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.