When we came up to the five, I called to them that I had agreed to surrender the letters.  While I was saying it, Miss Cullen joined them, and it was curious to see how respectfully the cowboys took off their hats and fell back.

“You are quite right,” Mr. Cullen called.  “Give them the letters at once.”

“Oh, do, Mr. Gordon,” said Madge, still white and breathless with emotion.  “The money is nothing.  Don’t think—­” It was all she could say.

I felt pretty small, but with Camp and Baldwin, now reinforced by Judge Wilson, I went to the station, ordered the agent to open the safe, took out the three letters, and handed them to Mr. Camp, realizing how poor Madge must have felt on Hance’s trail.  It was a pretty big take down to my pride I tell you, and made all the worse by the way the three gloated over the letters and over our defeat.

“We’ve taught you a lesson, young man,” sneered Camp, as after opening the envelopes, to assure himself that the proxies were all right, he tucked them into his pocket.  “And we’ll teach you another one after to-day’s election.”

Just as he concluded, we heard outside the first note of a bugle, and as it sounded “By fours, column left,” my heart gave a big jump, and the blood came rushing to my face.  Camp, Baldwin, and Wilson broke for the door, but I got there first, and prevented their escape.  They tried to force their way through, but I hadn’t blocked and interfered at football for nothing, and they might as well have tried to break through the Sierras.  Discovering this, Camp whipped out his gun, and told me to let them out.  Being used to the West, I recognized the goodness of the argument and stepped out on the platform, giving them free passage.  But the twenty seconds I had delayed them had cooked their goose, for outside was a squadron of cavalry swinging a circle round the station; and we had barely reached the platform when the bugle sounded “Halt,” quickly followed by “Forward left.”  As the ranks wheeled, and closed up as a solid line about us, I could have cheered with delight.  There was a moment’s dramatic hush, in which we could all hear the breathing of the winded horses, and then came the clatter of sword and spurs, as an officer sprang from his saddle.

“I want Richard Gordon,” the officer called.

I responded, “At your service, and badly in need of yours, Captain Singer.”

“Hope the delay hasn’t spoilt things,” said the captain.  “We had a cursed fool of a guide, who took the wrong trail and ran us into Limestone Canon, where we had to camp for the night.”

I explained the situation as quickly as I could, and the captain’s eyes gleamed.  “I’d have given a bad quarter to have got here ten minutes sooner and ridden my men over those scoundrels,” he muttered.  “I saw them scatter as we rode up, and if I’d known what they’d been doing we’d have given them a volley.”  Then he walked over to Mr. Camp and said, “Give me those letters.”