As Bill opened the
double-locked box in the "boot" of the coach--sacred to Wells, Fargo &
Co.'s Express and the Overland Company's treasures--Mr. Wiles perceived
a small, black morocco portemanteau among the parcels. "Ah, you carry
baggage there too?" he said sweetly. "Not often," responded Yuba Bill
shortly. "Ah, this then contains valuables?" "It belongs to that man
whose seat you've got," said Yuba Bill, who, for insulting purposes
of his own, preferred to establish the fiction that Wiles was an
interloper; "and ef he reckons, in a sorter mixed kempeny like this,
to lock up his portmantle, I don't know who's business it is. Who?"
continued Bill, lashing himself into a simulated rage, "who, in blank,
is running this yer team? Hey? Mebbe you think, sittin' up thar on the
box seat, you are. Mebbe you think you kin see round corners with that
thar eye, and kin pull up for teams round corners, on down grades,
a mile ahead?" But here Thatcher, who, with something of Lancelot's
concern for Modred, had a noble pity for all infirmities, interfered so
sternly that Yuba Bill stopped.
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