“But I don’t have it,” Steve insisted.
“She’s telling the truth,” Andy put in; “some feller stopped us back aways and took the box full of gold.”
“What’s the trouble up there?” the short, pudgy gunman called from the rear.
“Says they were held up several miles back and haven’t got the gold,” the thin man called without shifting his glance from Steve and Andy. His gray eyes were cold and menacing. “You’d better be telling the truth or the both of you’ll end up as buzzard meat.”
Steve shrugged her shoulders. “Look for yourself.”
The man stared at her for a moment and then yelled over his shoulder to his companion, “See if the chest is back there.” He moved forward carefully and proceeded to search every corner of the driver’s seat with his sharp eyes. His gun never waivered. Steve knew it would be hopeless to try anything.
“Nothing back here,” the man from the rear announced.
“Humm. Nothing up here, either.” His attention snapped back to Steve’s face. “If this is some trick,” he said, his eyes glinting dangerously, “you’ll pay for it.”
“You’re a suspicious cuss,” Andy said sourly. “How long do we have to sit here?”
“In a hurry, grandpa? Well, we’ll help you get started.” The man fired his gun in the air, and the horses were off like lightning.
* * * *
“Now, those are the fellers that took the gold last time,” Andy explained when he had got the horses under control again. “They kinda got crossed up this time. Can’t understand it. Where’d that red-headed bandit come from?”
Shaking his head musingly from time to time, Andy drove the rest of the way to Pine Junction in silence. Steve too was puzzled about the events of the past few hours’. She was grateful for Andy’s silence. It gave her a chance to do some thinking.
She tried to figure out the meaning of the two holdups, but the answer kept eluding her. Every time she neared a solution, the red-headed, gunman’s face came back to her and the feel’of his kiss was once again warm on her lips. What a nerve he had had! She’d—she’d. Well, what wouldn’t she do if she could only capture him. And her time would come, she told herself.
It wasn’t easy for her to explain to the man at the railroad office that she, the sheriff, had allowed the railroad’s gold to be stolen from the stagecoach while she was on it. The man’s ungraciousness increased her hurt pride. When she finally left the office she was still stinging from the man’s obvious contempt.
Explaining to Ben was even harder. “He came up out of nowhere, Ben; we didn’t have a chance. It would have been curtains if either Andy or I had made a move.”
She was sitting on the edge of his desk in the little office at the rear of the bank building. Ben had been leaning back easy and relaxed in his swivel chair until she came to the part about the lone bandit. When she mentioned the fact that there had been only one bandit, he stiffened suddenly and sat up straight.
“Only one man?” he asked, surprise very evident in his pleasant low voice. “But always before there have been two.”
Steve nodded and described the red-headed holdup man. She watched Ben’s handsome face as he digested her news. Sometimes she wondered why she didn’t accept his proposal and marry him. He was certainly everything a girl looked for in a man. He was good looking, with dark wavy hair and brown eyes fringed with thick sooty lashes. His figure, though not tall, was muscular and well-proportioned. And what was more, he always made her feel like a lady, and that was an unusual and delicious experience for Steve. Especially since she’d become sheriff.
But this was no time to be thinking about that. Something had to be done to stop those stage holdups.
“Where was it he jumped you?” Ben asked finally.
Steve thought for a moment. “It was just this side of Box Butte. He must have hidden in those rocks.”
“I see.” He looked quite disturbed.
“Look, Ben. I’m awfully sorry. I thought by riding gun on the stage myself I could prevent the gold shipment being stolen again, but I failed. However, I won’t fail again. I’ve had a chance to do some thinking, and I’ve got a new plan.”
The troubled look in Ben’s eyes gave way to one of amusement. “Now, Steve. You don’t mean to tell me you’re going to try again. Why, isn’t it plain enough now that this isn’t a woman’s job? Why don’t you appoint a new deputy until Jed’s arm heals and let him ride with Andy as guard.”
Steve shook her head. “Nothing doing. This is my job, and I’m going to do it to the best of my ability. And I’ll stop those robberies and see those bandits behind bars or my name isn’t Stephanie Lawson.”
Ben smiled as he rose from his chair and went toward her. “Speaking of names, how about changing yours to Stephanie Walters. How many proposals does this make? Four? Five?” Close to her now, he pulled her up off the edge of the desk and into his arms. “How about it, Steve, honey? Don’t you think you’ve kept me waiting long enough?”
“Ben, I—” she began, but his mouth came down hard on hers, stopping the words. Always before, Ben’s kisses had set her tingling but now the hot, leisurely kiss did nothing to her. She found herself remembering the thorough job of kissing she had undergone that morning in the arms of the redheaded bandit. His freckled, homely face swam before her now, and against her will she recalled how she had thrilled to his kiss. She was still remembering when Ben’s kiss ended and he looked down at her. Something of the feeling her memory had evoked must have shown in her face for Ben drew in his breath sharply.
“I didn’t realize you found my kisses so stirring,” he murmured. His tone was slightly amused, but it couldn’t hide the fact that he was left shaken by the kiss.…
Steve slowly opened her eyes, and when she saw Ben’s dark, handsome face where the grinning, freckled one had been, she was brought sharply back to the present.
“Oh,” she said sharply and pushed herself out of Ben’s arms. For heaven’s sake, what had she been thinking of! A bandit’s kiss, of all things!
Ben was gazing at her in complete puzzlement, and before he could say anything, she made a vague reference to some work she had to do and left the office hurriedly.
Outside, the air was hot and f full of the dust that., rose from Red Rock’s main street. As she made her way along the rough wooden walk to the sheriff’s office, she thought, What on earth is wrong with me? What made me think of that red-headed varmint? And right when Ben was kissing me, too. I’ll get him if it’s the last thing I do! She meant the bandit. I hate him! Lord, how I hate him! But that the warm feeling she had inside when she remembered his kiss wasn’t like any hatred she’d ever felt before.
* * * *
When the stage started out on its run from Red Rock to Pine Junction the next week with its shipment of gold, Steve was on it once again. Only this time she rode inside the coach and Jake Davis, an old friend of her Uncle Mort’s and a dead shot with a rifle,’ rode gun up on the driver’s seat beside Andy. This was the’ new plan she’ had mentioned to Ben. Riding back there alone, she’d have the element of surprise on her side because it wasn’t likely anyone’ would expect trouble from someone inside the coach. There were no other passengers. She had seen to that. She didn’t want innocent people getting hurt.
The stage’ had barely left Red Rock behind when trouble struck. Steve had just situated herself on one of the seats in a position which would give, her a vantage point to the rear and each side when she heard a shot from up front and a chorus of yells. For a few brief moments, the stagecoach strained to outrun the hold-up men, but it was no use. Finally, Steve heard Andy’s