The Hemisphere Train Robbery
Anderson Crow lived at the extreme south end of Tinkletown's principal
thoroughfare. The "calaboose" was situated at the far end of Main
Street, at least half a mile separating the home of the law and the home
of the lawless. Marshal Crow's innate love for the spectacular alone
explains the unneighbourliness of the two establishments. He felt an
inward glory in riding or walking the full length of the street, and he
certainly had no reason to suspect the populace of disregarding the
outward glory he presented.
The original plan of the merchantry comprehended the erection of the
jail in close proximity to the home of its chief official, but Mr. Crow
put his foot flatly and ponderously upon the scheme. With the dignity
which made him noticeable, he said he'd "be doggoned ef he wanted to
have people come to his own dooryard to be arrested." By which, it may
be inferred, that he expected the evil-doer to choose his own arresting
place.
Mr. and Mrs. Crow were becoming thrifty, in view of the prospect that
confronted them, to wit: The possible marriage of Rosalie and the
cutting off of the yearly payments. As she was to be absent for a full
month or more, Anderson conceived the idea of advertising for a lodger
and boarder. By turning Roscoe out of his bed, they obtained a spare
room that looked down upon the peony beds beyond the side "portico."
Mr. Crow was lazily twisting his meagre chin whiskers one morning soon
after Rosalie's departure. He was leaning against the town pump in front
of the post-office, the sun glancing impotently off the bright badge on
the lapel of his alpaca coat. A stranger came forth from the post-office
and approached the marshal.
"Is this Mr. Crow?" he asked, with considerable deference.
"It is, sir."
"They tell me you take lodgers."
"Depends."
"My name is Gregory, Andrew Gregory, and I am here to canvass the
neighbourhood in the interest of the Human Life Insurance Company of
Penobscot. If you need references, I can procure them from New York or
Boston."
The stranger was a tall, lean-faced man of forty or forty-five, well
dressed, with a brusque yet pleasant manner of speech. His moustache and
beard were black and quite heavy. Mr. Crow eyed him quietly for a
moment.
"I don't reckon I'll ask fer references. Our rates are six dollars a
week, board an' room. Childern bother you?"
"Not at all. Have you any?"
"Some, more or less. They're mostly grown."
"I will take board and room for two weeks, at least," said Mr. Gregory,
who seemed to be a man of action.
For almost a week the insurance agent plied his vocation assiduously but
fruitlessly. The farmers and the citizens of Tinkletown were slow to
take up insurance. They would talk crops and politics with the obliging
Mr. Gregory, but that was all. And yet, his suavity won for him many
admirers. There were not a few who promised to give him their insurance
if they concluded to "take any out." Only one man in town was willing to
be insured, and he was too old to be comforting. Mr. Calligan was
reputed to be one hundred and three years of age; and he wanted the
twenty-year endowment plan. Gregory popularised himself at the Crow home
by paying for his room in advance. Moreover, he was an affable chap with
a fund of good stories straight from Broadway. At the post-office and
in Lamson's store he was soon established as a mighty favourite. Even
the women who came to make purchases in the evening,--a hitherto unknown
custom,--lingered outside the circle on the porch, revelling in the
second edition of the "Arabian Nights."
"Our friend, the detective here," he said, one night at the close of the
first week, "tells me that we are to have a show in town next week. I
haven't seen any posters."
"Mark Riley's been goin' to put up them bills sence day 'fore
yesterday," said Anderson Crow, with exasperation in his voice, "an he
ain't done it yet. The agent fer the troupe left 'em here an' hired
Mark, but he's so thunderation slow that he won't paste 'em up 'til
after the show's been an' gone. I'll give him a talkin' to to-morrer."
"What-fer show is it?" asked Jim Borum.
"Somethin' like a circus on'y 'tain't one," said Anderson. "They don't
pertend to have animals."
"Don't carry a menagerie, I see," remarked Gregory.
"'Pears that way," said Anderson, slowly analysing the word.
"I understand it is a stage performance under a tent," volunteered the
postmaster.
"That's what it is," said Harry Squires, the editor, with a superior
air. "They play 'As You Like It,' by Shakespeare. It's a swell show. We
got out the hand bills over at the office. They'll be distributed in
town to-morrow, and a big batch of them will be sent over to the summer
places across the river. The advance agent says it is a high-class
performance and will appeal particularly to the rich city people up in
the mountains. It's a sort of open-air affair, you know." And then Mr.
Squires was obliged to explain to his fellow-townsmen all the known
details in connection with the approaching performance of "As You Like
It" by the Boothby Company, set for Tinkletown on the following Thursday
night. Hapgood's Grove had been selected by the agent as the place in
which the performance should be given.
"Don't they give an afternoon show?" asked Mrs. Williams.
"Sure not," said Harry curtly. "It isn't a museum."
"Of course not," added Anderson Crow reflectively. "It's a troupe."
The next morning, bright and early, Mark Riley fared forth with paste
and brush. Before noon, the board fences, barns and blank walls of
Tinkletown flamed with great red and blue letters, twining in and about
the portraits of Shakespeare, Manager Boothby, Rosalind, Orlando, and an
extra king or two in royal robes. A dozen small boys spread the hand
bills from the _Banner_ presses, and Tinkletown was stirred by the
excitement of a sensation that had not been experienced since
Forepaugh's circus visited the county seat three years before. It went
without saying that Manager Boothby would present "As You Like It" with
an "unrivalled cast." He had "an all-star production," direct from "the
leading theatres of the universe."
When Mark Riley started out again in the afternoon for a second
excursion with paste and brush, "slapping up" small posters with a
celerity that bespoke extreme interest on his part, the astonished
populace feared that he was announcing a postponement of the
performance. Instead of that, however, he was heralding the fact that
the Hemisphere Trunk Line and Express Company would gladly pay ten
thousand dollars reward for the "apprehension and capture" of the men
who robbed one of its richest trains a few nights before, seizing as
booty over sixty thousand dollars in money, besides killing two
messengers in cold blood. The great train robbery occurred in the
western part of the State, hundreds of miles from Tinkletown, but nearly
all of its citizens had read accounts of the deed in the weekly paper
from Boggs City.
"I seen the item about it in Mr. Gregory's New York paper," said
Anderson Crow to the crowd at Lamson's.
"Gee whiz, it must 'a' been a peach!" said Isaac Porter, open-mouthed
and eager for details. Whereupon Marshal Crow related the story of the
crime which stupefied the world on the morning of July 31st. The express
had been held up in an isolated spot by a half-dozen masked men. A safe
had been shattered and the contents confiscated, the perpetrators
vanishing as completely as if aided by Satan himself. The authorities
were baffled. A huge reward was offered in the hope that it might induce
some discontented underling in the band to expose his comrades.
"Are you goin' after 'em, Anderson?" asked old Mr. Borton, with
unfailing faith in the town's chief officer.
"Them fellers is in Asia by this time," vouchsafed Mr. Crow scornfully,
forgetting that less than a week had elapsed since the robbery. He
flecked a fly from his detective's badge and then struck viciously at
the same insect when it straightway attacked his G.A.R. emblem.
"I doubt it," said Mr. Lamson. "Like as not they're right here in this
State, mebby in this county. You can't tell about them slick
desperadoes. Hello, Harry! Has anything more been heard from the train
robbers?" Harry Squires approached the group with something like news in
his face.
"I should say so," he said. "The darned cusses robbed the State Express
last night at Vanderskoop and got away with thirteen hundred dollars.
Say, they're wonders! The engineer says they're only five of them."
"Why, gosh dern it, Vanderskoop's only the fourth station west of Boggs
City!" exclaimed Anderson Crow, pricking up his official ear. "How in
thunder do you reckon they got up here in such a short time?"
"They probably stopped off on their way back from Asia," drily remarked
Mr. Lamson; but it passed unnoticed.
"Have you heard anything more about the show, Harry?" asked Jim Borum.
"Is she sure to be here?" What did Tinkletown care about the train
robbers when a "show" was headed that way?
"Sure. The press comments are very favourable," said Harry. "They all
say that Miss Marmaduke, who plays Rosalind, is great. We've got a cut
of her and, say, she's a beauty. I can see myself sitting in the front
row next Thursday night, good and proper."
"Say, Anderson, I think it's a dern shame fer Mark Riley to go 'round
pastin' them reward bills over the show pictures," growled Isaac Porter.
"He ain't got a bit o' sense."
With one accord the crowd turned to inspect two adjacent bill boards.
Mark had either malignantly or insanely pasted the reward notices over
the nether extremities of Rosalind as she was expected to appear in the
Forest of Arden. There was a period of reflection on the part of an
outraged constituency.
"I don't see how he's goin' to remove off them reward bills without
scraping off her legs at the same time," mused Anderson Crow in
perplexity. Two housewives of Tinkletown suddenly deserted the group and
entered the store. And so it was that the train robbers were forgotten
for the time being.
But Marshal Crow's reputation as a horse-thief taker and general
suppressor of crime constantly upbraided him. It seemed to call upon him
to take steps toward the capture of the train robbers. All that
afternoon he reflected. Tinkletown, seeing his mood, refrained from
breaking in upon it. He was allowed to stroke his whiskers in peace and
to think to his heart's content. By nightfall his face had become an
inscrutable mask, and then it was known that the President of Bramble
County's Horse-Thief Detective Association was determined to fathom the
great problem. Stealthily he went up to the great attic in his home and
inspected his "disguises." In some far-off period of his official career
he had purchased the most amazing collection of false beards, wigs and
garments that any stranded comedian ever disposed of at a sacrifice. He
tried each separate article, seeking for the best individual effect;
then he tried them collectively. It would certainly have been
impossible to recognise him as Anderson Crow. In truth, no one could
safely have identified him as a human being.
"I'm goin' after them raskils," he announced to Andrew Gregory and the
whole family, as he came down late to take his place at the head of the
supper table.
"Ain't you goin' to let 'em show here, pop?" asked Roscoe in distress.
"Show here? What air you talkin' about?"
"He means the train robbers, Roscoe," explained the lad's mother. The
boy breathed again.
"They are a dangerous lot," volunteered Gregory, who had been in Albany
for two days. "The papers are full of their deeds. Cutthroats of the
worst character."
"I'd let them alone, Anderson," pleaded his wife. "If you corner them,
they'll shoot, and it would be jest like you to follow them right into
their lair."
"Consarn it, Eva, don't you s'pose that I c'n shoot, too?" snorted
Anderson. "What you reckon I've been keepin' them loaded revolvers out
in the barn all these years fer? Jest fer ornaments? Not much! They're
to shoot with, ef anybody asks you. Thunderation, Mr. Gregory, you ain't
no idee how a feller can be handicapped by a timid wife an' a lot o'
fool childern. I'm almost afeard to turn 'round fer fear they'll be
skeered to death fer my safety."
"You cut yourself with a razor once when ma told you not to try to shave
the back of your neck by yourself," said one of the girls. "She wanted
you to let Mr. Beck shave it for you, but you wouldn't have it that
way."
"Do you suppose I want an undertaker shavin' my neck? I'm not that
anxious to be shaved. Beck's the undertaker, Mr. Gregory."
"Well, he runs the barber shop, too," insisted the girl.
During the next three days Tinkletown saw but little of its marshal,
fire chief and street commissioner. That triple personage was off on
business of great import. Early, each morning, he mysteriously stole
away to the woods, either up or down the river, carrying a queer bundle
under the seat of his "buckboard." Two revolvers, neither of which had
been discharged for ten years, reposed in a box fastened to the
dashboard. Anderson solemnly but positively refused to allow any one to
accompany him, nor would he permit any one to question him. Farmers
coming to town spoke of seeing him in the lanes and in the woods, but he
had winked genially when they had asked what he was trailing.
"He's after the train robbers," explained all Tinkletown soberly.
Whereupon the farmers and their wives did not begrudge Anderson Crow the
chicken dinners he had eaten with them, nor did they blame him for
bothering the men in the fields. It was sufficient that he found excuse
to sleep in the shade of their trees during his still hunt.
"Got any track of 'em?" asked George Ray one evening, stopping at
Anderson's back gate to watch the marshal unhitch his thankful nag.
Patience had ceased to be a virtue with George.
"Any track of who?" asked Mr. Crow with a fine show of innocence.
"The robbers."
"I ain't been trackin' robbers, George."
"What in thunder have you been trackin' all over the country every day,
then?"
"I'm breakin' this colt," calmly replied the marshal, with a mighty wink
at old Betty, whom he had driven to the same buckboard for twenty years.
As George departed with an insulted snort, Andrew Gregory came from the
barn, where he had been awaiting the return of Mr. Crow."
"I'm next to something big," he announced in a low tone, first looking
in all directions to see that no one was listening.
"Gosh! Did you land Mr. Farnsworth?"
"It has nothing to do with insurance," hastily explained the agent.
"I've heard something of vast importance to you."
"You don't mean to say the troupe has busted?"
"No--no; it is in connection with--with--" and here Mr. Gregory leaned
forward and whispered something in Anderson's ear. Mr. Crow promptly
stopped dead still in his tracks, his eyes bulging. Betty, who was being
led to the water trough, being blind and having no command to halt,
proceeded to bump forcibly against her master's frame.