the summer had shaped everything with that end in view. Now they were
actually launched upon their journey. That it held for them a new and
delightful experience they did not doubt. How much of danger and
excitement and hairbreadth escape it also held, they did not even dream.

"Bully old boy, Melton," commented Tom, playing lazily with a heavy
paperweight he had bought at a curio shop at their last stopping place.

"A diamond in the rough," assented Dick.

"All wool and a yard wide," declared Bert, emphatically. "I wonder if
he----Great Scott, what's that?" as a bullet whizzed through the window
of the Pullman.

The question was quickly answered when their eyes fell on the robbers,
who, with leveled pistols, dominated the car. And the threat of the
weapons themselves was not more sinister than the purpose that glinted in
the ferocious eyes above the improvised masks. There was no mere bluff
and bluster in that steady gaze. They were ready to shoot and shoot to
kill. Their lives were already forfeit to the law, anyway, and in that
rough country they would get "a short shrift and a long rope" if their
plans went astray. They might as well be hung for murder as robbery, and,
while they did not mean to kill unless driven to it, they were perfectly
ready to do so at the first hint of resistance.

The paralyzing moment of surprise passed, there was a stir among the
passengers. The first instinct was to hide their valuables or drop them
on the floor. But this was checked instantly by the outlaws.

"Hands up," shouted one of them with an oath. "I'll kill the first man