"What you want is a drop o' whiskey," said the stranger good humoredly, taking his arm, "and we'll find it in that shanty just behind the tree." To Brice's surprise, a few steps in that direction revealed a fair-sized cabin, with a slight pretentiousness about it of neatness, comfort, and picturesque effect, far superior to the Tarbox shanty. A few flowers were in boxes on the window--signs, as Brice fancied, of feminine taste. When they reached the threshold, somewhat of this quality was also visible in the interior. When Brice had partaken of the whiskey, the stranger, who had kept silence, pointed to a chair, and said smilingly:--"I am Henry Dimwood, alias Snapshot Harry, and this is my house.""I came to speak with you about the robbery of greenbacks from the coach last night," began Brice hurriedly, with a sudden access of hope at his reception. "I mean, of course,"--he stopped and hesitated,--"the actual robbery before YOU stopped us.""What!" said Harry, springing to his feet, "do you mean to say YOUknew it?"
Brice's heart sank, but he remained steadfast and truthful. "Yes,"he said, "I knew it when I handed down the box. I saw that the lock had been forced, but I snapped it together again. It was my fault. Perhaps I should have warned you, but I am solely to blame.""Did Yuba Bill know of it?" asked the highwayman, with singular excitement.
"Not at the time, I give you my word!" replied Brice quickly, thinking only of loyalty to his old comrade. "I never told him till we reached the station.""And he knew it then?" repeated Harry eagerly.
"Yes."
"Did he say anything? Did he do anything? Did he look astonished?"Brice remembered Bill's uncontrollable merriment, but replied vaguely and diplomatically, "He was certainly astonished."A laugh gathered in Snapshot Harry's eyes which at last overspread his whole face, and finally shook his frame as he sat helplessly down again. Then, wiping his eyes, he said in a shaky voice:--"It would have been sure death to have trusted myself near that station, but I think I'd have risked it just to have seen Bill's face when you told him! Just think of it! Bill, who was a match for anybody! Bill, who was never caught napping! Bill, who only wanted supreme control of things to wipe me off the face of the earth! Bill, who knew how everything was done, and could stop it if he chose, and then to have been ROBBED TWICE IN ONE EVENING BYMY GANG! Yes, sir! Yuba Bill and his rotten old coach were GONETHROUGH TWICE INSIDE HALF AN HOUR by the gang!""Then you knew of it too?" said Brice, in uneasy astonishment.
"Afterwards, my young friend--like Yuba Bill--afterwards." He stopped; his whole expression changed. "It was done by two sneaking hounds," he said sharply; "one whom I suspected before, and one, a new hand, a pal of his. They were detached to watch the coach and be satisfied that the greenbacks were aboard, for it isn't my style to 'hold up' except for something special. They were to take seats on the coach as far as Ringwood Station, three miles below where we held you up, and to get out there and pass the word to us that it was all right. They didn't; that made us a little extra careful, seeing something was wrong, but never suspecting THEM. We found out afterwards that they got one of my scouts to cut down that tree, saying it was my orders and a part of our game, calculating in the stoppage and confusion to collar the swag and get off with it. Without knowing it, YOU played into their hands by going into Tarbox's cabin.""But how did you know this?" interrupted Brice, in wonder.
"They forgot one thing," continued Snapshot Harry grimly. "They forgot that half an hour before and half an hour after a stage is stopped we have that road patrolled, every foot of it. While I was opening the box in the brush, the two fools, sneaking along the road, came slap upon one of my patrols, and then tried to run for it. One was dropped, but before he was plugged full of holes and hung up on a tree, he confessed, and said the other man who escaped had the greenbacks."Brice's face fell. "Then they are lost," he said bitterly.
"Not unless he eats them--as he may want to do before I'm done on him, for he must either starve or come out. That road is still watched by my men from Tarbox's cabin to the bridge. He's there somewhere, and can't get forward or backward. Look!" he said, rising and going to the door. "That road," he pointed to the stage road,--a narrow ledge flanked on one side by a precipitous mountain wall, and on the other by an equally precipitate descent,--"is his limit and tether, and he can't escape on either side.""But the trail?"
"There is but one entrance to it,--the way you came, and that is guarded too. From the time you entered it until you reached the bottom, you were signaled here from point to point! HE would have been dropped! I merely gave YOU a hint of what might have happened to you, if you were up to any little game! You took it like a white man. Come, now! What is your business?"Thus challenged, Brice plunged with youthful hopefulness into his plan; if, as he voiced it, it seemed to him a little extravagant, he was buoyed up by the frankness of the highwayman, who also had treated the double robbery with a levity that seemed almost as extravagant. He suggested that they should work together to recover the money; that the express company should know that the unprecedented stealthy introduction of robbers in the guise of passengers was not Snapshot Harry's method, and he repudiated it as unmanly and unsportsmanlike; and that, by using his superior skill and knowledge of the locality to recover the money and deliver the culprit into the company's hands, he would not only earn the reward that they should offer, but that he would evoke a sentiment that all Californians would understand and respect. The highwayman listened with a tolerant smile, but, to Brice's surprise, this appeal to his vanity touched him less than the prospective punishment of the thief.
