I put them above my head again.

Another pause.

Are you going to hand out your money or not?  Ah-ah—­again?  Put up your hands!  By George, you want the head shot off you awful bad!”

“Well, friend, I’m trying my best to please you.  You tell me to give up my money, and when I reach for it you tell me to put up my hands.  If you would only—.  Oh, now—­don’t!  All six of you at me!  That other man will get away while.—­Now please take some of those revolvers out of my face—­do, if you please!  Every time one of them clicks, my liver comes up into my throat!  If you have a mother—­any of you—­or if any of you have ever had a mother—­or a—­grandmother—­or a—­”

“Cheese it!  Will you give up your money, or have we got to—.  There —­there—­none of that!  Put up your hands!”

“Gentlemen—­I know you are gentlemen by your—­”

“Silence!  If you want to be facetious, young man, there are times and places more fitting.  This is a serious business.”

“You prick the marrow of my opinion.  The funerals I have attended in my time were comedies compared to it.  Now I think—­”

“Curse your palaver!  Your money!—­your money!—­your money!  Hold!—­put up your hands!”

“Gentlemen, listen to reason.  You see how I am situated—­now don’t put those pistols so close—­I smell the powder.

“You see how I am situated.  If I had four hands—­so that I could hold up two and—­”

“Throttle him!  Gag him!  Kill him!”

“Gentlemen, don’t!  Nobody’s watching the other fellow.  Why don’t some of you—.  Ouch!  Take it away, please!

“Gentlemen, you see that I’ve got to hold up my hands; and so I can’t take out my money—­but if you’ll be so kind as to take it out for me, I will do as much for you some—­”

“Search him Beauregard—­and stop his jaw with a bullet, quick, if he wags it again.  Help Beauregard, Stonewall.”

Then three of them, with the small, spry leader, adjourned to Mike and fell to searching him.  I was so excited that my lawless fancy tortured me to ask my two men all manner of facetious questions about their rebel brother-generals of the South, but, considering the order they had received, it was but common prudence to keep still.  When everything had been taken from me,—­watch, money, and a multitude of trifles of small value,—­I supposed I was free, and forthwith put my cold hands into my empty pockets and began an inoffensive jig to warm my feet and stir up some latent courage—­but instantly all pistols were at my head, and the order came again: 

They stood Mike up alongside of me, with strict orders to keep his hands above his head, too, and then the chief highwayman said: 

“Beauregard, hide behind that boulder; Phil Sheridan, you hide behind that other one; Stonewall Jackson, put yourself behind that sage-bush there.  Keep your pistols bearing on these fellows, and if they take down their hands within ten minutes, or move a single peg, let them have it!”