eh?” he said hoarsely. “You had your ears trained on us yesterday, in the Pullman, and now you are at it again. I’ve a notion to knock your damned head off!”
Taylor’s eyelids flickered once, the little wrinkles at the corners of his eyes deepening a trifle. But his gaze was steady, and the blue of his eyes grew a trifle more steely.
“You’ve got a bigger notion not to, Mr. Man,” he grinned. “You run a whole lot to talk.”
He sat down, twisted around in the chair and faced the table, casting a humorous eye at the black waiter, and ignoring Carrington.
“I’ll want a passable breakfast this morning, George,” he said; “I’m powerful hungry.”
He did not turn when Carrington went out, followed by Parsons.
The waiter hovered near him, grinning widely.
“I reckon you-all ain’t none scary, boss!” he said, admiringly.
CHAPTER IV—THE HOLD-UP
After breakfast—leaving a widely grinning waiter, who watched him admiringly—Taylor reentered the Pullman.
Stretching out in the upholstered seat, Taylor watched the flying landscape. But his thoughts were upon the two men he had overheard talking about the girl in the diner. Taylor made a grimace of disgust at the great world through which the train was speeding; and his feline grin when his thoughts dwelt definitely upon Carrington, indicated that the genial waiter had not erred greatly in saying Taylor was not “scary.”
Upon entering, Taylor had flashed a rapid glance into the car. He had seen Carrington and Parsons sitting together in one of the seats and, farther down, the girl, leaning back, was looking out of the window. Her back was toward Taylor. She had not seen him enter the car—and he was certain she had not seen him leave it to go to the diner. He had thought—as he had glanced at her as he went into the smoking compartment—that, despite the girl’s seemingly affectionate manner toward Parsons, and her cordial treatment of the big man, her manner indicated the presence of a certain restraint. And as he looked toward her, he wondered if Parsons or the big man had told her anything of the conversation in the diner in which he himself figured.
And now, looking out of the window, he decided that even if the men had told her, she would not betray her knowledge to him—unless it were to give him another scornful glance—the kind she threw at him when she saw him as he sat behind the two men when they had been talking of Dawes. Taylor reddened and gritted his teeth impotently; for he knew that if the two men had told her anything, they would have informed her, merely, that they had again caught him listening to them. And for that double offense, Taylor knew there would be no pardon from her.
Half an hour later, while still thinking of the girl and the men, Taylor felt the train slowing down. Peering as far ahead as he could by pressing his face against the glass of the window, Taylor saw the train was entering a big cut between some hills. It was a wild section, with a heavy growth of timber skirting the hills—on Taylor’s side of the train—and running at a sharp angle toward the right-of-way came a small river.
Taylor recognized the place as Toban’s Siding. He did not know how the spot had come by its name; nor did he know much about it except that there was a spur of track and a water-tank. And when the train began to slow down he supposed the engineer had decided to stop to take on water. He found himself wondering, though, why that should be necessary, for he was certain the train had stopped for water a few miles back, while he had been in the dining-car.
The train was already late, and Taylor grinned as he settled farther back in the seat and drew a sigh of resignation. There was no accounting for the whims of an engineer, he supposed.
He felt the train come to a jerking stop; and then fell a silence. An instant later the silence was broken by two sharp reports, a distinct interval between them. Taylor sat erect, the smile leaving his face, and his lips setting grimly as the word “Hold-up” came from between them.
Marion Harlan also heard the two reports. Stories of train robberies—recollections of travelers’ tales recurred in her brain as she sat, for the first tense instant following the reports, listening for other sounds. Her face grew a little pale, and a tremor ran over her; but she did not feel a bit like screaming—though in all the stories she had ever read, women always yielded to the hysteria of that moment in which a train-robber makes his presence known.
She was not frightened, though she was just a trifle nervous, and more than a trifle curious. So she pressed her cheek against the window-glass and looked forward.
What she saw caused her to draw back again, her curiosity satisfied. For on the side of the cut near the engine, she had seen a man with a rifle—a masked man, tall and rough-looking—and it seemed to her that the weapon in his hands was menacing someone in the engine-cab.
She stiffened, looking quickly around the car. None of the passengers had moved. Carrington and Parsons were still sitting together in the seat. They were sitting erect, though, and she saw they, too, were curious. More, she saw that both men were pale, and that Carrington, the instant she turned, became active—bending over, apparently trying to hide something under a seat. That movement on Carrington’s part was convincing, and the girl drew a deep breath.
While she was debating the wisdom of permitting her curiosity to drive her to the door nearest her to determine what had happened, the door burst open and a masked man appeared in the opening!
While she stared at him, he uttered the short, terse command:
“Hands up!”
She supposed that meant her, as well as the men in the car, and she complied, though with a resentful glare at the mask.
Daringly she turned her head and glanced back. Carrington had his hands up, too; and Parsons—and the tourist, and the other man. She did not see Taylor—though she wondered, on the instant, if he, too, would obey the train-robber’s command.
She decided he would—any other course would have been foolhardy; though she could not help remembering that queer gleam in Taylor’s eyes. That gleam, it had seemed to her, was a reflection of—not foolhardiness, but of sheer courage.
However, she had little time to speculate. The masked man advanced, a heavy gun in his right hand, its muzzle moving from side to side, menacing them all.
He halted when he had advanced to within a step of the girl.
“You guys set tight!” he ordered gruffly—in the manner of the train-robber of romance. “If you go to lettin’ down your sky-hooks one little quiver, I bore you so fast an’ plenty that you’ll think you’re a colander!” Then he turned the mask toward the girl; she could feel his eyes burning through it.
“Shell out, lady!” he commanded.
She stared straight back at the eye-slits in the mask, defiance glinting her own eyes.
“I haven’t any money—or anything of value—to give you,” she returned.
“You’ve got a pocketbook there—in your hand!” he said. “Fork it over!” He removed his hat, held it in his
