Wolfville Days Part 31

drafts. Later they aims at some op'rations on the express company's box.

"But they never gets to the box. Thar's the lively tones of a Winchester which starts the canyon's echoes to talkin'. That rifle ain't forty foot away, an' it speaks three times before ever you- all, son, could snap your fingers. An' that weepon don't make them observations in vain. It ain't firin' no salootes. Quick as is the work, the sights shifts to a new target every time. At the last, all three hold-ups lays kickin' an' jumpin' like chickens that a-way, two is dead an' the other is too hard hit to respond.

"Whoever does it? Jack Moore, he's that one shiverin' pa.s.senger that time. He slides outen the stage as soon as ever it turns the angle of the canyon, an' comes scoutin' an' crawlin' back on his prey. An'

I might add, it sh.o.r.e soothes Jack's vanity a lot, when the first remainder shows down as that artless maverick, Davis. Jack lights a pine splinter an' looks him over-pale an' dead an' done.

"'Which you-all is the victim of over-play,' says Jack to this yere Davis, same as if he hears him, 'If you never asks to see my gun that time, it's even money my suspicions concernin' you might be sleepin' yet.'"