Part 35 (1/2)

The happiest man in Bramble County was Eliphalet Loop when he finally grasped the truth. The prisoner turned out to be his wife's first husband--he grasped that fact some little time before he realized that _he_ wasn't even her second husband, owing to certain fundamental principles in law--and a fugitive from justice. The man was an escaped convict, the leader of a gang of counterfeiters, and he was serving a term in one of the federal prisons when he succeeded in his break for liberty. For many months the United States Secret Service operatives had been combing the country for him, hot and cold on his trail, but always, until now, finding themselves baffled by the crafty rogue, who, according to the records, was one of the most dangerous, desperate criminals alive. Finally they got track of his wife, who had lived for a time in Hoboken, but it was only within the week that they succeeded in locating her as the wife of Eliphalet Loop. The remainder of the story is too simple to bother about.

”Of course, Mr. Loop,” said one of the secret-service men, ”you can prosecute this woman for bigamy.”

Mr. Loop shook his head. ”Not much! I won't take no chance. She might prove that she wasn't ever married to _this_ feller, an' then where would I be? No, sirree! You take her along an' lock her up. She's a dangerous character. An' say, don't make any mistake an' fergit to take her mother an' sister, too.”

The next evening Mr. Crow sat on the porch in front of Lamson's store.

His fellow-townsmen were paying up more promptly than he had expected.

Practically three-fourths of the reward was in his coat pockets--all silver, but as heavy as lead.

”Yes, sir,” he was saying in a rather far-reaching voice, for the outer rim of the crowd was some distance away, ”as I said before several times, I figgered he would do just what he did. I figgered that I'd have to outfigger him. He is one of the slickest individuals I have ever had anything to do with--an' one of the most desperit. I--er--where was I at, Alf?... Oh, yes, I recollect. He was a powerful feller. Fer a second or two I thought maybe he'd get the best of me, being so much younger an' havin' a revolver besides. But I hung on like grim death, an'

finally--Thanks, Jim; I wasn't expectin' you to pay 'fore the end of the month. Finally I got my favourite holt on him, an' down he went. All this time I was tryin' to git his revolver away from him. Just as I got it, the secret-service men came das.h.i.+n' up an'--What say, Deacon? Well, if the rest of the crowd ain't tired o' hearin' the story, I don't mind tellin' it all over.”

Harry Squires, perched on the railing, a.s.sured him that the crowd wouldn't mind in the least.

”The real beauty of the story Anderson,” he added dryly, ”is that it has so much of the spice of life in it.”

”What's that?”

”I mean variety.”

NO QUESTIONS ANSWERED

REWARD!!!

$25.00 For the Apprehension or Capture of Person or Persons Who Successfully Stole the Fas.h.i.+onable Bulldog Belonging to Mrs. M.

Fryback on or About Friday of Last Week!

N. B.--Said dog occasionally answers to the name of Marmaduke, but mostly to Mike.

An Additional Reward of Three Dollars Cash will be paid for the return of said dog, with or without said Criminals. No Questions asked.

A. CROW, Marshal of Tinkletown.

The foregoing poster, fresh from the press of the _Banner_ printing office, made itself conspicuous at no less than a dozen points in the village of Tinkletown on a bl.u.s.tery February morning. Early visitors to the post office in Lamson's store were the first to discover it, tacked neatly on the bulletin board. Others saw it in front of the Town Hall, while others, who rarely took the trouble to look at a telephone pole before leaning against it, found themselves gazing with interest at the notice that covered the customary admonition:

”Post No Bills.”

Of course every one in Tinkletown knew, and had known for the matter of a week or more, that Mort Fryback's bulldog was ”lost, strayed or stolen,” but this was the first glaring intimation that Mort had also lost his mind. In the first place, Mike--as he was familiarly known to every inhabitant--wasn't worth more than a dollar and a half when he was in his prime, and that, according to recollection, must have been at least twelve or fifteen years prior to his unexplained disappearance. In the second place, it was pretty generally understood that Mike--recently Marmaduke--had surrept.i.tiously taken a dose of prussic acid in a shed back of Kepsal's blacksmith shop and was now enjoying a state of perfect rejuvenation in the happy hunting ground.

Mr. Alf Reesling, the town drunkard, after having scanned four of the notices on his way to the post office, informed a group of citizens in front of Brubaker's drugstore that Anderson Crow would do almost anything to get his name into print. Alf and the town marshal had had one of their periodical ”fallings out,” and, for the moment at least, the former was inclined to bitterness.

”To begin with,” explained Alf, ”there ain't a dog in this town that's worth stealin', to say nothin' of three dollars. You can't tell me that Mort Fryback would give three dollars to get that dog back, not even if he was alive--which he ain't, if you c'n believe Bill Kepsal. No, sir; it's just because Anderson wants to see his name in print, that's what it is. I bet if you was to ask Mort if he has agreed to pay--how much is it all told?--twenty-eight dollars--if he has agreed to pay all that money for _nothin'_, he'd order you out of his store.”

”Mrs. Fryback told my wife a couple of weeks ago that Marmaduke was a prize bull, and she wouldn't take a hundred dollars for him,” said Newt Spratt. ”Seems that she had somebody look up his pedigree, and he turns out to be a stepson or something like that of a dog that won first prize at a bench show--whatever that is--in New York City.”

”Ever since that actress woman was here last fall,--that friend of Harry Squires, I mean,--every derned dog in town has turned out to be related some way or other to a thoroughbred animal in some other city,” said Alf. ”Why, even that mangy shepherd dog of Deacon Rank's--accordin' to Mrs. Rank--is a direct descendant of two of the finest Boston terriers that ever came out of Boston. She told me so herself, but, of course, I couldn't ask how he happened to look so much like a shepherd dog and so little like his parents, 'cause there's no use makin' poor Mrs. Rank any more miserable than she already is--she certainly don't get any fun out of life, livin' with the deacon from one year's end to the other.