A CRIMINAL HUNT.
Now, I had told the officer in command my belief and suspicions
concerning the counterfeit business which I believed was going on
about us, and had been told that two of the counterfeit bills had
already been brought to his notice and captured within the week; and
Dave had insisted upon his hearing the story of my absurd arrest by
the guards, and now it only needed a look from me, and the sight of
Dave's convulsed face, to make the situation plain to him. He stepped
forward, but before he could speak a new thought had darted into Dame
Camp's active mind.
'La!' she finished, 'I s'pose, come to think, he's been brought here
now to be tried, ain't he?'
With the shadow of a smile upon his face, the officer turned toward
the farmer.
'What is your complaint?' he asked courteously; and he shot me a
glance which I knew meant, 'Let him tell his own story.' And now,
being authorized to speak, Farmer Camp began to tell, in his own
homely way, the story of the 'greenback swindle,' as he termed it.
When he had reached the point in the narrative where I made my unlucky
attempt to rout the swindlers, he turned toward me.
'I've had an idee sence, though my wife didn't agree with me
much'--here came an audible sniff from Mrs. Camp--'that this here
young man might 'a' meant well, after all, and we wus a little mite
hasty; but, ye see, he'd been a-lookin' at us so long, an' my wife'd
been a-noticin' it, havin' her mind kind o' sot like on confidence
people and sech, that she felt kind o' oneasy at his sharp looks--they
wus so keen, she said, an' so quick to look away, she got nervous, and
said she felt as if he wus a-lookin' right inter my pockets.'
'There now, Camp, you needn't be a-excusin' me! I stick ter my idee.
Anyone can see that the young feller ain't innocent, else somebody'd
'a' spoke fur him, fust off----'
Here Dave exploded audibly, and the officer checked her with a motion
of his hand.
'Let me settle this point at once by telling you, madam, that the
gentleman you have accused is an officer high in his profession, and
sent here to protect the public and look after criminals. He had but
just arrived, and it was because of this that he was without his
officer's badge, which would at once have put those men to rout had it
been worn and displayed to them. Let me tell you now, to prevent
further mistakes, that the detectives upon whom we rely in greatest
emergencies are always to be found in citizen's clothes, and they are
not likely to display a badge, except when necessary.'
Long before the end of this speech consternation was written all over
the face of Adam Camp, but his wife was made of sterner stuff, and
when her better half had stuttered and floundered half through a
sufficiently humble apology, directed, of course, toward myself, she
broke in upon his effort, no whit abashed:
'There, Camp, it's easy enough ter see how we came ter make sech a
mistake, and I'm sure the young man will bear no malice to'ard a
couple of folks old enough ter be his parients. 'Twas them
sharp-lookin' eyes that set me ter noticin' ye, when you was lookin'
over Camp fust off, down to the Administration Building, and when you
went an' sot down on the settee by him, an' then got up an' followed
us so fur, what was I to think? You was a-watchin' us sure enough,
only you meant well by it. But, land sakes! in sech a place, where
everybody is tryin' to look out fur number one, I did what looked my
dooty. I'm willin' to ask yer pardon, though, and I ain't goin' ter
bear no malice.'
Overwhelmed by this magnanimity, I murmured my thanks and complete
satisfaction with her _amende honorable_, and tried to turn the
occasion to such profit as might be by questioning the man a little.
'You were saying that you changed a bill, or were about to do so. Did
the man make any difficulty after I left you?'
'No, sir. He seemed in a kind of a hurry, and made out to be onsartin
whether he could spare so much small money, as he called it. But
finally he counted out a roll of bills, and had me count them after
him.'
'There--in the crowd where you stood?'
'Wal, no. He took us to one side a little--right in behind the place
where the little man was a-sellin' canes--sort of up ag'inst a
partition, and there we made the dicker.'
'And he left you right away?' queried the officer in charge.
'Yes--jest about as quick as he could.'
'And the other,' I asked, 'the man who took you to this agent--the man
with the large Sabbath-school class?'
'Oh! he asked us to go to the terminus station with him and see his
young men; but my wife wanted to see things, and we jest went as fur
as the door, out of perliteness.'
'And when did you discover that you had been swindled?'
'Wal, M'riar wanted to ride in one of them coopy things with a
man-hoss behind and before; and when she got ready to get out, which
was purty soon, I give one of them fellers a two-dollar soovyneer
bill, but they made a great jabbering about it, and M'riar says, says
she, "I guess they ain't got the change;" so I fished out some
pennies, and a dime and two postage stamps, and after a bit they tuk
'em and waddled off. Then we got to lookin' up and down, and we didn't
have no more 'casion to use money--M'riar was so busy seein' the folks
and their clo's--till we got hungry, and then come the rumpus. When I
come to pay the bill, they was a reg'lar howl, an' we come mighty near
bein' marched off to the calaboose, same's you was. They said the bill
I offered 'em first off, an' all the rest, was counterfeit.'
Until now Brainerd had taken no part in the dialogue; but now, with a
quick glance in my direction, he asked;
'Will you describe the man who gave you the money--the supposed
agent?'
Camp pondered. 'Wal,' he began, 'he was tall, 's much as six foot, I
should say, an' his eyes were black an' big. His hair was consid'able
long, and he had a good deal of it on his face in a big bushy
moustache. He had a slim nose--and he wore a big di'mond on his little
finger.'
'Did you notice his hands?'
'M--no.'
'Wal, I did!' interposed his wife. 'I seen the di'mond, ef 'twas a
di'mond. His hands was white--real white, 'long side of his face, and
they looked like reg'lar claws; sech long fingers and pointed nails.'
'Ah!' Dave shot me a glance full of meaning. 'Now, Mrs. Camp, you seem
a very observing woman. Will you describe the other man--the gentleman
with the Sabbath-school class?'
The woman's head became even more erect, and her look more firm and
confident than before. 'Yes,' she said at once; 'I can.' She cast her
eyes about her, and, seeing a vacant chair near her interlocutor--the
one lately vacated by myself--she seated herself deliberately, and
began:
'He wasn't much to look at; about as big as you, mebbe, and about the
same complected as that gentleman,' pointing to the sergeant at the
desk, 'only his nose was longer, and sort of big and nobby at the end,
an' a leetle red. I remember he had bigger ears than common, too; they
sort of set straight out. His eyes were little, and a sort of watery
gray, and his hair was kind of thin and sandy-like. He had some little
mutton-chop whiskers, and a little hair, a'most tan-colour, on his
upper lip. His mouth was quite big, and I noticed he had two front
teeth with gold fillin' into 'em. He had gloves on his hands when we
see him first, but when we met him afterward they was off.'
'Afterward, you say--did you meet him after you had discovered that
you had been swindled?' I broke in.
'Yes--we----'
'You see,' broke in Adam Camp, 'it was this way: we was comin' out of
Midway, for we'd been out a'most to the end a-seein' the sights, an'
when we got hungry we went into a place a blue-coat said was good, the
Vienny Caffy, he called it. Well, it was there we had the fuss about
the money, and they told us to come here right away and make a
complaint. We started, and was jest comin' past that menagerie place,
when M'riar wanted to stop jest afore the place and look at the big
lion over the door.'
'A live one,' interpolated M'riar.
'Yes, a live one. Well, standin' there, all to once I see that
Sunday-school feller come out o' the door a pickin' his teeth. He was
right in front of me, and at first he seemed not to see me, and was
hurryin' off dretful fast, but I caught on to his arm and says,
quick-like: "Look here; I want to tell you somethin' fer your own good
and to swap favers." Then he sort of slowed up, and axed me to pardin
him--he was in haste, an' gettin' orful anxious about them boys. Then
I says right out, "My friend, I'm anxious too, and you've got cause to
be: you an' me's been swindled;" and then he most jumped, and asked,
"How swindled?" "Hev you broke one of them two-dollar bills yit?" says
I. "No," says he; an' then I up an' told him the hull story.'
'Did you tell him you were coming here?' I asked, as he paused a
moment.
'No, because he got so excited and talked so fast; I declare, he put
it all out of my head.'
Again he stopped, as if loth to continue, but again Mrs. Camp took up
the parable.
'Now, father, yer may jest as well out with it! Ye see, this chap flew
all to pieces, so to speak, an' he was goin' to have a officer right
away. He had a letter of interducshun from his minister to home to the
capt'in of the Columbine perleece--they was related somehow--and he
would jest have them men arrested; an' then he happened ter think that
'twas gittin' late and time a'most for that train with them
Sunday-school children to come, and it put him out awfully; but he
said that he'd make it his bizness to see to that, and then he made a
'p'intment with Camp to meet him at half-past ten ter-day, an' they'd
go tergether ter see the Columbine perleeceman.' She paused, and
uttered a cackling laugh. 'Wal,' she concluded, 'Camp see that 'twas
gittin' purty late, so he 'greed to it; an' I didn't say nothin', but
arter he'd gone ter meet them boys ag'in I put my foot down ter come
here fust, an' not to wait till mebbe the feller'd git away, and
finally Camp reckoned 'twould be best, and so we came. Someway that
feller sort o' went ag'in' me, to'rds the last. I don't want to be
hasty ag'in, but I sort o' feel as if he might be kind o' tricky, 's
well's the rest.'
It did not take us long to convince the Camps that they had been duped
all round, and while we had little faith in their ever seeing the
'Sunday-school feller' again, we obtained their promise to keep their
appointment with him; and here Dave Brainerd suddenly muttered an
excuse to the two officers, and said in my ear, 'If I am not back in
fifteen minutes meet me at the Administration at four sharp.' And with
a nod to the Camps he went hastily out. I felt very sure of his
errand. He had fancied, like myself, that 'Smug,' fearing lest the
Camps might prove too clever for his wiles--perhaps suspecting the
keen-eyed old woman--had followed them in order to assure himself
whether it would be safe to keep his latest appointment with them, and
this indeed proved to be the case.
Before the Camps left the place we had easily convinced them that
their 'Sunday-school friend' and not I, had been the 'confidence
man,' and that if he kept this last appointment with them it would
only be to lure them into another trap, and a worse one, for it would
have for its aim the suppression of any and all evidence they might
have been inclined to give to the 'perleece.'
In convincing the gentle old man, and shattering his faith in my
friend Smug, I could see that we had dealt his simple, kindly nature a
real blow, but Mother Camp was of sterner stuff.
'You needn't worrit about me, not now,' she assured me, with a
vigorous nod. 'After gitten' into one trap I ain't a-goin' to tumble
into any more, an' I ain't goin' ter let him, neither, not when I'm on
hand. I've told that man, more times 'n I've got fingers an' toes,
that he was too soft-hearted; allus feedin' tramps 'n' stray dawgs,
an' swallerin' all the beggars' yarns.'
'I guess ye needn't worrit, M'riar,' the old man said, with a faint
show of spirit. 'Things might 'a' been worst. I didn't aim ter
squander a hundred dollars to one lick, but I've got'n nuff left yit
ter see the Fair an' git home on, so I guess we may as well be
a-seein' it; a body hes to live, live an' larn.'
And with this sentiment the pair took their departure, a little the
wiser, and more wary, perhaps, for the words of warning and advice
given them by the officer in charge, who had taken their names and
address, and made a memorandum of their 'complaint.'
He had smiled slightly when told their street and number, and had
remarked that at least Stony Island Avenue had the merit of nearness,
adding the friendly caution, 'Don't make boarding-house acquaintances,
good people, and keep on the bright side of the way in going home
late.' Whereupon I made a mental note to investigate this same
hardly-named avenue.
Long before the end of the Fair I had cause to thank myself for this
mental note, and that it was held in remembrance.
Brainerd did not appear at the stipulated time, and I was too eager to
be out in full sight of that wonder city to remain at the bureau; so
taking the Intramural Railway at the nearest station I began to circle
in and out among those marvels of genius, skill, and nineteenth
century enterprise which, combined, had placed, in a time so short as
to seem a miracle, this city of beauty beside the blue Lake Michigan.
And now I began to ask myself why the visitor who had nothing to do
but to see this wonder of wonders, and had no need to keep one eye
upon the passing faces, did not see it, at least until it grew
familiar from that point of view, from a seat in an Intramural.
What a kaleidoscopic panorama! In taking my place I had not even
noticed the direction in which I was moving. I had been seeing such a
marvel of glimpses, domes, roofs, the lagoon in the distance, a
flashing glimpse of the lake through glittering, airy turrets, trees,
statues, flags--beauty and charm everywhere. I had taken a round-trip
ticket, and I whirled on and on, until somehow I saw the great glass
dome of the Horticultural Building, and a moment later a fleeting view
of Midway recalled to my mind my own personality and interests. As I
gazed at it, stretching away westward, a veritable Joseph's coat of a
street, it was gone, and I saw the tall dome of Illinois, the Art
Gallery in the distance, with the lagoon again gleaming through trees,
to be lost again, while roofs, windows, vistas of streets surrounded
me, and I could peep in at the windows we were passing; and then I
heard the cry of the guard, and noted the name as we slacked speed at
Mount Vernon Station, almost upon the roof of the Old Virginia
Building. I peered out as we drew up to this station in the air, and
drew back a little as a second train, moving in the opposite
direction, dashed by. I am in the rear car, and as we move away from
Mount Vernon, suddenly I have a vision of someone who must have flung
himself from the forward car at the last moment, and who is running
along the platform, and in the direction of the passing train, in
breathless haste, his head bare, his hat clutched in his swinging
hand.
It is Dave Brainerd, and as we tear around a curve and he is lost to
my sight, I am brought back to thoughts of business. Dave has
evidently 'struck a trail.' Wondering much, I stop at the north loop,
and standing with the Government Building to my right and the
Fisheries with its curving colonnades on my left, I gaze off upon the
blue and shining waters of the lake, and realize fully for the first
time the awful incongruity between all this stateliness and beauty and
our mission in its midst--a criminal hunt!