He thought a moment, then, turning toward Alex, eyed him sharply an
instant, and said: "Youngster, I'll give you a dollar a word if you will
give me your solemn promise to send this message just as I write it."
A bare instant Alex hesitated, while the tempter whispered that it would
mean thirty or forty dollars for a few minutes' work, and that everyone
would take it for granted he had been compelled to send it. Then abruptly
he leaned back in his chair and shook his head. "I couldn't do it," he
said quietly but positively.
"Oh, you couldn't, eh, Goody-goody?" exclaimed the smaller man, with a
snarl, catching up the revolver and pointing it at Alex's head. "Now
could you do it?"
The taller man caught his arm. "Don't be a fool, Jake. After all, we
couldn't be sure he wasn't fooling us even if he took the money.
"Look here, I have a scheme."
They stepped back and spoke together in low tones for a moment; then the
taller turned again to Alex, who meantime had remained quiet in his
chair, futilely endeavoring to think of some means of spreading the
alarm.
"I suppose you are not the only operator at this station, kid?"
"No; there is a day and a night operator. I am only 'subbing' for the
night man," responded Alex, wondering.
"Where is he?"
"At a party."
"Where is the day man?"
"At his boarding-house. But you couldn't get either of them to do it,"
Alex declared confidently, thinking he had caught the drift of their
purpose.
"Never mind what we could or what we couldn't. Where does the day
operator board? Is it far?"
Momentarily Alex had a mind to refuse to tell; then, on the thought that
suspicion might be aroused if one of the robbers went to rout the day man
out, he replied, "About a quarter of a mile," and described how the house
could be reached.
Again the two men held a whispered consultation, and at its conclusion
the smaller man hurriedly left.
"Now I suppose you are wondering what we propose doing with the day
operator," said the tall man, with a grin, when they were alone. "Well,
it's so good I think I'll tell you. One of the cleverest getaway schemes
you ever heard of, and my own idea. Can you guess?"
Alex shook his head. "If it's not to send the message--and which I know
he won't--I don't know."
The robber laughed. "You are going to send the message, and he is going
to stand just outside the door here and tell us letter by letter just
what you make the instruments say. See?"
Alex uttered an exclamation. And, strange as it may seem, it was not
entirely of chagrin, for the striking originality and ingenuity of the
plan immediately appealed to his own peculiar genius for getting over
difficulties.
"And then," continued the talkative safe-breaker, "we will tie you both
in your chairs, cut the wires, then flag the night express, and depart
for the East like respectable citizens, and by the time you have been
found and the wires restored we will be well out of danger.
"Now, I claim there is some class to that scheme. What?"
Despite himself, Alex could not forbear a smile, even while he at once
saw that to defeat the plan would be almost an impossibility.
Nevertheless, as the bank robber turned his attention to a time-table,
Alex determinedly addressed his wits to the problem.
Presently, as he sat looking at the telegraph instruments for an
inspiration, he started. That last First of April joke he had played on
his father! The cut-off arrangement of wires was still in place beneath
the instrument table! Could he not use it?
He determined to see whether the connections were still in order.
Fortunately he was sitting close to the table, with his feet beneath.
Making a move as though tired of his position, he crossed one foot over
the other, and sank a little lower in the chair. Then, the change having
brought no comment from the man at the counter, he carefully reached out
the upper foot, found the two wires and pressed them together.
Immediately came a click from the instruments.
It was in working order! With hope Alex at once addressed himself to its
possibilities, and soon a suggestion came. "Yes, I believe I could do
it," he told himself with satisfaction. "I'll make a try anyway. So much
for never giving up."
At that moment the footfalls of the returning robber and those of another
sounded on the platform without. Both men were talking, and as they
entered the waiting-room Alex heard the evidently still unsuspecting
Jones say: "Funny, though. I never heard of the boy being troubled with
his heart before."
[Illustration: "COME ON! COME ON!" EXCLAIMED THE MAN IN THE
DOORWAY.]
The next moment Jones's casual tones changed to a sharp cry of fright,
and Alex knew that the robber had revealed himself. "Now you keep your
tongue between your teeth, and do exactly what you are told, young man,
or you get this! You understand?
"Now turn about--your back toward the office door--so." The door was
flung open, and the robber appeared standing sideways, his gun in his
hand, pointing at the day operator, who was just out of Alex's sight.
"Now what you are to do is to read off letter by letter what this young
shaver in here sends on the wire. You are a tab on him. You understand?"
In a trembling voice Jones responded in the affirmative.
"And the first one of you who appears to do anything not straight and
aboveboard gets daylight through his head," he added, raising his voice
for Alex's benefit. Then, addressing his partner, he said: "Give the kid
the message, Bill."
The tall man leaned over the counter and tossed the blank on the table
before Alex.
"Who will I send it to first?" asked Alex.
"The sheriff, Watson Siding."
"All right. But first, you know, I have to call him," explained Alex,
somewhat nervously, now that the critical moment had come. "His call is
WS."
Therewith he began slowly calling, that Jones might read off each letter
as he sent it, "WS, WS, WS, BX."
"WS, WS--"
"I, I," answered WS.
"WS answers," interpreted Jones.
Steadying himself with a deep breath, Alex proceeded to carry out his
plan. Carefully reaching forth with his foot beneath the table, he
pressed the two wires together, then loudly clicked his key. The
instruments, thus "cut out," of course failed to respond.
"The wire appears to have opened," announced Jones. "Probably the man at
WS has opened his key while getting a blank or a pen."
Again Alex clicked the key as though in a futile effort to send, then
leaving it open, thus holding the instruments on the table "dead," began
ticking his foot against the impromptu key beneath the table.
And while the instruments at Bixton remained momentarily silent, the
surprised operator at Watson Siding read in draggy but decipherable
signals the words:
"Read every other word."
"Come on! Come on!" exclaimed the man in the doorway, turning
suspiciously. Immediately Alex withdrew his foot and closed the key, and
at the resulting audible click Jones announced: "The wire has closed. He
can send now."
"All right. Come ahead," commanded the short man, impatiently.
Then very deliberately, with a pause after each word, seemingly to enable
Jones to interpret, but really to give himself time to send another word,
unheard, beneath the table, Alex sent on the key, and Jones read aloud,
the following message:
"Sheriff,
"Watson Siding:
"Safe-blowers have been captured near here. Call in your posse.
"(Signed) O'Brien,
"Sheriff Quigg County."
What the at first puzzled and then thunderstruck operator at Watson
Siding read off his instrument ran very differently. It read:
"Safe THEY blowers ARE have HERE been IN captured STATION near
INTEND here. GOING call OUT in BY your NIGHT posse. EXPRESS.
"(Signed) 'PHONE O'Brien, "BACK Sheriff HERE Quigg QUICK County."
A moment after giving his "OK" the Watson Siding operator was at the
telephone calling for Bixton central.
Meantime, having thus sent the message to WS to the bank-breakers'
satisfaction, Alex proceeded to call and send it by turns to Zeisler,
Hammerton, and other stations on the line. Sending slowly, to make the
most of his time, it was within fifteen minutes of the hour the express
was due when Alex had sent the last of the messages.
"Now you can step in and see your friend," said the man in the doorway,
addressing Jones, who appeared, white and trembling, and coming behind
the counter, dropped into a chair facing Alex. The speaker then once more
disappeared, and presently an opening click of the instruments told the
nature of his errand. The wires had been cut.
He soon returned, and rummaging about, while the taller man stood guard
over them, he found some ropes, and proceeded to bind Alex and the day
operator tightly in their chairs.
Just as the task was completed there came a long-drawn whistle from the
west. Both robbers promptly turned to the door. "Well, good night,
gentlemen," said the smaller, grimly. "Much obliged for your kind
services."
"And I would just pause to repeat," said the taller, jocosely, "that
there is some class to this getaway scheme, should any one ask you. Good
night."
"_Yes, there is class--but it isn't first!_"
Uttering a cry the two bank robbers staggered back from the door, and
with a bound the deputy sheriff and a constable were upon them, bore them
to the floor, and after a brief but terrific struggle disarmed and
handcuffed them.
"Yes," said the sheriff, rising, and with his knife quickly freeing the
two prisoners, "there was class to it, but it was _second_.
"Our young friend here takes '_first_.'"
[Illustration: "HOW DID YOU DO IT, SMARTY?" SNAPPED THE SHORTER MAN.]
The robbers turned upon Alex with furiously flashing eyes. "How did you
do it, smarty?" snapped the shorter man.
Alex laughed, kicked one foot beneath the table, and the instrument
responded with a click. "A little First of April trick. What do you think
of it?"
Whatever the two renegades might have said through their gritting teeth,
there was no doubt as to what the sheriff and the others thought. Nor the
bank officials at Zeisler, when, a day later, there came to Alex a highly
commendatory letter and a check for two hundred dollars.
But better even than this, in Alex's estimation, a few mornings after the
chief despatcher called him to the wire and announced his appointment as
night operator at Foothills, a small town on the western division.