The two men moved up beside the stage, one covering the driver and a passenger on top, the other threatening the two inside. The fat lady sat with her arms folded glaring at the bandit. The little old gentleman's hands touched the top of the stage.

"Stick 'em up!" said the bandit to the fat lady.

She did not move.

"Sure an' I'll not stick 'em up an inch fer the loikes o' yese," she shrilled; "an' lucky it is for ye, ye dhirty spalpeen, that Mary Donovan hasn't the bit ov a gun with her-or that there ain't a man along to protect a poor, helpless widdy lady," and she cast a withering glance of scorn in the direction of the little old gentleman, who grew visibly red through the tan of his weather-worn countenance.

The other bandit stepped to the hub of the front wheel, seized the messenger's bag and stepped down again.

"Don't move, or look back, for five minutes," he admonished them, "then pull yer freight."

The two then backed away up the road behind the stage, keeping it covered with their guns. The messenger lay in the road moaning.

The fat lady unfolded her arms, opened the door and stepped out. "Get back there, you!" called one of the bandits.

"Go to the divil!" retorted Mary Donovan, as she stooped beside the wounded messenger.

The man opened his eyes and looked about, then he essayed to rise and with Mary Donovan's help came to his feet. "Jest a scratch, me b'y," she said in a motherly tone as she helped him to the stage. "Ye'll be all right the mornin'. Git a move on ye inside there, ye ould woman with the artillery," she yelled at the little old gentleman, "an' give this b'y a hand in."

Together they helped the wounded man to a seat.

The bandits were still in sight, but they had not molested her-doubtless because she was a woman and unarmed; but no more had she deposited the messenger upon the seat than she turned upon the old man and wrenched one of his guns from its holster.

"Drive like the divil, Bill," she cried to the driver, sticking her head out of the window, and as he whipped up his team she turned back toward the two bandits and opened fire on them. They returned the fire, and the fusillade continued until the stage disappeared in a cloud of dust around a curve below the gap, the old gentleman and the passenger on top now taking part in the shooting.

Chapter III - SUSPICIONS

AS THE stage swirled through the dusty street of Hendersville an hour later and drew up before The Donovan House the loiterers about the hotel and the saloons gathered about it for the news and the gossip from the outer world. Gum Smith, sheriff, was among them.

"Stuck up again, Gum, at the gap," the driver called to him. "They bored Mack."

Mary Donovan and the little old gentleman were assisting the messenger from the stage, though he protested that he was all right and required no assistance. As the woman's eyes alighted upon the sheriff, she turned upon him, her arms akimbo.

"Sure, yese a fine spicimin uv a sheriff, Gum Smith, that ye are-not!" she yelled in a voice that could be heard the length of the single street. "Three holdups in the two months right under yer nose, and all ye do is 'depatize' an' 'depatize' an' 'depatize.' Why don't ye git out an' git 'em-ye ould woman," she concluded scornfully, and then turned to the wounded man, her voice instantly as soft as a lullaby.

"Get inside wid ye, ye poor b'y, an' Mary Donovan'll be after makin' ye comfortable 'til we get hould uv the ould saw-bones, if he's sober, which he ain't, or I'm no lady, which I am. Come on now, aisy like, there's a good b'y," and she put a motherly arm about the lad and helped him to the porch of the hotel, just as Diana Henders appeared from the interior, attracted by the sounds from without.

"Oh, Mrs. Donovan!" she exclaimed. "What has happened? Why, it's Mack! The Black Coyote again?" she guessed quickly.

"Shure an' it was none other. I seen him wid me own eyes-the black silk handkerchief about the neck uv him an' another over his ugly face. An' his pardner-sure now I couldn't be mishtaken wid the rollin' walk uv him-if it wasn't that dhirty greaser, Gregorio, me name's not Mary Donovan, which it is."

Together the two women helped the messenger into a bedroom where Mary Donovan, despite the embarrassed protests of her patient, undressed him and put him to bed while Diana Henders went to the kitchen for hot water and cloths.

Mack had an ugly flesh wound in his side, and this they had cleansed as best they could by the time the doctor arrived-a drink-broken old man who had drifted in from the East. His knowledge and skill were of the first rank and Hendersville boasted that it owned the best doctor in the Territory-when he was sober.

In Gum's Place-Liquors and Cigars-the male population was listening to the account of the holdup as expounded by the little old gentleman and the other passenger, the latter being a stranger in the community.

It was he who had the floor at the moment.

"I never laughed so much in my life," he averred, "as when the old woman calls the old man here the 'ould woman with the artillery.'"

The little old gentleman was standing at the bar with a glass of whiskey in his hand. Apparently with a single movement, so swift was he, he dashed the glass and its contents in the face of the stranger, whipped out both guns and commenced shooting.

A stream of lurid profanity accompanied his act, yet through the flood of incoherent obscenity the nub of an idea occasionally appeared, which was to the effect that "no blankety, blank tin-horn could git gay with Wildcat Bob." Almost instantly, as if a magician had waved his wand, the room, that had been comfortably filled with men, became deserted, as far as human eye could discern, except for the little old gentleman with the tobacco-dewed whiskers.

The front door had accommodated some, while heavy pieces of furniture and the bar accounted for the rest-all but the stranger with the ill-directed sense of humor. He had gone through the back window and taken the sash with him.

The shooting over, the company reappeared, grinning. Most of them knew Wildcat Bob. It had been the stranger's misfortune that he had not.

"I'd orter 'a' bored him, the dinged pole-cat," growled the little old gentleman, filling a fresh glass; "but I guess I larnt him his lesson. The idear of him a-speakin' of Mrs. Donovan disrespectful-like like that-callin' her the 'old woman'! Why, she's the finest lady ever drew breath.

"An' says she to me, says she, Mister Bob, says she, 'It's such a relief to have a man like you along when there's danger,' says she, but she can't stand bloodshed, bein' that timid and shrinkin' and she begged me not to start shootin' at the varmints, otherwise than which I shore would of messed them up somethin' awful," interspersed with which were quite two oaths or obscenities to each word.

The shooting over and quiet restored, Gum Smith made his belated appearance. At sight of the little old gentleman he smiled affably.

"Dog-gone my hide if it ain't Bob," he exclaimed, crossing the room with extended hand. "Have a drink on the house, Bob."

Wildcat Bob ignored the proffered hand. "I got the dust to cover my own drinks, Mister Sheriff," he replied, "an instid of loafin' around here buyin' drinks why ain't you-all out scoutin' after that there Black Coyote hombre? You're shore a hell of a sheriff, you are, Gum Smith."

"Don't git excited, Bob," urged the sheriff, flushing. "Give a man time. Ah got to git me a posse, ain't Ah? Thet's jest what Ah was allowin' to do right now, an' Ah'll start by depatizin' yo."

"You'll deputize me-hell, you will, Gum Smith," returned the old man with a snort of disgust.