through a good many of the hold-ups. I should think, by this time, he would be so used to them that if they did not happen he would miss them as a bit of fun.” She did not answer.