Black Beetles in Amber

Of stopping passengers, let's carry them.
Instead of crying out: 'Throw up your hands!'
Let's say: 'Walk up and buy a ticket!' Why
Should we unwieldy goods and bullion take,
Watches and all such trifles, when we might
Far better charge their value three times o'er
For carrying them to market?

LELAND, THE KID:

                              Put it there,
Old son!

HAPPY HUNTY:

          You take the cake, my dear. We'll build
A mighty railroad through this pass, and then
The stage folk will come up to us and squeal,
And say: 'It is bad medicine for both:
What will you give or take?' And then we'll sell.

COWBOY CHARLEY:

Enlarge your notions, little one; this is
No petty, slouching, opposition scheme,
To be bought off like honest men and fools;
Mine eye prophetic pierces through the mists
That cloud the future, and I seem to see
A well-devised and executed scheme
Of wholesale robbery within the law
(Made by ourselves)—great, permanent, sublime,
And strong to grapple with the public throat—
Shaking the stuffing from the public purse,
The tears from bankrupt merchants' eyes, the blood
From widows' famished carcasses, the bread
From orphans' mouths!

HAPPY HUNTY:

Hooray!

LELAND, THE; KID:

Hooray!

ALL:

Hooray!
(They tear the masks from their faces, and discharging their shotguns, throw them into the chapparal. Then they join hands, dance and sing the following song:)
Ah! blessed to measure
The glittering treasure!
  Ah! blessed to heap up the gold
             Untold
That flows in a wide
And deepening tide—
  Rolled, rolled, rolled
From multifold sources,
Converging its courses
  Upon our—

LELAND, THE KID:

Just wait a bit, my pards, I thought I heard
A sneaking grizzly cracking the dry twigs.
Such an intrusion might deprive the State
Of all the good that we intend it. Ha!
(Enter Sootymug. He saunters carelessly in and gracefully leans his back against a redwood.)

SOOTYMUG:

My boys, I thought I heard
  Some careless revelry,
As if your minds were stirred
  By some new devilry.
I too am in that line. Indeed, the mission
On which I come—

HAPPY HUNTY: