when the job is done, likewise if it comes off successfully and the
bluff works I am to give you twenty dollars more upon our return to
Flagstaff. Don't forget to carry out the plan exactly as we have agreed.
When I spring from the coach waving my pistol and firing blank
cartridges, one of you is to shout, 'Fighting Harrison, by God!' and
shoot two or three times as you run. The thing is easy, but requires a
little judgment. I do not care where you stop the stage. Stop it any old
place, but not too near Flagstaff. I shall be alone in the coach with an
old man and two young girls, so there is not the slightest danger, and I
will see that the old man is unarmed."

III.

"Say, Jimmie, I must tell yer something, but let me larf first. Say, I
nearly fell down in a fit. I am going to tell yer all about it, but
don't call me a liar, or I'll kill yer. What do yer think? Oh, Lord, how
my stomach aches!--what _do_ yer think? Wait a minute--I'll tell yer in
a minute, let me larf it out now, or I shall drop down right here!

"Say, I sat in that booth over there having a quiet drink, and what do
yer think? A dude in the next booth commenced putting up a job with four
ducks; one of them is Mexican John and the other is Brady, our assistant
bar-keeper here. As far as I can make it out Brady got the three other
ducks. Say, wait a minute! I don't believe I ever will stop larfin'.
What do yer think? this dude is going up to the Canyon on my next trip,
and is going to have these four fellers stop the stage to put up a
bluff on his girl to show what a fighter he is, and he is to give um
twenty dollars each. He is going to jump out and pull his gun and clean
out the crowd, and then go back and bask in the sunshine and admiration
of the young girls. Oh, Lord! The skunk don't care how much he scares
the girls and the old man who are goin' along, but all he wants is to
pose as a fighter from away back. But say, Jimmie, what do yer think? I
have been thinkin' this thing over, and I don't believe his little
picnic will transpire. He calculates to blow in eighty dollars to make a
monkey of himself, and I am thinkin' that we can use that eighty dollars
in our business and teach the fellow a good lesson all ter wonce. What
breaks me up more than anythin' is that he told Brady to hunt me up and
tell me on the quiet that there was a reformed desperado going with me
who used to be known by the name of 'Fightin' Harrison.' Worked me into
the job t