Brand Blotters - Page 39/180

For the first time in his life the roan got the whip from his mistress.

"Git up, Bob. We've got to hurry. It's for dad," she cried, as they raced

through the sand and sent it flying from the wheels.

The Fort Allison stage passed within three miles of the Lee ranch on its

way to Mesa. Where the road met in intersection with the ditch she had

chosen as the point for stopping it, and no veteran at the business could

have selected more wisely, for a reason which will hereafter appear. Some

fifty yards below this point of intersection the ditch ran through a grove

of cottonwoods fringing the bank. Here the banks sloped down more

gradually, and Melissy was able to drive up one side, turn her rig so that

the horse faced the other way, and draw down into the ditch again in order

that the runabout could not be seen from the road. Swiftly and skilfully

she obliterated the track she had made in the sandy bank.

She was just finishing this when the sound of wheels came to her. Rifle in

hand, she ran back along the ditch, stooping to pass under the bridge, and

waited at the farther side in a fringe of bushes for the coming of the

stage.

Even now fear had no place in the excitement which burned high in her. The

girl's wits were fully alert, and just in time she remembered the need of

a mask. Her searching fingers found the torn black shirt in a pocket and a

knife in another. Hastily she ripped the linen in half, cut out eyeholes,

and tied the mask about her head. With perfectly steady hands she picked

up the rifle from the ground and pushed the muzzle of it through the

bushes.

Leisurely the stage rolled up-grade toward the crossing. The Mexican

driver was half asleep and the "shotgun messenger" was indolently rolling

a cigarette, his sawed-off gun between his knees. Alan McKinstra was the

name of this last young gentleman. Only yesterday he had gone to work for

Morse, and this was the first job that had been given him. The stage never

had been held up since the "Monte Cristo" had struck its pay-streak, and

there was no reason to suppose it would be. Nevertheless, Morse proposed

to err on the side of caution.

"I reckon the man that holds down this job don't earn his salt, José. It's

what they call a sinecure," Alan was saying at the very instant the

summons came.

"Throw up your hands!"