ate to be messing the job like you--holding up the wrong
train by mistake." This was a shot in the dark, and it did not quite
hit the bull's-eye. "I wouldn't trust you boys to rob a hen-roost,
the amateur way you go at it. When you get through, you'll all go to
drinking like blue blotters. I know your kind--hell-bent to spend what
you cash in, and every mother's son of you in the pen or with his toes
turned up inside of a month."

"Who'll put us there?" gruffly demanded the bowlegged one.

Collins smiled at him with confidence superb "Mebbe I will--and if I
don't Bucky O'Connor will--those of you that are left alive when you
go through shooting each other in the back. Oh, I see your finish to a
fare-you-well."

"Cheese it, or I'll bump you off." The first out law drove his gun into
the sheriff's ribs.

"That's all right. You don't need to punctuate that remark. I line up
with the sky-pilot and chew the cud of silence. I merely wanted to frame
up to you how this thing's going to turn out. Don't come back at me and
say I didn't warn you, sonnie."

"You make my head ache," snarled the bandy-legged outlaw sourly, as he
passed down with his sack, accumulating tribute as he passed down the
aisle with his sack, accumulating tribute as he went.

The red-kerchiefed robber whooped when they came to the car conductor.
"Dig up, Mr. Pullman. Go way down into your jeans. It's a right smart
pleasure to divert the plunder of your bloated corporation back to the
people. What! Only fifty-seven dollars. Oh, dig deeper, Mr. Pullman."

The drummer contributed to the sack eighty-four dollars, a diamond ring,
and a gold watch. His hands were trembling so that they played a tattoo
on the sloping ceiling above him.

"What's the matter, Fatty? Got a chill?" inquired one of the robbers, as
he deftly swept the plunder into the sack.

"For--God's sake--don't shoot. I have--a wife--and five children," he
stammered, with chattering teeth.

"No race suicide for Fatty. But whyfor do they let a sick man like you
travel all by his lone?"

"I don't know--I--Please turn that weapon another way."

"Plumb chuck full of malaria," soliloquized the owner of the weapon,
playfully running its business end over the Chicago man's anatomy.
"Shakes worse'n a pair of dice. Here, Fatty. Load up with quinine and
whisky. It's sure good for chills." The man behind the bandanna gravely
handed his victim back a dollar. "Write me if it cures you. Now for the
s