eak all over.
I would have worked a whole year on the ranch for nothing to have
been out of that affair right then. Some of the nerviest men in the
business have told me that they felt the same way the first time.

The engine had hardly stopped when I jumped on the running-board on
one side, while Jim mounted the other. As soon as the engineer and
fireman saw our guns they threw up their hands without being told, and
begged us not to shoot, saying they would do anything we wanted them
to.

"Hit the ground," I ordered, and they both jumped off. We drove them
before us down the side of the train. While this was happening, Tom
and Ike had been blazing away, one on each side of the train, yelling
like Apaches, so as to keep the passengers herded in the cars. Some
fellow stuck a little twenty-two calibre out one of the coach windows
and fired it straight up in the air. I let drive and smashed the glass
just over his head. That settled everything like resistance from that
direction.

By this time all my nervousness was gone. I felt a kind of pleasant
excitement as if I were at a dance or a frolic of some sort. The
lights were all out in the coaches, and, as Tom and Ike gradually quit
firing and yelling, it got to be almost as still as a graveyard. I
remember hearing a little bird chirping in a bush at the side of the
track, as if it were complaining at being waked up.

I made the fireman get a lantern, and then I went to the express car
and yelled to the messenger to open up or get perforated. He slid the
door back and stood in it with his hands up. "Jump overboard, son," I
said, and he hit the dirt like a lump of lead. There were two safes
in the car--a big one and a little one. By the way, I first located
the messenger's arsenal--a double-barrelled shot-gun with buckshot
cartridges and a thirty-eight in a drawer. I drew the cartridges from
the shot-gun, pocketed the pistol, and called the messenger inside. I
shoved my gun against his nose and put him to work. He couldn't open
the big safe, but he did the little one. There was only nine hundred
dollars in it. That was mighty small winnings for our trouble, so we
decided to go through the passengers. We took our prisoners to the
smoking-car, and from there sent the engineer through the train to
light up the coaches. Beginning with the first one, we placed a man at
each door and ordered the passengers to stand between the seats with
their hands up.

If you want to find