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Ranson in his then present mood was inclined toward pessimism. “It doesn’t take any nerve to hold up a coach,” he contradicted.

Curtis and Crosby snorted in chorus. “That’s what you say,” mocked Curtis.

“Well, it doesn’t,” repeated Ranson. “It’s all a game of bluff. The etiquette is that the driver mustn’t shoot the road-agent, and that the road-agent mustn’t hurt the driver, and the passengers are too scared to move. The moment they see a man rise out of the night they throw up their hands. Why, even when a passenger does try to pull his gun the others won’t let him. Each thinks sure that if there’s any firing he will be the one to get hurt. And, besides, they don’t know how many more men the road agent may have behind him. I don’t—“

A movement on the part of Miss Cahill caused him to pause abruptly. Miss Cahill had descended from her throne and was advancing to meet the post-trader, who came toward her from the exchange.

“Lightfoot’s squaw,” he said. “Her baby’s worse. She’s sent for you.”

Miss Cahill gave a gasp of sympathy, snatched up her hat from the counter, and the buffalo robes closed behind her.

Ranson stooped and reached for his sombrero. With the flight of Miss Cahill his interest in the courage of the Red Rider had departed also.

But Crosby appealed to the new-comer, “Cahill, YOU know,” he said. “We’ve been talking of the man they call the Red Rider, the chap that wears a red bandanna over his face. Ranson says he hasn’t any nerve. That’s not so, is it?”

“I said it didn’t take any nerve to hold up a stage,” said Ranson; “and it doesn’t.”

The post-trader halted on his way back to the exchange and rubbed one hand meditatively over the other arm. With him speech was golden and difficult. After a pause he said: “Oh, he takes his chances.”

“Of course he does,” cried Crosby, encouragingly. “He takes the chance of being shot by the passengers, and of being caught by the posse and lynched, but this man’s got away with it now six times in the last year. And I say that takes nerve.”

“Why, for fifty dollars—” laughed Ranson.

He checked himself, and glanced over his shoulder at the retreating figure of Cahill. The buffalo robes fell again, and the spurs of the post-trader could be heard jangling over the earth-floor of the exchange.

“For fifty dollars,” repeated Ranson, in brisk, businesslike tones, “I’ll rob the up stage to-night myself!”

Previous knowledge of his moods, the sudden look of mischief in his eyes and a certain vibration in his voice caused the two lieutenants to jump simultaneously to their feet. “Ranson!” they shouted.

Ranson laughed mockingly. “Oh, I’m bored to death,” he cried. “What will you bet I don’t?”

He had risen with them, but, without waiting for their answer, ran to where his horse stood at the open door. He sank on his knees and began tugging violently at the stirrup-straps. The two officers, their eyes filled with concern, pursued him across the room. With Cahill twenty feet away, they dared not raise their voices, but in pantomime they beckoned him vigorously to return. Ranson came at once, flushed and smiling, holding a hooded army-stirrup in each hand. “Never do to have them see these!” he said. He threw the stirrups from him, behind the row of hogsheads. “I’ll ride in the stirrup-straps!” He still spoke in the same low, brisk tone.

Crosby seized him savagely by the arm. “No, you won’t!” he hissed. “Look here, Ranson. Listen to me; for Heaven’s sake don’t be an ass! They’ll shoot you, you’ll be killed—“

–“And court-martialed,” panted Curtis.

“You’ll go to Leavenworth for the rest of your life!”

Ranson threw off the detaining hand, and ran behind the counter. From a lower shelf he snatched a red bandanna kerchief. From another he dragged a rubber poncho, and buttoned it high about his throat. He picked up the steel shears which lay upon the counter, and snipping two holes in the red kerchief, stuck it under the brim of his sombrero. It fell before his face like a curtain. From his neck to his knees the poncho concealed his figure. All that was visible of him was his eyes, laughing through the holes in the red mask.