ee 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, Jose. It's
what they call a sinecure," Alan was saying at the very instant the
summons came.

"Throw up your hands!"

Sharp and crisp it fell on Alan's ears. He sat for a moment stunned, the
half-rolled cigarette still between his fingers. The driver drew up his
four horses with a jerk and brought them to a huddled halt.

"Hands up!" came again the stinging imperative.

Now, for the first time, it reached Alan's consciousness that the stage
was actually being held up. He saw the sun shinin