Bundles do not move thus, unless assisted, but Philo Gubb was too far
away to see the hand he knew must have reached out for the bundle. He
ran rapidly, keeping in the sawdust that formed the unfruitful soil of
the lumber-yard, until he dared come no nearer, and then he climbed to
the top of the tallest lumber-pile and lay flat. He commanded every
side of the hillside lumber-yard, and he did not have long to wait.
From the lower side of the yard he saw a black figure emerge, cross
the street and disappear over the bank into the railway switch-yard
below. Mr. Gubb scrambled down and followed.
At the bank above the switch-yard he paused, keeping in a shadow, and
looked here and there. Flat cars and box cars stood on the tracks in
great numbers, most of them closed and sealed--some partly open. He
heard a car door grate as it was closed. He slipped down the bank and
crept on his hands and knees. He was halfway down the line of cars
when he heard a voice. It came from car 7887, C. B. & Q.
"Run all the breath out of me," said the voice in a wheeze.
"Well, did you get it?" whispered another voice.
"Sure I got it! Got something, anyway. Strike a match, Bill, and let's
see if he put up a job on us. If he did, we'll blow him up to-morrow
night, hey?"
"That's right. We got a can o' powder left under the pile by the
laylocks. How much is it?"
"We tol' him one thousand, didn't we? Same as he give the Law and
Order to help grab us. Now, listen! You take half of this and go one
way, an' I'll take half an' go the other. We can get away with five
hundred apiece."
"And we got the five hundred apiece we got for doin' the dynamite job,
too. Say, I never thought to have a thousand dollars at once in me
life. What's that?"
It was Philo Gubb, slipping the car door latch over the staple and
hammering home the hasp with a rock. It was the engine, backing
against the long row of cars to make a coupling, and then moving
slowly forward toward Derlingport as the heavy train got under way.
The two rascals hammered on the side of the car with their fists. They
swore. They kicked against the doors. Philo Gubb drew himself into the
next open car as the train moved away.
About the same time, Officer Purcell entered the Marshal's office,
where Wittaker and Billy Getz sat awaiting the coming of Philo Gubb.
Purcell led John Gutman, the town half-wit.
"I got him," he said proudly. "Caught him comin' out of Sam Wentz's
cellar window. Says he didn't mean no harm. Had a dream he was to
leave spoons on all the society folks an' he'd be invited to all their
parties."
"Did he fight you?" asked Wittaker. "Your pants is all stained up."
"Fight? No, he wouldn't fight a sheep. I tripped over a wire fence
cuttin' a corner an' fell into a flower-bed. Got Hail Columbia from
the lady, too. She said old man Westcote fell into the flowers
yesterday, and she didn't mean to have her flower-bed used as no
landin' place. Heard from Detective Gubb yet?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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