THE LOST CHARM
With the help of Goliath, David doubles in Sherlock Holmes and TheGood Samaritan.
A small, wiry, red-haired man scrambled through the thick growth ofbrush, half slid and half plunged down a steep declivity and halted inthe middle of the hard, worn road where he drew a deep breath, wiped thesweat from his face and consulted a huge silver watch.
“Quarter past ten and I sure ought to be in time for the down stage.It’s seven miles from our camp here by this short cut, and I’ve done itin one hour and a half, and I win five from Goliath, and then fromHank,” he muttered, after which he grinned cheerfully, rolled acigarette, and planted himself in an attitude of repose on a roadsideboulder. He took from his pocket a tiny parcel, unwrapped the newspaperprotecting it and scanned the inscriptions on a half dozen letters as ifto reassure himself that all had been correctly addressed, after which,for lack of anything further to do he sat and idly stared at theenormous panorama of mountains, forests, ravines and cañons that werevisible from his perch and which formed a portion of the back edge ofthe Big Divide. The stillness was so profound that even the trees hadlost their almost inaudible whispering and his ears, finely attuned tonature, could distinguish the faint murmuring of the river that,hundreds of feet below, cheerily and busily made its way over andbetween myriad boulders. For fully fifteen minutes he sprawledlistlessly before he lifted his head and listened attentively with hisface turned up the white, stony highway.
“Here she comes,” he commented, and straightened himself, arose from theboulder and walked into the middle of the road where he stood waiting tointercept the oncoming vehicle. The noise grew louder, gained acrescendo of sound made up of clattering hoofs, a driver’s voiceadmonishing his horses, and the screeching of brake shoes grinding oniron tires, and then the down stage swung round a bend and as thepedestrian waved his arms up and down came to a halt. The driver wasusing heavy-weather language and beside him on the box a man who hadlifted a sawed-off shotgun lowered it with a grunt and stared downward.
“Lord Almighty! David, we didn’t recognize you any too soon!” heexclaimed.
“And that’s the truth,” growled the driver, shifting in his seat. “Youcertainly did pick a mighty dangerous spot to flag us this time.”
“Why, what’s the matter with you fellers anyhow?” David demanded. “Oneof you grabs leather and the other a gun as if you thought you wereabout to be held up and was ready to shoot on sight.”
The driver and the express messenger grinned at each other and thelatter rested his shotgun between his legs and as he reached for tobaccoremarked, “Reckon you ain’t heard the news, pardner. It’s just two daysago since this same stage was stuck up almost on this exact spot. Rightdown there at the next bend, in fact, a hundred yards from here. Iwasn’t along, but Bill here had no chance to put up a fight. Road agentgot away with the treasure box.”
“Well, I’ll be hanged!” David exclaimed as if incredulous. “Who’d ofthought it! Reckon that’s the first holdup around here for as much asten years, ain’t it? How much did the feller get away with?”
“Only one packa