Part 50 (1/2)

The scene was so painful and such an anachronism that Dr. Temple tried to renew a more pressing subject: ”It's your opinion then that we'd best surrender?”

”Of course--since we can't run.”

Wedgewood broke in impatiently: ”Well, I consider it a dastardly outrage. I'll not submit to it. I'm a subject of His Majesty the----”

”You're a subject of His Majesty the Man Behind the Gun,” said Mallory.

”I shall protest, none the less,” Wedgewood insisted.

Mallory grinned a little. ”Have you any last message to send home to your mother?”

Wedgewood was a trifle chilled at this. ”D-don't talk of such things,”

he said.

And by this time the train-robbers had hastily worked their way through the other pa.s.sengers, and reached the frantic inhabitants of the sleeper, ”Snowdrop.”

”Hands up! Higher!! Hands up!”

With a true sense of the dramatic, the robbers sent ahead of them the most hair-raising yells. They arrived simultaneously at each end of the aisle, and with a few short sharp commands, straightened the disorderly rabble into a beautiful line, with all palms aloft and all eyes wide and wild.

One robber drove ahead of him the conductor and the other drove in Mr.

Manning, whom he had found trying to crawl between the shelves of the linen-closet.

The marauders were apparently cattlemen, from their general get-up.

Their hats were pulled low, and just beneath their eyes they had drawn big black silk handkerchiefs, tied behind the ears and hanging to the breast.

Over their shoulders they had slung the feed-bags of their horses, to serve as receptacles for their swag. Their s.h.i.+rts were chalky with alkali dust. Their legs were encased in heavy chaparejos, and they carried each a pair of well-used Colt's revolvers that looked as big as artillery.

When the pa.s.sengers had shoved and jostled into line, one of the men jabbed the conductor in the back with the muzzle of his gun, and snarled: ”Now speak your little piece, like I learned it to you.”

The conductor, like an awkward schoolboy, grinned sheepishly, and spoke, his hands in the air the while:

”Ladies and Gents, these here parties in the black tidies says they want everybody to hold his or her hands as high as possible till you git permission to lower 'em; they advise you not to resist, because they hate the sight of blood, but prefer it to argument.”

The impatient robbers, themselves the prey of fearful anxieties, broke in, barking like a pair of coyotes in a jumble of commands: ”Now, line up with your backs that way, and no back talk. These guns shoot awful easy. And remember, as each party is finished with, they are to turn round and keep their hands up, on penalty of gittin' 'em shot off.

Line up! Hands up! Give over there!”

Mrs. Jimmie Wellington took her time about moving into position, and her deliberation brought a howl of wrath from the robber: ”Get into that line, you!”

Mrs. Wellington whirled on him: ”How dare you, you brute?” And she turned up her nose at the gun.

The anxious conductor intervened: ”Better obey, madame; he's an ugly lad.”

”I don't mind being robbed,” said Mrs. Jimmie, ”but I won't endure rudeness.”

The robber shook his head in despair, and he tried to wither her with sarcasm: ”Pardong, mamselly, would you be so kind and condescendin' as to step into that there car before I blow your husband's gol-blame head off.”

This brought her to terms. She hastened to her place, but put out a restraining hand on Jimmie, who needed no restraint. ”Certainly, to save my dear husband. Don't strike him, Jimmie!”

Then each man stuck one revolver into its convenient holster, and, covering the pa.s.sengers with the other, proceeded to frisk away valuables with a speed and agility that would have looked prettier if those impatient-looking muzzles had not pointed here, there and everywhere with such venomous threats.