derness, he chanced to turn his head,
and looked straight into the clear, blue-gray eyes of a girl across
the aisle. Thurston considered himself immune from blue-gray--or any
other-eyes, so that he permitted himself to regard her calmly and
judicially, his mind reverting to the fact that he would need a heroine
to be kidnapped, and wondering if she would do. She was a Western girl,
he could tell that by the tan and by her various little departures from
the Eastern styles--such as doing her hair low rather than high. Where
he had been used to seeing the hair of woman piled high and skewered
with many pins, hers was brushed smoothly back-smoothly save for little,
irresponsible waves here and there. Thurston decided that the style was
becoming to her. He wondered if the fellow beside her were her brother;
and then reminded himself sagely that brothers do not, as a rule, devote
their time quite so assiduously to the entertainment of their sisters.
He could not stare at her forever, and so he gave over his speculations
and went back to the prairies.

Another hour, and Thurston was stiffing a yawn when the coaches bumped
sharply together and, with wheels screeching protest as the brakes
clutched them, the train, grinding protest in every joint, came, with a
final heavy jar, to a dead stop. Thurston thought it was a wreck, until
out ahead came the sharp crackling of rifles. A passenger behind him
leaned out of the window and a bullet shattered the glass above his
head; he drew back hastily.

Some one hurried through the front vestibule, the door was pushed
unceremoniously open and a man--a giant, he seemed to Thurston--stopped
just inside, glared down the length of the coach through slits in the
black cloth over his face and bawled, "Hands up!"

Thurston was so utterly surprised that his hands jerked themselves
involuntarily above his head, though he did not feel particularly
frightened; he was filled with a stupefied sort of curiosity to know
what would come next. The coach, so far as he could see, seemed filled
with uplifted, trembling hands, so that he did not feel ashamed of his
own. The man behind him put up his hands with the other--but one of them
held a revolver that barked savagely and unexpectedly close against the
car of Thurston. Thurston ducked. There was an echo from the front, and
the man behind, who risked so much on one shot, lurched into the aisle,
swaying uncertainly between the seats. He of the mask fired