"Listen! When you told me to hand down the box, I had an idea--a d----d fool one, perhaps--of taking that package out and jumping from the coach with it. I knew they would fire at me only; I might get away, but if they killed me, I'd have done only my duty, and nobody else would have got hurt. But when I got to the box I found that the lock had been forced and the money was gone. I managed to snap the lock again before I handed it down. I thought they might discover it at once and chase us, but they didn't.""And then thar war no greenbacks in the box that they took?" gasped Bill, with staring eyes.
"No!"
Bill raised his hand in the air as if in solemn adjuration, and then brought it down on his knee, doubling up in a fit of uncontrollable but perfectly noiseless laughter. "Oh, Lord!" he gasped, "hol' me afore I bust right open! Hush," he went on, with a jerk of his fingers towards the next room, "not a word o' this to any one! It's too much to keep, I know; it's nearly killing me! but we must swaller it ourselves! Oh, Jerusalem the Golden! Oh, Brice! Think o' that face o' Snapshot Harry's ez he opened that treasure box afore his gang in the brush! And he allers so keen and so easy and so cock sure! Created snakes! I'd go through this every trip for one sight of him as he just riz up from that box and cussed!" He again shook with inward convulsions till his face grew purple, and even the red came back to the younger man's cheek.
"But this don't bring the money back, Bill," said Brice gloomily.
Yuba Bill swallowed the glass of whiskey at a gulp, wiped his mouth and eyes, smothered a second explosion, and then gravely confronted Brice.
"When do you think it was taken, and how?"
"It must have been taken when I left the coach on the road and went over to that settler's cabin," said Brice bitterly. "Yet Ibelieved everything was safe, and I left two men--both passengers--one inside and one on the box, that man who sat the other side of you.""Jee whillikins!" ejaculated Bill, with his hand to his forehead, "the men I clean forgot to pick up in the road, and now I reckon they never intended to be picked up, either.""No doubt a part of the gang," said Brice, with increased bitterness; "I see it all now.""No!" said Bill decisively, "that ain't Snapshot Harry's style;he's a clean fighter, with no underhand tricks. And I don't believe he threw down that tree, either. Look yer, sonny!" he added, suddenly laying his hand on Brice's shoulder, "a hundred to one that that was the work of a couple o' d----d sneaks or traitors in that gang who kem along as passengers. I never took any stock in that coyote who paid extra for his box-seat."Brice knew that Bill never looked kindly on any passenger who, by bribing the ticket agent, secured this favorite seat, which Bill felt was due to his personal friends and was in his own selection.
He only returned gloomily:--
"I don't see what difference it makes to us which robber got the money.
"Ye don't," said Bill, raising his head, with a sudden twinkle in his eyes. "Then ye don't know Snapshot Harry. Do ye suppose he's goin' to sit down and twiddle his thumbs with that skin game played on him? No, sir," he continued, with a thoughtful deliberation, drawing his fingers slowly through his long beard, "he spotted it--and smelt out the whole trick ez soon ez he opened that box, and that's why he didn't foller us! He'll hunt those sneak thieves into h-ll but what he'll get 'em, and," he went on still more slowly, "by the livin' hokey! I reckon, sonny, that's jest how ye'll get your chance to chip in!""I don't understand," said Brice impatiently.
"Well," said Bill, with more provoking slowness, as if he were communing with himself rather than Brice, "Harry's mighty proud and high toned, and to be given away like this has cut down into his heart, you bet. It ain't the money he's thinkin' of; it's this split in the gang--the loss of his power ez boss, ye see--and ef he could get hold o' them chaps he'd let the money slide ez long ez they didn't get it. So you've got a detective on your side that's worth the whole police force of Californy! Ye never heard anything about Snapshot Harry, did ye?" asked Bill carelessly, raising his eyes to Brice's eager face.
The young man flushed slightly. "Very little," he said. At the same time a vision of the pretty girl in the settler's cabin flashed upon him with a new significance.
"He's more than half white, in some ways," said Bill thoughtfully, "and they say he lives somewhere about here in a cabin in the bush, with a crippled sister and her darter, who both swear by him. It mightn't be hard to find him--ef a man was dead set on it."Brice faced about with determined eyes. "I'LL DO IT," he said quietly.
"Ye might," said Bill, still more deliberately stroking his beard, "mention my name, ef ye ever get to see him.""Your name," ejaculated the astonished Brice.
