“Yuh’ll ride Rudolph, my mule,” exclaimed the bandit suavely. “He’s easy, an’ slow. Ef yuh should try to git away on him I’d overtake yuh in an eighth of a mile on this hoss o’ yuhrs. Besides, I’d rather ride a hoss.” “Me ride that mule!” cried Shorty. “Sure enough!” “Mules are fools an’ for fools,” stated Shorty, “an’ I’ll not ride--I’ll walk.” “Thank yuh, thank yuh!” said Bancroft politely, as Shorty finally did climb onto the mule. “Yuhr warnin’ is fully appreciated, mister, an’ just so yuh don’t try gittin’ off----” With that Bancroft deftly snatched a rope from the mule’s saddle and before Shorty could figure it all out Bancroft had tied both of Shorty’s legs together, at the ankles, under the mule’s belly. Now he couldn’t get off. But to make it even surer, the bandit tied Shorty’s hands behind him. “Yuh’re my guest, mine an’ Rudolph’s,” said Bancroft genially, “and a host must take good care o’ his company!” Then they started, back up the trail from whence the bandit had so recently come. Shorty sat stiffly on the big white mule, and led the way, while Bancroft, astride Lobo Loco, pressed up behind, chirping and chatting in happy manner. “I was goin’ down to rob a pore miner o’ four or five dollars an’ some grub,” explained Bancroft, “an’ then here yuh come, sayin’, ‘Please, Mister Bancroft, I’m achin’ to be held up an’ robbed’ an’ I accommodates. I always aims----’” “Shut up!” said Shorty. “To accommodate my pals,” went on Bancroft, ignoring Shorty’s outburst. “When we git to my cabin I reckon I’ll insist yuh stay a week, my dear Gaston. No, by golly, make it two weeks, my dear Alphonse. No, by golly, let’s make it three weeks----” “Dry up!” “Or perhaps a month would be better! A month in the great open spaces, where the winter begins, an’ where the snow is a little whiter an’ the nights a little lighter----” Shorty groaned. There he was, on a mule, all trussed up like a turkey going to the oven, and a bandit behind, with his pay-roll money, and alarming him with visions of a long imprisonment in some isolated cabin, where all the searchers in the world couldn’t unearth him before the spring thaw. “My dear man,” the bandit was saying, “I surely appreciate----” The mule slipped, and Shorty’s heart pounded in his ears. They were crossing a shoulder of the mountain, where the snow was drifted across the narrow trail. There was a drop of a hundred feet or more immediately to the left. “Thought mules never slipped,” began Shorty, but he stopped at a whoop from Bancroft. “Stand still, yuh dog-gone cayuse!” Bancroft was ordering Lobo Loco. “Quit yuhr slidin’, confound yuhr hide!” Sliding? Lobo Loco never slid anywhere. Just then the mule slipped again, and before Shorty could understand it all, he heard another yell from Bancroft. “Ride, yuh nut!” came the shout. “It’s a slide--a snow slide. It’s just touchin’ us now. Ride, or----”