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“But how did you know this?” interrupted Brice, in wonder.

“They forgot one thing,” continued Snapshot Harry grimly. “They forgot that half an hour before and half an hour after a stage is stopped we have that road patrolled, every foot of it. While I was opening the box in the brush, the two fools, sneaking along the road, came slap upon one of my patrols, and then tried to run for it. One was dropped, but before he was plugged full of holes and hung up on a tree, he confessed, and said the other man who escaped had the greenbacks.”

Brice’s face fell. “Then they are lost,” he said bitterly.

“Not unless he eats them–as he may want to do before I’m done on him, for he must either starve or come out. That road is still watched by my men from Tarbox’s cabin to the bridge. He’s there somewhere, and can’t get forward or backward. Look!” he said, rising and going to the door. “That road,” he pointed to the stage road,–a narrow ledge flanked on one side by a precipitous mountain wall, and on the other by an equally precipitate descent,–“is his limit and tether, and he can’t escape on either side.”

“But the trail?”

“There is but one entrance to it,–the way you came, and that is guarded too. From the time you entered it until you reached the bottom, you were signaled here from point to point! HE would have been dropped! I merely gave YOU a hint of what might have happened to you, if you were up to any little game! You took it like a white man. Come, now! What is your business?”

Thus challenged, Brice plunged with youthful hopefulness into his plan; if, as he voiced it, it seemed to him a little extravagant, he was buoyed up by the frankness of the highwayman, who also had treated the double robbery with a levity that seemed almost as extravagant. He suggested that they should work together to recover the money; that the express company should know that the unprecedented stealthy introduction of robbers in the guise of passengers was not Snapshot Harry’s method, and he repudiated it as unmanly and unsportsmanlike; and that, by using his superior skill and knowledge of the locality to recover the money and deliver the culprit into the company’s hands, he would not only earn the reward that they should offer, but that he would evoke a sentiment that all Californians would understand and respect. The highwayman listened with a tolerant smile, but, to Brice’s surprise, this appeal to his vanity touched him less than the prospective punishment of the thief.

“It would serve the d—-d hound right,” he muttered, “if, instead of being shot like a man, he was made to ‘do time’ in prison, like the ordinary sneak thief that he is.” When Brice had concluded, he said briefly, “The only trouble with your plans, my young friend, is that about twenty-five men have got to consider them, and have THEIR say about it. Every man in my gang is a shareholder in these greenbacks, for I work on the square; and it’s for him to say whether he’ll give them up for a reward and the good opinion of the express company. Perhaps,” he went on, with a peculiar smile, “it’s just as well that you tried it on me first! However, I’ll sound the boys, and see what comes of it, but not until you’re safe off the premises.”

“And you’ll let me assist you?” said Brice eagerly.

Snapshot Harry smiled again. “Well, if you come across the d—-d thief, and you recognize him and can get the greenbacks from him, I’ll pass over the game to you.” He rose and added, apparently by way of farewell, “Perhaps it’s just as well that I should give you a guide part of the way to prevent accidents.” He went to a door leading to an adjoining room, and called “Flo!”