out what cowards the majority of men are, all you
have to do is rob a passenger train. I don't mean because they don't
resist--I'll tell you later on why they can't do that--but it makes
a man feel sorry for them the way they lose their heads. Big, burly
drummers and farmers and ex-soldiers and high-collared dudes and
sports that, a few moments before, were filling the car with noise and
bragging, get so scared that their ears flop.

There were very few people in the day coaches at that time of night,
so we made a slim haul until we got to the sleeper. The Pullman
conductor met me at one door while Jim was going round to the other
one. He very politely informed me that I could not go into that car,
as it did not belong to the railroad company, and, besides, the
passengers had already been greatly disturbed by the shouting and
firing. Never in all my life have I met with a finer instance of
official dignity and reliance upon the power of Mr. Pullman's great
name. I jabbed my six-shooter so hard against Mr. Conductor's front
that I afterward found one of his vest buttons so firmly wedged in the
end of the barrel that I had to shoot it out. He just shut up like a
weak-springed knife and rolled down the car steps.

I opened the door of the sleeper and stepped inside. A big, fat
old man came wabbling up to me, puffing and blowing. He had one
coat-sleeve on and was trying to put his vest on over that. I don't
know who he thought I was.

"Young man, young man," says he, "you must keep cool and not get
excited. Above everything, keep cool."

"I can't," says I. "Excitement's just eating me up." And then I let
out a yell and turned loose my forty-five through the skylight.

That old man tried to dive into one of the lower berths, but a screech
came out of it and a bare foot that took him in the bread-basket and
landed him on the floor. I saw Jim coming in the other door, and I
hollered for everybody to climb out and line up.

They commenced to scramble down, and for a while we had a three-ringed
circus. The men looked as frightened and tame as a lot of rabbits in
a deep snow. They had on, on an average, about a quarter of a suit of
clothes and one shoe apiece. One chap was sitting on the floor of the
aisle, looking as if he were working a hard sum in arithmetic. He was
trying, very solemn, to pull a lady's number two shoe on his number
nine foot.

The ladies didn't stop to dress. They were so curious to see a real,
live