He told her about the bank robbery and how his own self--in the week after next--had known it was going to happen, and told Sam to go watch it without giving him information by which it could have been stopped. "He knew it after it happened," said Sam bitterly, "and he could've told me about it before! He didn't, so he's a accessory to the crime. And he is me, which makes me a accessory, too. Good-by, Rosie, my own true love! You'll never see me again!" "You set right down here," Rosie ordered firmly. "You haven't done a thing yet, so it's that other you who's a criminal. You haven't got a thing to run away for!" "But I'm going to have! I'm doomed to be a criminal! It's that me in the week after next! There's nothing to be done!" "Says who? _I'm_ going to do something!" "Like what?" asked Sam. "I'm going to reform you," said Rosie, "before you start!" * * * * * She was a determined girl, that Rosie. She marched inside and put on her blue jeans, then went to her father's woodshed where he kept his tools and got a monkey wrench and stuck it in her hip pocket. When she came to the truck, Sam said, "What's the idea, Rosie?" "I'm riding around with you," replied Rosie, with a grim air. "You won't do anything criminal with me on hand! And if that other you starts talking to you on the telephone, I'm going to climb that pole and tell him where he gets off!" "If anybody could keep me from turning criminal," acknowledged Sam, "it'd be you, Rosie. But that monkey wrench--what's it for?" Rosie climbed into the seat beside him. "You start having criminal ideas," she told him, "and you'll find out! Now you go on about your business and I and the monkey wrench will look after your morals!" This tender exchange happened only an hour or so after the robbery and there was plenty of excitement around. But Sam went soberly about his work as telephone lineman. Rosie simply rode with him as a--well, it wasn't as a bodyguard, but a sort of M.P. escort--Morals Police. Where he worked on a line, he called the central office to report, and he heard about the hunt for the bank robbers, and told Rosie. * * * * * It was good fortune that he'd been in Dunnsville when the robbery happened, because his prompt repair of the phone wires had spoiled the robbers' get-away plans. They hadn't gone ten miles from Dunnsville before somebody fired a load of buckshot at them as their car roared by Lemons' Store. They were past before they realized they'd been shot at. But the buckshot had punctured the radiator, and two miles on, they were stuck.