with her maid and fell over him.  The maid screamed.  Miss Post said:  “I beg your pardon”; and the brave expressed his contempt by gutteral mutterings and by moving haughtily away.  Miss Post was then glad that she had not gone to Aiken.  For the twelve-mile drive through the moonlit buttes to Fort Crockett there was, besides the women, one other passenger.  He was a travelling salesman of the Hancock Uniform Company, and was visiting Fort Crockett to measure the officers for their summer tunics.  At dinner he passed Miss Post the condensed milk-can, and in other ways made himself agreeable.  He informed her aunt that he was in the Military Equipment Department of the Army, but, much to that young woman’s distress, addressed most of his remarks to the maid, who, to his taste, was the most attractive of the three.

“I take it,” he said genially to Miss Post, “that you and the young lady are sisters.”

“No,” said Miss Post, “we are not related.”

It was eight o’clock, and the moon was full in the heavens when “Pop” Henderson hoisted them into the stage and burdened his driver, Hunk Smith, with words of advice which were intended solely for the ears of the passengers.

“You want to be careful of that near wheeler, Hunk,” he said, “or he’ll upset you into a gully.  An’ in crossing the second ford, bear to the right; the water’s running high, and it may carry youse all down stream.  I don’t want that these ladies should be drowned in any stage of mine.  An’ if the Red Rider jumps you don’t put up no bluff, but sit still.  The paymaster’s due in a night or two, an’ I’ve no doubt at all but that the Rider’s laying for him.  But if you tell him that there’s no one inside but womenfolk and a tailor, mebbe he won’t hurt youse.  Now, ladies,” he added, putting his head under the leather flap, as though unconscious that all he had said had already reached them, “without wishing to make you uneasy, I would advise your having your cash and jewelry ready in your hands.  With road-agents it’s mostly wisest to do what they say, an’ to do it quick.  Ef you give ’em all you’ve got, they sometimes go away without spilling blood, though, such being their habits, naturally disappointed.”  He turned his face toward the shrinking figure of the military tailor.  “You, being an army man,” he said, “will of course want to protect the ladies, but you mustn’t do it.  You must keep cool.  Ef you pull your gun, like as not you’ll all get killed.  But I’m hoping for the best.  Good-night all, an’ a pleasant journey.”

The stage moved off with many creaks and many cracks of the whip, which in part smothered Hunk Smith’s laughter.  But after the first mile, he, being a man with feelings and a family, pulled the mules to a halt.

The voice of the drummer could instantly be heard calling loudly from the darkness of the stage:  “Don’t open those flaps.  If they see us, they’ll fire!”