y could employ couldn't gather enough of him to
recognise him by, and you won't be in bed more'n long enough to
heal a busted shoulder.'

"'I hope it ain't going to be my painful line of performance to
pull the trigger,' says Aggy. 'I think the sight of her would have
weight with most people. When's the stage due back?'

"'Day after to-morrow, about noon.'

"'That gives us lots of time to stake, and to salt claims that
can't show cause their own selves,' says Aggy. 'I think we're all
right.'

"The next day we worked like the Old Harry. We had everything
fixed up right by nightfall, and there was nothing to do but dig
and wait.

"Curious folks we all are, ain't we? I should have said my own
self that if I'd found gold by the bucketful, I'd be more
interested in that, than I would be in getting even with a mut that
had done me dirt, but it wasn't so. Perhaps it was because I
hadn't paid much attention to money all my life, and I had paid the
strictest attention to the way other people used me. Living where
there's so few folks accounts for that, I suppose.

"Getting even on our esteemed friend the stage driver was right in
your Uncle Reddy's line, and Aggy and our new pard White seemed to
take kindly to it, also.

"If ever you saw three faces filled with innocent glee, it was when
we heard the wheels of that stage coming--why, the night before I
was woke up by somebody laughing. There was Aggy sound asleep,
sitting up hugging himself in the moonlight.

"'Oh, my! Oh, MY!' says he. 'It's the only ford for four thousand
miles!'

"We planted a sign in the middle of the road with this wording on
it in big letters, made with the black end of a stick.

NOTICE!!

THIS AND ADJOINING CLAIMS ARE THE
PROPERTY OF AGAMEMNON G. JONES,
RED SAUNDERS, JOHN HENRY WHITE,
ET AL.

TRESPASSING DONE AT YOUR OWN
RISK. OWNERS WILL NOT BE RESPONSIBLE
FOR THE REMAINS.

"There was a stretch of about a mile on the level before us. When
the stage come in plain sight Aggy proceeds to load up 'Old Moral
Suasion,' as he called her, so that the folks could see there was
no attempt at deception. They come pretty fairly slow after that.
At fifty yards, Ag hollers 'Halt!' The team sat right down on
their tails.

"'Now, Mr. Snick'umfritz,' says Aggy, 'you that drives, I mean,
come here and read this little sign.'

"'Suppose I don't?' says the feller, trying to be smart before the
passengers.

"'It'