Sharp and crisp it fell on Alan's ears. He sat for a moment stunned, the
half-rolled cigarette still between his fingers. The driver drew up his
four horses with a jerk and brought them to a huddled halt.
"Hands up!" came again the stinging imperative.
Now, for the first time, it reached Alan's consciousness that the stage
was actually being held up. He saw the sun shining on the barrel of a
rifle and through the bushes the masked face of a hidden cowpuncher. His
first swift instinct was to give battle, and he reached for the shotgun
between his knees. Simultaneously the driver's foot gave it a push and
sent the weapon clattering to the ground. José at least knew better than
to let him draw the road agent's fire while he sat within a foot of the
driver. His hands went into the air, and after his Alan's and those of the
two passengers.
"Throw down that box."
Alan lowered his hands and did as directed.
"Now reach for the stars again."
McKinstra's arms went skyward. Without his weapon, he was helpless to do
otherwise. The young man had an odd sense of unreality about the affair, a
feeling that it was not in earnest. The timbre of the fresh young voice
that came from the bushes struck a chord in his memory, though for the
life of him he could not place its owner.
"Drive on, José. Burn the wind and keep a-rollin' south."
The Mexican's whip coiled over the head of the leaders and the broncos
sprang forward with a jump. It was the summit of a long hill, on the edge
of which wound the road. Until the stage reached the foot of it there
would be no opportunity to turn back. Round a bend of the road it swung at
a gallop, and the instant it disappeared Melissy leaped from the bushes,
lifted the heavy box, and carried it to the edge of the ditch. She flew
down the sandy bottom to the place where the rig stood, drove swiftly
back again, and, though it took the last ounce of strength in her, managed
to tumble the box into the trap.
Back to the road she went, and from the place where the box had fallen
made long strides back to the bushes where she had been standing at the
moment of the hold-up. These tracks she purposely made deep and large,
returning in her first ones to the same point, but from the marks where
the falling treasure box had struck into the road she carefully
obliterated with her hand the foot-marks leading to the irrigation ditch,
sifting the sand in carefully so as to leave no impression. This took
scarcely a minute. She was soon back in her runabout, driving homeward
fast as whip and voice could urge the horse.