from the branches beside the wheels.

"Thank you!" said the voice; "you can slide on now."

"And thank you for nothing," said Bill, gathering up his reins. "It's
the first time any of your kind had to throw down a tree to hold me up!"

"You're lying, Bill!--though you don't know it," said the voice
cheerfully. "Far from throwing down a tree to stop you, it was I sent
word along the road to warn you from crashing down upon it, and sending
you and your load to h-ll before your time! Drive on!"

The angry Bill waited for no second comment, but laying his whip over
the backs of his team, drove furiously forward. So rapidly had the whole
scene passed that the inside passengers knew nothing of it, and even
those on the top of the coach roused from their stupor and inglorious
inaction only to cling desperately to the terribly swaying coach as it
thundered down the grade and try to keep their equilibrium. Yet,
furious as was their speed, Yuba Bill could not help noticing that the
expressman from time to time cast a hurried glance behind him. Bill knew
that the young man had shown readiness and nerve in the attack, although
both were hopeless; yet he was so much concerned at his set white face
and compressed lips that when, at the end of three miles' unabated
speed, they galloped up to the first station, he seized the young man
by the arm, and, as the clamor of the news they had brought rose around
them, dragged him past the wondering crowd, caught a decanter from the
bar, and, opening the door of a side room, pushed him into it and closed
the door behind them.

"Look yar, Brice! Stop it! Quit it right thar!" he said emphatically,