ded.

"Keep still, or I'll shoot you full of holes," growled the autocrat of
the artillery.

"Why, sure! Ain't you the real thing in Jesse Jameses?" soothed the
sheriff.

At the sound of Collins' voice, the masked man had started perceptibly,
and his right hand had jumped forward an inch or two to cover the
speaker more definitely. Thereafter, no matter what else engaged his
attention, the gleaming eyes behind the red bandanna never wandered
for a moment from the big plainsman. He was taking no risks, for he
remembered the saying current in Arizona, that after Collins' hardware
got into action there was nothing left to do but plant the deceased and
collect the insurance. He had personal reasons to know the fundamental
accuracy of the colloquialism.

The train-conductor fussed up to the masked outlaw with a ludicrous
attempt at authority. "You can't rob the passengers on this train. I'm
not responsible for the express-car, but the coaches--"

A bullet almost grazed his ear and shattered a window on its way to the
desert.

"Drift, you red-haired son of a Mexican?" ordered the man behind the
red bandanna. "Git back to that seat real prompt. This here's taxation
without representation."

The conductor drifted as per suggestion.

The minutes ticked themselves away in a tense strain marked by pounding
hearts. The outlaw stood at the end of the aisle, watching the sheriff
alertly.

"Why doesn't the music begin?" volunteered Collins, by way of
conversation, and quoted: "On with the dance. Let joy be unconfined."

A dull explosion answered his question. The bandits were blowing open
the safe in the express-car with dynamite, pending which the looting of
the passengers was at a standstill.

A second masked figure joined his companion at the end of the passage
and held a hurried conversation with him. Fragments of their low-voiced
talk came to Collins.

"Only thirty thousand in the express-car. Not a red cent on the old man
himself."

"Where's the rest?" The irritation in the newcomer's voice was
pronounced.

Collins slewed his head and raked him with keen eyes that missed not
a detail. He was certain that he had never seen the man before, yet
he knew at once that the trim, wiry figure, so clean of build and so
gallant of bearing, could belong only to Wolf Leroy, the most ruthless
outlaw of the Southwest. It was written in his jaunty insolence, in the
flashing eyes. He was a handsome fellow, white-toothed, blac