Tinhorn's Daughter by L. Ron Hubbard Page B

to walk around on tiptoe. They still wanted news but they asked for it in whispers.
    Betsy Trotwood knew that she was the cause of this sensation but she could not understand it. They acted as though she were dead and on her way to a funeral.
    Her appearance belied anything like that. Her voluminous skirts were patterned in gay little flowers and her ripply brimmed hat was tied under her chin with a bright blue ribbon.
    Bat Connor, the messenger, climbed down from the box and went inside. He came back a moment later swiping his hairy hand across his bleached whiskers and looking guiltily toward Betsy to see if she had noticed anything wrong.
    Horses were being changed as this last run from Twin Pines to Puma Pass would be completed before midnight, and while Tom, the sober-faced driver, tried to remember to swear under his breath as the horses were changed, Bat took advantage of the pause to shift his Winchester into the crook of his arm, put his boot on the step and converse with the passenger. He wanted the boys to see the intimate terms he was on with her.
    â€œRidin’ easy, miss?” said Bat, spraying a hub of tobacco juice.
    â€œIt is a little rough,” ventured Betsy.
    â€œWon’t be no more stage when the railroad gets through here and across the Rockies,” volunteered Bat. “Steel’s better ridin’, I guess, but it shore looks like the country is gettin’ all settled up. You goin’ as far as Puma Pass, ain’t you, ma’am?”
    â€œYes, if my father is there,” said Betsy.
    Bat turned to the crowd. “Slim Trotwood still in Puma Pass, boys?”
    The group looked thunderstruck for an instant and then brightly nodded all together.
    â€œHe’s still in Puma Pass,” relayed Bat. “And we’ll git you there. Just you wait and see. Ain’t a road agent could ever get up nerve enough to hold up any stage of mine!”
    â€œRoad agent?” said Betsy, startled.
    â€œShore,” said Bat. “We call ’em road agents because they stops us where they ain’t no station, see? Bandits.”
    â€œYou mean there are robbers in these hills?”
    Bat grinned confidently and patted his Winchester as though it were a cat. “Now don’t worry none about it, ma’am. You got me ridin’ the box.”
    The station boss felt a little jealous of Bat’s intimacy. He growled, “Sunset Maloney wasn’t scared none the last time.”
    â€œYou’ve been held up?” said Betsy quickly.
    The crowd was instantly all compassion again. She looked very small and very pretty and just now, scared.
    â€œAw, it ain’t often,” said the station boss.
    â€œBut you have been held up,” she insisted to Bat.
    He looked uncomfortable and gnawed a chunk from a villainous black plug before he answered. “Well, yes. A young feller named Sunset Maloney’s been holdin’ up stages every time they’s a money sack goin’ in to your old man.”
    â€œHe’s been stealing from my father?”
    â€œSure. Slim Trotwood, as agent for the Great Western Railroad, is always havin’ a wad shipped in to him. In fact, we’re carryin’ one right now.”
    Bat saw glory in his role. “Last time I put up a rarin’ fight and this time he won’t have nerve enough to come within six miles of the stage. You just trust to me, ma’am.”
    â€œWhat sort of fellow is this Sunset Maloney?” said Betsy.
    â€œPretty wild,” replied Bat judicially. “Pretty wild. Faster’n a greased rattler with a six-gun. He’s ornery as a barrel of wildcats. But we won’t have no trouble.”
    Tom was hitched up again and Bat dragged himself back to the box, Winchester prominently displayed. The half-dozen station men tipped their hats to Miss Trotwood and the Concord rolled on its dusty way again.
    The horses labored as they pulled the long grade. The road began to