with it. I knew they would fire at me only; I might get away, but if
they killed me, I'd have done only my duty, and nobody else would have
got hurt. But when I got to the box I found that the lock had been
forced and the money was gone. I managed to snap the lock again before
I handed it down. I thought they might discover it at once and chase us,
but they didn't."

"And then thar war no greenbacks in the box that they took?" gasped
Bill, with staring eyes.

"No!"

Bill raised his hand in the air as if in solemn adjuration, and then
brought it down on his knee, doubling up in a fit of uncontrollable but
perfectly noiseless laughter. "Oh, Lord!" he gasped, "hol' me afore I
bust right open! Hush," he went on, with a jerk of his fingers towards
the next room, "not a word o' this to any one! It's too much to keep,
I know; it's nearly killing me! but we must swaller it ourselves! Oh,
Jerusalem the Golden! Oh, Brice! Think o' that face o' Snapshot Harry's
ez he opened that treasure box afore his gang in the brush! And he
allers so keen and so easy and so cock sure! Created snakes! I'd go
through this every trip for one sight of him as he just riz up from that
box and cussed!" He again shook with inward convulsions till his face
grew purple, and even the red came back to the younger man's cheek.

"But this don't bring the money back, Bill," said Brice gloomily.

Yuba Bill swallowed the glass of whiskey at a gulp, wiped his mouth and
eyes, smothered a second explosion, and then gravely confronted Brice.