“Go on,” said Colonel Clinch quietly.

The man cleared his throat, with the preliminary pose of authorship, and his five friends, to whom the composition was evidently not unfamiliar, assumed anticipatory smiles.

“I call it ‘Prize Pusillanimous Passengers.’  Sort of runs easy off the tongue, you know.

“’It now appears that the success of the late stagecoach robbery near the Summit was largely due to the pusillanimity—­not to use a more serious word’”—­He stopped, and looked explanatorily towards Clinch:  “Ye’ll see in a minit what I’m gettin’ at by that pusillanimity of the passengers themselves.  ’It now transpires that there were only three robbers who attacked the coach, and that although passengers, driver, and express messenger were fully armed, and were double the number of their assailants, not a shot was fired.  We mean no reflections upon the well-known courage of Yuba Bill, nor the experience and coolness of Bracy Tibbetts, the courteous express messenger, both of whom have since confessed to have been more than astonished at the Christian and lamb-like submission of the insiders.  Amusing stories of some laughable yet sickening incidents of the occasion—­such as grown men kneeling in the road, and offering to strip themselves completely, if their lives were only spared; of one of the passengers hiding under the seat, and only being dislodged by pulling his coat-tails; of incredible sums promised, and even offers of menial service, for the preservation of their wretched carcases—­are received with the greatest gusto; but we are in possession of facts which may lead to more serious accusations.  Although one of the passengers is said to have lost a large sum of money intrusted to him, while attempting with barefaced effrontery to establish a rival “carrying” business in one of the Express Company’s own coaches—­’I call that a good point.”  He interrupted himself to allow the unrestrained applause of his own party.  “Don’t you?”

“It’s just h-ll,” said Clinch musingly.

“’Yet the affair,” resumed the stranger from his manuscript, “’is locked up in great and suspicious mystery.  The presence of Jackson N. Stanner, Esq.’ (that’s me), ’special detective agent to the Company, and his staff in town, is a guaranty that the mystery will be thoroughly probed.’  Hed to put that in to please the Company,” he again deprecatingly explained. “’We are indebted to this gentleman for the facts.’”

“The pint you want to make in that article,” said Clinch, rising, but still directing his face and his conversation to the fire, “ez far ez I ken see ez that no three men kin back down six unless they be cowards, or are willing to be backed down.”

“That’s the point what I start from,” rejoined Stanner, “and work up.  I leave it to you ef it ain’t so.”