“Seems to be something the matter, gentlemen,” said the colonel, blandly, as he opened the door. “Won’t you please git out? Don’t trouble yourselves to draw, cos my friend here’s got his weapon cocked, an’ his fingers is rather nervous. Ain’t got a han’kercher, hev yer?” asked the colonel of the first passenger who descended from the stage. “Hev? Well, now, that’s lucky. Jest put yer hands behind yer, please—so—that’s it.” And the unfortunate man was securely bound in an instant. The remaining passengers were treated with similar courtesy, and then the colonel and his friends examined the pockets of the captives. Old Black remained unmolested, for who ever heard of a stage-driver having money? “Boys,” said the colonel, calling his brother agents aside, and comparing receipts, “’tain’t much of a haul; but there’s only one woman, an’ she’s old enough to be a feller’s grandmother. Better let her alone, eh?” “Like enough she’ll pan out more’n all the rest of the stage put together,” growled Cranks, carefully testing the thickness of case of a gold watch. “Jest like the low-lived deceitfulness of some folks, to hire an old woman to kerry ther money so it ’ud go safe. Mebbe what she’s got hain’t nothin’ to some folks thet’s got hosses thet ken win ’em money at races, but——” The colonel abruptly ended the conversation, and approached the stage. The colonel was very chivalrous, but Cranks’s sarcastic reference to Tipsie needed avenging, and as he could not consistently with business arrangements put an end to Cranks, the old lady would have to suffer. “I beg your parding, ma’am,” said the colonel, raising his hat politely with one hand, while he reopened the coach-door with the other, “but we’re a-takin’ up a collection fur some very deservin’ object. We _wuz_ a-goin’ to make the gentlemen fork over the hull amount, but ez they hain’t got enough, we’ll hev to bother _you_.” The old lady trembled, and felt for her pocketbook, and raised her vail. The colonel looked into her face, slammed the stage-door, and, sitting down on the hub of one of the wheels, stared vacantly into space. “Nothin’?” queried Perkins, in a whisper, and with a face full of genuine sympathy. “No—yes,” said the colonel, dreamily. “That is, untie ’em and let the stage go ahead,” he continued, springing to his feet. “_I’ll_ hurry back to the cabin.” [Illustration] And the colonel dashed into the bushes, and left his followers so paralyzed with astonishment, that Old Black afterward remarked that, “ef ther’d ben anybody to hold the hosses, he could hev cleaned out the hull crowd with his whip.”