“I’ve got you now, ——­ you!”

It was all so sudden that Wickersham had not time to think.  It seemed to him like a scene in a play rather than a reality.  He instinctively shortened the reins and pulled up the frightened horses.  Keith seized the reins with one band and snatched at the whip with the other; but it was too late.  Wickersham, hardly conscious of what he was doing, was clutching the reins with all his might, trying to control the leaders, whilst pandemonium broke out inside, cries from the women and oaths from the men.

There was another volley of oaths and another flash, and Wickersham felt a sharp little burn on the arm next Keith.

“Hold on!” he shouted.  “For God’s sake, don’t shoot!  Hold on!  Stop the horses!”

[Illustration:  Sprang over the edge of the road into the thick bushes below.]

At the same moment Keith disappeared over the wheel.  He had fallen or sprung from his seat.

“The ——­ coward!” thought Wickersham.  “He is running.”

The next second there was a report of a pistol close beside the stage, and the man in the road at the horses’ heads fired again.  Another report, and Keith dashed forward into the light of the lantern and charged straight at the robber, who fired once more, and then, when Keith was within ten feet of him, turned and sprang over the edge of the road into the thick bushes below.  Keith sprang straight after him, and the two went crashing through the underbrush, down the steep side of the hill.

The inmates of the stage poured out into the road, all talking together, and Wickersham, with the aid of Jake Dennison, succeeded in quieting the horses.  The noise of the flight and the pursuit had now grown more distant, but once more several shots were heard, deep down in the woods, and then even they ceased.

It had all happened so quickly that the passengers had seen nothing.  They demanded of Wickersham how many robbers there were.  They were divided in their opinion as to the probable outcome.  The men declared that Keith had probably got the robber if he had not been killed himself at the last fire.

Terpsichore was in a passion of rage because the men had not jumped out instantly to Keith’s rescue, and one of them had held her in the stage and prevented her from poking her head out to see the fight.  In the light of the lantern Wickersham observed that she was handsome.  He watched her with interest.  There was something of the tiger in her lithe movement.  She declared that she was going down into the woods herself to find Keith.  She was sure he had been killed.

The men protested against this, and Jake Dennison and another man started to the rescue, whilst a grizzled, weather-beaten fellow caught and held her.

“Why, my darlint, I couldn’t let you go down there.  Why, you’d ruin your new bonnet,” he said.

The young woman snatched the bonnet from her head and slung it in his face.