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Down the Mother Lode by Vivia Hemphill
page 93 of 113 (82%)
hill! Oh, it must be another holdup! And Rand is shotgun messenger on
the stage today. Hark! Hear the horses running! They're coming - fast.
They're trying to make the town!"

"Ketchem, more horse run behind," answered Sing, listening intently, his
slanting eyes glittering.

"Sing, you go and see what - "

"Can do! You get that boy, make 'em wash, alle same. He no good! You
look see?" Joe turned to spy the frightened deputy washerman wriggling
under the verandah. "Bime-by I kill 'um," remarked Sing, composedly. "No
got time now. Missie Jo, wagon come, maybeso better you stop house-o."

Six horses topped the long hill, pulling the huge rockaway stage. They
were coming at full speed, and the near wheeler was dripping with blood.
A dead man hung over the high dashboard, where his feet had caught when
he fell.

Leaning far out over the team was a young man holding the reins in one
hand, while he lashed the shot-crazed horses to their last ounce of
speed with the fifteen-foot whip. His sawed-off shotgun lay on the seat
beside him. It was Rand!

"Oh, thank God!" moaned Joe, but in another moment, "Poor old Salt
Peter! They must have killed him when he wouldn't stop. Sing - " but Hop
Sing had vanished, leaving only his white apron across the wash bench.

As the stage thundered around the turn at the end of the main street,
the wounded horse threw up his head, coughed bloody spume over the
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