CHAPTER XXXIII.

A SUDDEN TRAGEDY.

The driver pulled up short. The passengers realized that something had
happened, and the nervous man put his head out of the window.

Instantly a change came over his face.

"We are all dead men!" he groaned. "It is the highwayman!"

Andy felt startled in spite of his pluck, and so did the other
passengers.

"I would jump out and confront the scoundrel," said a determined-looking
man, "but there is no room. We are on the verge of a precipice."

"What will happen?" exclaimed the cadaverous-looking man in an agony of
terror.

"I suppose we shall be robbed. That will be better than tumbling over
the precipice."

"Oh, why did I ever leave home?"

"I don't know. Ask me something easier," said the resolute man, in
disgust. "Such a man as you ought never to stir from his own fireside."

"Stop the coach and pass over your watches and pocketbooks!" cried Dick
Hawley, in a commanding tone.

By way of exciting alarm and enforcing his order he fired one charge of
his revolver. The consequences he did not anticipate.

The terrified stage horses, alarmed by the report, got beyond control of
the driver and dashed forward impetuously. The highwayman had hardly
time to realize his danger when his horse was overthrown and pushed over
the precipice along with its rider, while the stage dashed on. The last
that the passengers saw of Dick Hawley was a panic-stricken face looking
upward as he fell rapidly down toward the rocks at the bottom.

"He's gone! We are saved!" exclaimed the cadaverous-looking man,
joyfully.

"That is, if the coach doesn't tumble after him."

But the coach was saved. Had the horses swerved in their course all
would have been killed. As it was, the dangerous place was safely
crossed and the stage emerged upon a broad plateau.

The driver stopped the horses, and, dismounting from the box, came
around to the coach door.

"I congratulate you, gentlemen," he said. "We had a close shave, but we
are out of danger. Dick Hawley will rob no more stages."

"Driver, you are a brave man--you have saved us," said one of the
passengers.

"It was not I; it was the horses."

"Then you did not start them up?"

"No; I should not have dared to do it. They were frightened by the
revolver and took the matter into their own hands."

"Dick Hawley was foolhardy. Had he ever stopped a stage at this point
before?"

"Yes, he did so last year."

"And succeeded?"

"Yes; he