"What is it, then?" quavered Mrs. Mann from the other side of the stage.
She could not see Smith, and the desolation of their surroundings set her fancy at work stationing dusty cowboy bandits behind each riven, lowering stone.
"Oh, I _hope_ it's robbers!" said June, bouncing up and down in her seat. "That would be just fine!"
"Hush, hush!" commanded her mother, shaking her correctively. "Such a wicked wish!"
Milo Strong, the teacher from Iowa, had grown very pale. He buttoned his coat and kept one hand in the region of his belt. One second he peered wildly out of the windows on his side, the next he strained to see if devastation and ruin were approaching from the other.
"Smith doubtless had some very commonplace reason for making the change," said William Bentley, making room for Agnes beside him. "I expect Miss Horton talked too much."
With that the stage started and their fears subsided somewhat. On the box Smith was looking sharply at the doctor. Then he asked:
"Can you drive better than you can shoot, or shoot better than you can drive?"
"I guess it's about a stand-off," replied the doctor without a ripple of excitement; "but I was brought up with four mules."
Without another word Smith stood on the footboard, and Dr. Slavens slid along to his place. Smith handed the physician the lines and took the big revolver from its pocket by the seat.
"Two fellers on horseback," said he, keeping his eyes sharply on the boulder-hedged road, "has been dodgin' along the top of that ridge kind of suspicious. No reason why any honest man would want to ride along up there among the rocks when he could ride down here where it's smooth. They may be straight or they may be crooked. I don't know. But you meet all kinds along this road."
The doctor nodded. Smith said no more, but stood, one knee on the seat, with his pistol held in readiness for instant action. When they reached the top of the ridge nobody was in sight, but there were boulders enough, and big enough, on every hand to conceal an army. Smith nodded; the doctor pulled up.
The stage had no sooner stopped than Walker was out, his pistol in hand, ready to show June and all her female relatives so dear that he was there to stand between them and danger as long as their peril might last.