THE COLD-BLOODED MURDER OF MOSES GRAVES, THE POSTMASTER OF JEWELL, ALABAMA. The reader may well ask what the detectives of the Southern Express Company were doing while these men remained in Lamar County and the adjacent country, from the time of the Duck Hill robbery until the summer of 1889. In the contiguous counties of Lamar, Fayette and Marion the kindred of the Burrow family abounded on every hand. The homes of his kinsmen, notably Cash, Terry, Barker, Smith and Hankins, not only furnished a safe refuge for the robbers, but they were worshiped as heroes, and each household vied with the other in its fealty and loyalty to the robber chief. “Rube never robs a poor man,” they were often wont to say, forgetting that one never gets blood out of a turnip. These people were of a thriftless, restive spirit, and among them were many shrewd and cunning natures, who became the paid scouts of the outlaws. A code of signals was established, and the appearance of a detective or a stranger of any kind in that section was at once ascertained, and the information conveyed to the outlaws. The firing of a gun in a certain locality, the cracking of a whip, the blowing of a horn, and the deep-toned “ah-hoo,” as well as scores of other signals, all had their meaning. They gave the fugitives warning of the approach of danger; and so, when occasional raids were made, a house was surrounded, a trail was covered, or some solitary scout from among Rube’s clansmen was encountered, the stillness of the air would be broken by a signal which plainly told the detectives that their presence was known and the robbers were on the alert. It was even impossible to trail the messengers who carried rations to the robbers while in camp, for these were stored in the crevices of rocks and in the trunks of trees, from which coverts, at propitious times, the food would be taken. Detective Jackson once followed Jim Cash, with a supply of provisions, to a ravine some distance from Cash’s house, and saw them hidden away in the cavernous depths of a hollow log. He concealed himself within one hundred yards of the spot, and, knowing Rube was in that locality, felt sure he would be able to pick him off with his trusty Winchester when he came for his rations. Jackson crouched behind the huge trunk of a tree, in breathless expectation of Rube’s appearance, when a shot fired from the vicinity of Cash’s house dashed his hopes. Half an hour later Cash walked cautiously down the hill, took the food away, and tied a flaming red cloth to the top of an adjacent bush, thus exhibiting for Rube the red signal of danger. Cash had, on his return, with the cunning of his class, discovered strange footsteps on his trail, and rightly divined that his movements had been watched. Although the detective took down the signal, Rube had doubtless seen it. If not, acting on the signal previously given, Rube missed his dinner that day.