his hands high above him. They took his
half-plug of chewing tobacco and a ten-cent stick-pin from his tie,
and afterwards made him crank his car and climb back into the seat and
go on. He went--with the throttle wide open and the little car loping
down the boulevard like a scared pup.

"Watch him went!" shrieked one they called Hen, doubling himself
together in a spasm of laughter.

"'He was--here--when we _started_, b-but he was--gone--when we got
th'ough!'" chanted another, crudely imitating a favorite black-faced
comedian.

Jack, one arm thrown across the wheel, leaned out and looked back,
grinning under the red band stretched across the middle of his face.
"Ah, pile in!" he cried, squeezing his gum between his teeth and
starting the engine. "He might come back with a cop."

That tickled them more than ever. They could hardly get back into the
car for laughing. "S-o-m-e little bandits!--what?" they asked one
another over and over again.

"S-o-m-e little bandits is--right!" the approving answer came
promptly.

"S-o-m-e _time_, bo, s-o-m-e _time!_" a drink-solemn voice croaked in
a corner of the big seat.

Thus did the party of Christian Endeavorers return sedately from their
trip to Mount Wilson.

CHAPTER TWO

"THANKS FOR THE CAR"

They held up another car with two men in it, and robbed them of
insignificant trifles in what they believed to be a most ludicrous
manner. Afterward they enjoyed prolonged spasms of mirth, their
cachinnations carrying far out over the flat lands disturbing
inoffensive truck gardeners in their sleep. They cried "S-o-m-e time!"
so often that the phrase struck even their fuddled brains as being
silly.

They met another car--a large car with three women in the tonneau.
These, evidently, were home-going theatre patrons who had indulged
themselves in a supper afterwards. They were talking quietly as they
came unsuspectingly up to the big, shiny machine that was traveling
slowly townward, and they gave it no more than a glance as they
passed.

Then came the explosion, that sounded surprisingly like a blowout. The
driver stopped and got out to look for trouble, his companion at his
heels. They confronted six masked men, three of them displaying
six-shooters.

"Throw up your hands!" commanded a carefully disguised voice.

The driver obeyed--but his right hand came up with an automatic pistol
in it. He fired straight into the bunch--foolishly, perhaps; at any
rate harm