A Woman's Ready Wit.

Hastings Standard, Issue 123, 17 September 1896, Page 4

A Woman's Ready Wit.

A woman's quick wit makes her, when she has the confidence to act upon it, a valuable aid in an emergency. Some years ago, in the days when "road agents" abounded in Montana, a woman was travelling by coach to join her -husband. One day a fellow-passenger said to her, " I have a thousand dollars in my pocketbook, and feel" uneasy about the roadagents. Would you mind concealing it in your dress, and returning it to me at the end of the journey ? If the highwaymen do stop us, thej are less likely to search you than me." She acceded to his request, hid the money in her dress, and the stage drove on-without meeting a road-agent until evening. Then the shout, " Throw up your hands !" was heard. The driver promptly pulled up, as four men on horseback, with masked faces, appeared in the road and covered him with their pistols. Two of the highwaymen then rode to each side of the coach, and ordered the passengers to give up their arms, which they did promptly. " Now, shell out! " said the robbers. The passengers handed out their pocket-books ; even the man who had called in the woman's aid gave np a few dollars. He was congratulating himself upon his caution, when he heard the woman say in a quiet way : " I have got a thousand dollars, but I suppose I must give them up." Suiting the action to the word, she handed over the man's roll of greenbacks. The robbers rode away, and then the man gave expression td his feelings by abusing the lady and accusing her of betraying her trust from sheer fright. She smiled mysteriously. " You will see, sir ; but I can't explain now." At the end of the journey she asked him to stay all night at her house, and said that her husband would be glad to see him. " Yes, madam, I will come to your house," he answered in the tone of an injured man; it's the least you can do, ma'am, seeing that you have left me without a cent in the world." At the lady's house he was treated as a distinguished guest, but neither host nor hostess offered him one word of explanation that night, and he went to bed a sad, irritated man. The next morning as he entered the dining-room, the lost shook hands with him, and saicfo—"Here are your thousand dollars, sir, which my wife ventured to borrow in an emergency. "She had twenty thousand dollars which she was bringing to me, and thought by giving up at once the thousand dollars entrusted to her by you she would save herself from being searched by the robbers. Her quick wit saved me* from a heavy loss, and ,1 am mttch obliged to you for the use of the forced loan." Breakfast was a far more cheerful meal to the man tßan the supper of the night before.