“‘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’s a horrible supposition,’ says Aggy, and the innocent will have to suffer with the guilty.’  Then he cocks the gun.

“‘God sakes!  Don’t shoot!’ yells one of the passengers.  ’Man, you ought to have more sense than to try and pick him out of a crowd with a shot-gun!  Get down there, you fool, and make it quick!’

“So the driver walked our way, and read.  He never said a word.  I reckon he realized it was the only ford for four thousand miles, more or less, just as Aggy had remarked.  There he stood, with his mouth and eyes wide open.

“’I’d like to have you other gentlemen come up and see our first clean up, so you won’t think we’re running in a windy,’ says Aggy.  They wanted to see bad, as you can imagine, and when they did see about fifteen pound of gold in the bottom of my old hat, they talked like people that hadn’t had a Christian bringing up.

“‘Oh Lord!’ groans one man.  ’Brigham Young and all the prophets of the Mormon religion!  This is my tenth trip over this line, and me and Pete Hendricks played a game of seven-up right on the spot where that gent hit her, not over a month ago, when the stage broke down!  Somebody just make a guess at the way I feel and give me one small drink.’  And he put his hand to his head.  ‘Say, boys!’ he goes on, ’you don’t want the whole blamed creek, do you?  Let us in!’

“‘How’s that, fellers?’ says Ag to me and White.  We said we was agreeable.

“‘All right, in you come!’ says Aggy.  ’There ain’t no hog about our firm—­but as for you,’ says he, walking on his tip-toes up to the driver, ’as for you, you cock-eyed whelp, around you go!  Around you go!’ he hollers, jamming the end of Moral Suasion into the driver’s trap.  ’Oh, and WON’T you go ‘round, though!’ says he.  ’Listen to me, now:  if any one of your ancestors for twenty-four generations back had ever done anything as decent as robbing a hen-coop, it would have conferred a kind of degree of nobility upon him.  It wouldn’t be possible to find an ornerier cuss than you, if a man raked all hell with a fine-toothed comb.  Now, you stare-coated, mangey, bandy-legged, misbegotten, out-law coyote, fly!—­fly!’ whoops Aggy, jumping four foot in the air, ’before I squirt enough lead into your system to make it a paying job to melt you down!’

“The stage driver acted according to orders.  Three wide steps and he was in the waggon, and with one screech like a p’izened bob-cat, he fairly lifted the cayuses over the first ridge.  Nobody never saw him any more, and nobody wanted to.

“So that’s the way I hit my stake, son, just as I’d always expected—­by not knowing what I was doing any part of the time—­and now, there comes my iron-horse coughing up the track!  I’ll write you sure, boy, and you let old Reddy know what’s going on—­and on your life, don’t forget to give it to the lads straight why I sneaked off on the quiet!  I’ve got ten years older in the last six months.  Well, here we go quite fresh, and damned if I altogether want to, neither—­too late to argue though—­by-bye, son!”