Barely had he stretched out his legs, when he was startled by a sound
at his side, and glancing up, he found a huge, black-muzzled fellow
towering above him and covering him with a long-barrelled horse pistol.

"Hullo!"

Out came his long knife instanter.

"Move or speak, and I pull the trigger," said the brigand.

"Thank you for nothing," said the stranger.

"Who are you?" demanded the brigand.

"Just what I was about to ask you," returned the stranger, lightly.

"Whence come you?"

"Precisely the question I was going to put."

The brigand's colour came and he grew vicious.

"If you are wise, you'll not try to fool me," he said.

"If you have any wit," retorted the new-comer, "you'll not come
pestering me with questions; I'm not in the humour, and when I am put
out, I'm dangerous. Good-morning."

The brigand, finding he could get nothing out of the eccentric
stranger, fell back a pace or two, and the latter thought that he was