"However, I had reckoned without my host, for just as we reached this
place, and were a-turnin' around this bend in the road, two men sprang
out from the bushes and grabbed the lead horses by the bits. Two more
jumped out on one side of the coach, and two more on the other, while
one man stepped up to me and demanded me to come down. Of course the
coach was stopped, and just as the robber spoke to me, the old man
reached over in front of me and fired. The robber fell at once
without a sound. Barton then fired at the man at the horse's head
nearest him, and brought him down. These shots were both fired as quick
as a flash, but his aim had been unerring. 'Duck down, Davy, duck down,'
he cried to me as he swung himself from the coach, and a volley of
bullets passed over our heads.
[Illustration: "The old man reached over in front of me and fired."]
"I followed his example, and in a hurry, too, and escaped unhurt. Just
then we heard two reports from the passengers inside, and in less time
that it has taken me to tell it the scrimmage was over and the robbers
who were unhurt had fled, leaving three of their number on the ground,
two of them seriously wounded, and the other one as dead as a post, with
a bullet hole plum through his forehead.
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