The conversation was not of a nature to improve the courage of the occupants of the , for, when children spend an evening in exchanging ghost stories, they find the darkness of their bed-rooms more fearful than before.  
Since the young gentlemen on the rear seat began to believe that a meeting with a stage robber was quite certain to take place before reaching Piketon, they saw the need of an understanding all round.
 
The driver repeated that he never carried firearms, for, if he did, he would be to use them with the surety of getting himself into trouble.
 
“If a man orders you to hold up your hands and you do it, why he aint going to hurt you,” was the philosophy of the old man; “all he’ll do is just to go through you; but if you have a gun or pistol, you’ll bang away with it, miss the chap, and then he’ll bore you; so it’s my rule, when them scamps come along, to do just as they tell me; a man’s life is worth more to him than all his money, and that’s me every time.”
 
“But you might be quick enough to drop him first,” suggested Wagstaff, who would have preferred the driver to be not quite so convincing in his arguments.
 
“ little chance of that! You see the feller among the trees is all ready and waiting; he can take his aim afore you know he is there; now when you fellers fire at him it won’t do for you to miss—remember that!”
 
“We don’t intend to,” replied McGovern.
 
“Of course you don’t intend to, but the chances are that you will, and then it will be the last of you!”
 
“But won’t you be apt to catch it on the front seat?”
“Not a bit of it, for them chaps are quick to know where a shot comes from, and they always go for the one that fires; they know, too, that a stage driver never fights—helloa!”
 
At that moment, a bicycle guided by a boy silently along the right of the stage, turning out just enough to pass the vehicle. The youth whose shapely legs were propelling it, slackened his gait so that for a few minutes he held his place beside the front wheels of the coach.
 
He was a handsome, bright-faced youth about sixteen years old, who greeted the driver pleasantly, and, turning his head, the others, without waiting for an introduction.
 
“I’m afraid a storm is coming, and I shall have to travel fast to get home ahead of it; do you want to run a race with me, Bill?”
 
“Not with this team,” replied the driver, “for we couldn’t hold a candle to you.”
 
“I don’t know about that,” replied the boy, with a laugh; “there are plenty who can beat me on a bicycle.”
 
“But there aint any of ’em in this part of the country, for I’ve seen too many of ’em try it. Bob Budd that he would leave you out of sight, but you walked right away from him.”
 
The boy blushed modestly and said:
 
“Bob don’t practice as much as he ought; he’s a good wheelman, but he’s fonder of camping out in the woods, and I shouldn’t be surprised if there’s a good deal more fun in it. I believe he expects some friends to go into camp with him.”
 
“Them’s the chaps,” remarked the driver, jerking the of his whip toward the rear seat.
 
The bicyclist bowed pleasantly to the young men, who were staring at him and listening to the conversation. They nodded rather coldly in turn, for they had already begun to suspect the identity of this , muscular lad, of whom they had heard much from Bob Budd.
 
Their country friend had spoken of a certain Dick Halliard who was employed in the store of Mr. Hunter, the leading merchant in Piketon, and who was so well liked by the merchant that he had presented him with an excellent bicycle, on which he occasionally took a spin when he could gain the time.
 
Bob, who young Halliard, had said enough to prove that he had taken the lead in all his studies at school and surpassed every boy in the section in running, swimming, ’cycling, and indeed, in all kinds of sports. This was one reason for Bob’s dislike, but the chief cause was the integrity and of young Halliard, who not only held no fear of the , but did not hesitate to him to his face when he did wrong.
 
“I hope you will have a good time in camp,” said Dick (for it was he), addressing the two city ............