neighborly proximity and the little towns that were threaded along it
like beads upon a string. Watching its eastward course, one would have
noticed that after it crested the first rise it ran free of habitation
for miles.

Along its empty length a dust cloud moved, a tarnishing spot on the
afternoon's hard brightness. This spot was the one point of energy in the
universal torpor. From it came the rhythmic beat of flying hoofs and the
jingle of harness. It was the Rocky Bar stage, up from Shilo through
Plymouth, across the Mother Lode and then in a steep, straining grade on
to Antelope and Rocky Bar, camps nestling in the mountain gorges. It was
making time now against the slow climb later, the four horses racing, the
reins loose on their backs.

There was only one passenger; the others had been dropped at towns along
the route. He sat on the front seat beside Jim Bailey the driver, his
feet on a pine box and a rifle across his knees. He and Jim Bailey knew
each other well, for he had often come that way, always with his box and
his rifle. He was Wells Fargo's messenger and his name was Danny Leonard.
In the box at his feet were twelve thousand dollars in coin to be
delivered that night to the Greenhide Mine at Antelope.

With nothing of interest in sight, talk between them was desultory. Jim
Bailey thought they'd take on some men at Plymouth when they stopped
there to victual up. The messenger, squinting at the swimming yellow
distance, yawned and said it might be a good thing, nobody knew when
Knapp and Garland would get busy again. They'd failed in the holdup of
the Rockville stage last spring and it was about time to hear from
them--the road after you passed Plymouth was pretty lonesome. Jim Bailey
snorted contemptuously and spat over the wheel--he guessed Knapp and