CAUGHT FOR A BURGLAR.
Supper was ready when Jack and Mary went into the house, and Mrs.
Murdoch was eager that they should eat at once. She seemed very
placidly to take it for granted that things were going properly in the
_Eagle_ office. Her husband had been ill before, and the paper had
somehow lived along, and she was not the kind of woman to fret about it.
"He's been worrying," she said to Mary, "principally about town news.
He's afraid the _Inquirer_ 'll get ahead of you. It might be good to
see him."
"I'll see him," said Mary.
"Mary! Mary!" came faintly in reply to her kindly greeting. "Local
items, Mary. Society Notes--the flood--logs--bridges--dams--fires.
Brief Mention. Town Improvement Society--the Sociable--anything!"
"Jack will be out after news as soon as he eats his supper," said Mary.
"He'll find all there is to find. The printers did a splendid day's
work."
"The doctor says not to tell me about anything," said the sick man,
despondently. "You'll fill the paper somehow. Do the best you can,
till I get well."
She did not linger, for Mrs. Murdoch was already pulling her sleeve.
The three were soon seated at the table, and hardly was a cup of tea
poured before Mrs. Murdoch remarked:
"Mary," she said, "Miss Glidden called here to-day, with Mrs. Judge
Edwards, in her carriage. They were sorry to find you out. So did
Mrs. Mason, and so did Mrs. Lansing, and Mrs. Potter. They wanted you
to go riding, and there's a lawn-tennis party coming. I told them all
that Mr. Murdoch was sick, and you were editing the _Eagle_, and Jack
was, too. Miss Glidden's very fond of you, you know. So is Mrs.
Potter. Her husband wishes he knew what to send Jack for saving his
wife from being drowned."
This was delivered steadily but not rapidly, and Mary needed only to
say she would have been glad to see them all.
"I didn't save anybody," said Jack. "If the logs had hit the bridge
while we were on it, nothing could have saved us."
Mary was particularly glad that none of her new friends were coming in
to spend the evening, for she felt she had done enough for one day.
Mrs. Murdoch, however, told her of a "Union Church Sociable," to be
held at the house of Mrs. Edwards, the next Thursday evening, and said
she had promised to bring Miss Ogden. Of course Mary said she would
go, but Jack declined.
After supper, Jack was eager to set out upon his hunt after news-items.
"I mustn't let a soul know what I'm doing," he said to Mary. "We'll
see whether I can't find out as much as the _Inquirer's_ man can."
He hurried away from the house, but soon ceased to walk fast and began
to peer sharply about.
"There's a new building going up," he said, as he turned a corner;
"I'll find out about it."
So he did, but it was only "by the way"; he really had a plan, and the
next step took him to Mr. Prodger's livery-stable.
"Well, Ogden," said Prodger, when he came in. "That bay team has
earned eight dollars and fifty cents to-day. I'm glad you brought them
over. How long are you going to be in town?"
"I can't tell," said Jack. "I'm staying at Murdoch's."
"The editor's? He's a good fellow, but the _Eagle_ is slow. All dry
fodder. No vinegar. No pickles. He needs waking up. Tell him about
Link's bridge!"
That was a good beginning, and Jack soon knew just how high the water
had risen in the creek at Mertonville; how high it had ever risen
before; how many logs had been saved; how near Sam Hutchins and three
other men came to being carried over the dam; and what people talked
about doing to prevent another flood, and other matters of interest.
Then he went among the stable-men, who had been driving all day, and
they gave him a number of items. Jack relied mainly upon his memory,
but he soon gathered such a budget of facts that he had to go to the
public reading-room and work a while with pencil and paper, for fear of
forgetting his treasures.
Out he went again, and it was curious how he managed to slip in among
knots of idlers, and set them to talking, and make them tell all they
knew.
"I'm getting the news," he said to himself; "only there isn't much
worth the time." After a few moments he exclaimed, "This is the
darkest, meanest part of all Mertonville!"
It was the oldest part of the village, near the canal and the railway
station, and many of the houses were dilapidated. Jack was thinking
that Mary might write something about improving such a neglected,
squalid quarter, when he heard a shriek from the door of a house near
by.
"Robbers!--thieves!--fire!--murder!--rob-bers!--villains!"
It was the voice of a woman, and had a crack in it that made it sound
as if two voices were trying to choke each other.
"Robbers!" shouted Jack springing forward, just as two very short men
dashed through the gate and disappeared in the darkness.
If they were robbers they were likely to get away, for they ran well.
Jack Ogden did not run very far. He heard other footsteps. There were
people coming from the opposite direction, but he paid no attention to
them, until just as he was passing the gate.
Then he felt a hand on his left shoulder, and another hand on his right
shoulder, and suddenly he found himself lying flat on his back upon the
sidewalk.
"Hold him, boys!"
"We've got him!"
"Hold him down!"
"Tie him! We needn't gag him. Tie him tight! We've got him!"
There were no less than four men, and two held his legs, while the
other two pinioned his arms, all the while threatening him with
terrible things if he resisted.
It was in vain to struggle, and every time he tried to speak they
silenced him. Besides, he was too much astonished to talk easily, and
all the while an unceasing torrent of abuse was poured upon him, over
the gate, by the voice that had given the alarm.
"We've got him, Mrs. McNamara! He can't get away this time. The young
villain!"
"They were goin' to brek into me house, indade," said Mrs. McNamara.
"The murdherin' vagabones!"
"What'll we do with him now, boys?" asked one of his captors. "I don't
know where to take him--do you, Deacon Abrams?"
"What's your name, you young thief?" sternly demanded another.
Jack had begun to think. One of his first thoughts was that a gang of
desperate robbers had seized him. The next idea was, that he never met
four more stupid-looking men in Mertonville, nor anywhere else. He
resolved that he would not tell his name, to have it printed in the
_Inquirer_, and so made no answer.
"That's the way of thim," said Mrs. McNamara. "He's game, and he won't
pache. The joodge'll have to mak him spake. Ye'd betther lock him up,
and kape him till day."
"That's it, Deacon Abrams."
"That's just it," said the man spoken to. "We can lock him up in the
back room of my house, while we go and find the constable."
Away they went, guarding their prisoner on the way as if they were
afraid of him.
They soon came to the dwelling of Deacon Abrams.
It was hard for Jack Ogden, but he bore it like a young Mohawk Indian.
It would have been harder if it had not been so late, and if more of
the household had been there to see him. As it was, doors opened,
candles flared, old voices and young voices asked questions, a baby
cried, and then Jack heard a very sharp voice.
"Sakes alive, Deacon! You can't have that ruffian here! We shall all
be murdered!"
"Only till I go and find the constable, Jerusha," said the deacon,
pleadingly. "We'll lock him in the back room, and Barney and
Pettigrew'll stand guard at the gate, with clubs, while Smith and I are
gone."
There was another protest, and two more children began to cry, but Jack
was led on into his prison-cell.
It was a comfortable room, containing a bed and a chair. There was
real ingenuity in the way they secured Jack Ogden. They backed a chair
against a bedpost and made him sit down, and then they tied the chair,
and the wicked young robber in it, to the post.
"There!" said Deacon Abrams. "He can't get away now!" and in a moment
more Jack heard the key turn in the lock, and he was left in the dark,
alone and bound,--a prisoner under a charge of burglary.
"I never thought of this thing happening to me," he said to himself,
gritting his teeth and squirming on his chair. "It's pretty hard. May
be I can get away, though. They thought they pulled the ropes tight,
but then--"
The hempen fetters really hurt him a little, but it was partly because
of the chair.
"May be I can kick it out from under me," he said to himself, "and
loosen the ropes."
Out it came, after a tug, and then Jack could stand up.
"I might climb on the bed, now the ropes are loose," he said, "and lift
the loops over the post. Then I could crawl out of 'em."
He was excited, and worked quickly. In a moment he was standing in the
middle of the room, with only his hands tied behind him.
"I can cut that cord," he thought, "if I can find a nail in the wall."
He easily found several, and one of them had a rough edge on the head
of it, and after a few minutes of hard sawing, the cord was severed.
"It's easy to saw twine," said he. "Now for the next thing."
He went to the window and looked out into the darkness.
"I'm over the roof of the kitchen," he said, "and that tree's close to
it."
Up went the window--slowly, carefully, noiselessly--and out crept Jack
upon that roof. It was steep, but he stole along the ridge. Now he
could reach the tree.
"It's an apple-tree," he said. "I can reach that longest branch, and
swing off, and go down it hand over hand."
At an ordinary time, few boys would have thought it could be done, and
Jack had to gather all his courage to make the attempt; but he slid
down and reached for that small, frail limb, from his perilous perch in
the gutter of the roof.
"Now!" said Jack to himself.
Off he went with a quick grasp, and then another lower along the
branch, before it had time to break, but his third grip was on a larger
limb, below, and he believed he was safe.
"I must be quick!" he said. "Somebody is striking a light in that
room!"
Hand over hand for a moment, and then he was astride of a limb. Soon
he was going down the trunk; and then the window (which he had closed
behind him) went up, and he heard Deacon Abrams exclaiming:
"He couldn't have got out this way, could he? Stop thief! Stop thief!"
"Let 'em chase!" muttered Jack, as his feet reached the ground. "This
is the liveliest kind of news-item!"
Jack vaulted over the nearest fence, ran across a garden, climbed over
another fence, ran through a lot, and came out into a street on the
other side of the square.
"I've got a good start, now," he thought, "but I'll keep right on.
They don't expect me at Murdoch's to-night. If I can only get to the
_Eagle_ office! Nobody'll hunt for me there!"
He heard the sound of feet, at that moment, around the next corner.
Open went the nearest gate, and in went Jack, and before long he was
scaling more fences.
"It's just like playing 'Hare-and-Hounds,'" remarked Jack, as he once
more came out into a street. "Now for the _Eagle_, and it won't do to
run. I'm safe."
He heard some running and shouting after that, however, and he did not
really feel secure until he was on his bed, with the doors below locked
and barred.
"Now they can hunt all night!" he said to himself, laughing. "I've
made plenty of news for Mary."
So she thought next morning; and the last "news-item" brought out the
color in her cheeks and the brightness in her eyes.
"I'll write it out," she said, "just as if you were the real robber,
and we'll print it!"
"Of course," said Jack; "but I'd better keep shady for a day or so. I
wish I was on my way to New York!"
"Seems to me as if you were," said Mary. "They won't come here after
you. The paper's nearly full, now, and it'll be out to-morrow!"
Mr. Murdoch would have been gratified to see how Mary and Jack worked
that day. Even Mr. Black and the type-setters worked with energy, and
so did Mr. Bones, and there was no longer any doubt that the _Eagle_
would be printed on time. Mr. Murdoch felt better the moment he was
told by Mary, at tea-time, that she had found editing no trouble at
all. He was glad, he said, that all had been so quiet, and that nobody
had called at the editor's office, and that people did not know he was
sick. As to that, however, Mr. Bones had not told Mary how much he and
Mr. Black had done to protect her from intrusion. They had been like a
pair of watch-dogs, and it was hardly possible for any outsider to pass
them. As for Jack, he was not seen outside of the _Eagle_ all that day.
"If any of Deacon Abram's posse should come in," he remarked to Mary,
"they wouldn't know me with all the ink that's on my face."
"Mother would have to look twice," laughed Mary. "Don't I wish I knew
what people will think of the paper!"
She did not find out at once, even on Thursday. Jack had the engine
going on time, and as fast as papers were printed, the distribution of
them followed. It was a very creditable _Eagle_, but Mary blushed when
she read in print the account Mr. Murdoch had written of the doings in
Crofield.
"They'll think Jack's a hero," she said, "and what will they think of
me?--and what will Miss Glidden say? But then he has complimented her."
Jack, too, was much pleased to read the vivid accounts she had written
of the capture and escape of the daring young burglar who had broken
into the house of Mrs. McNamara, and of the falling of Link's bridge.
Neither of them, however, had an idea of how some articles in the paper
would affect other people. Before noon, there was such a rush for
_Eagles_, at the front office, that Mr. Black got out another ream of
paper to print a second edition, and Mr. Bones had almost to fight to
keep the excited crowd from going up-stairs to see for themselves
whether the editor was there. Before night, poor Mrs. Murdoch went to
the door thirty times to say to eager inquirers that Mr. Murdoch was in
bed, and that Dr. Follet had forbidden him to see anybody, or to talk
one word, or to get himself excited.
"What's the matter with the people?" she said wearily. "Can it be
possible that anything's the matter with the _Eagle_? Mary Ogden said
she'd taken the very best editorials from the city papers."
The _Inquirer_ was nowhere that Thursday, and the excitement over the
_Eagle_ increased all the afternoon.
[Illustration: _Just out_.]
"It's all right, Mrs. Murdoch," said Jack, at supper. "Bones says he
has sold more than two hundred extra copies."
"I'm glad of that," she said, "and I'll tell Mr. Murdoch; but he
mustn't read it."
When she did so, he smiled faintly and with an effort feebly responded:
"Thank Mary for me. I suppose they wanted to read about the flood."
Mr. Bones had not seen fit to report to Mary that a baker's dozen of
old subscribers had ordered their paper stopped; nor that one angry man
with a big club in his hand had inquired for the editor; nor that
Deacon Abrams, and the Town Constable, and three other men, and a
lawyer had called to see the editor about the robbery at Mrs.
McNamara's; nor that the same worthy woman, with her arms akimbo and
her bonnet falling back, had fiercely demanded of him:
"Fwhat for did yez print all that about me howlin'? Wudn't ony woman
spake, was she bein' robbed and murdhered?"
Bones had pacified Mrs. McNamara only by sitting still and hearing her
out, and he would not for anything have mentioned it to Miss Ogden.
She therefore had only good news to tell at the house, and Mrs.
Murdoch's replies related chiefly to the Union Church Sociable at Judge
Edwards's.
"Mr. Murdoch is quiet," she said, "and he may sleep all the time we're
gone."
"I'll be on hand to look out for him," said Jack, "I'm not going
anywhere."
That reassured them as to leaving home, and Mrs. Murdoch and Mary
departed without anxiety; but they had hardly entered the Edwards's
house before they found that many other people were very much less
placid.
The first person to come forward, after Mrs. Edwards had welcomed them,
was Miss Glidden.
"Oh, Mary Ogden!" she exclaimed, very sweetly and benevolently. "My
dear! Why did you say so much about me in the _Eagle_?"
"That was Mr. Murdoch's work," said Mary. "I had nothing to do with
it."
"And that robbery and escape was really shocking."
"Exactly!" They heard a sharp, decided voice near them, and it came
from a thin little man in a white cravat. "You are right, Elder
Holloway! When a leading journal like the _Eagle_ finds it needful to
denounce so sternly the state of the public streets in Mertonville, it
is time for the people to act. We ministers must hold a council right
away."
Mary remembered a political editorial she had taken from a New York
paper, and had cut down to fit the _Eagle_; but its effect was
something unexpected.
A deeper voice on her left spoke next.
"There was serious talk among the hotel-men and innkeepers of mobbing
the _Eagle_ office to-day!"
"That," thought Mary, "must be the high-license editorial from that
Philadelphia weekly."
"We must _act_, Judge Edwards!" exclaimed another voice. "Nobody knows
Murdoch's politics, but his denunciation of the prevailing corruption
is terrible. There's a storm rising. The Republican Committee has
called a special meeting to consider the matter, and we Democrats must
do the same. The _Eagle_ is right about it, too; but it was a daring
step for him to take."
"That's the editorial from the Chicago daily," thought Mary; "the last
part was from that Boston paper! Oh, dear me! What have I done?"
She had to ask herself that question a dozen times that evening, and
she wished Jack had been there to hear what was said.
The sociable went gayly on, nevertheless, and all the while Jack sat in
Mrs. Murdoch's dining-room, his face fairly glowing red with the
interest he took in something spread out upon the table before him. It
was a large map of New York city that he had found in the _Eagle_
office and brought to the house.