CHAPTER VI

’TWAS A SWEET BABE

To get out of town I determined to do at the first opportunity, and by railroad too. I looked up the best hotel I could find on short notice and consulted a time-table. A train was due eastward in forty minutes. It would be a bold move to get out of town thus, but I vowed I’d attempt it. I was certain that one man, or indeed two travelling together, would be objects of suspicion, so I went to the reading-room and waited an opportunity to strike an acquaintance with at least three men who would leave the hotel and walk to the depot together. My efforts in that direction were unfruitful as far as getting into conversation with those I desired to. However, while waiting the unexpected to turn up, I glanced at a newspaper, in which was a long article, with big head-lines, about the bank loot. According to a statement by the authorities, there was no possibility of the two men still at liberty getting away from that section of the country. They were certain to be arrested. One part of the story which interested me not a little was the sequel of the exciting experience I had had the night I returned to get George Wilson’s treasure satchel. It seemed that a scheme had been laid by the enemy to capture the remainder of us by using the satchel as a bait. In searching our camp they found Wilson’s money and bonds under the log. It was their opinion that men who dared so much to rob the bank would not abandon nearly half a hundred thousand dollars without an effort to regain it, so it was schemed to place a guard in hiding close by the satchel and wait, if necessary, a week. In the meantime, if the fugitives were not arrested elsewhere, one or both of them might visit the camp, when they felt convinced that the enemy had given up the search and had of course overlooked the money. It appears that I had approached the spot so cautiously that none of the watchers had heard me, nor could they see me easily, the night, as it will be remembered, being not over light. I laughed to myself, and was on the point of bursting into a roar at what I read next, when I subdued the inclination in time. When I, so fortunately as it now appeared, tumbled the stone down the hillside, the enemy were lured into the belief, as I hoped they would be, that one or more of their game had come to the scene; and it was in their mind, that the satchel had been secured and was being carried off, and that the trap had been discovered. The tearing of the stone on its way downhill through the leaves and bushes was taken to mean the fleeing of more than one burglar, and after the stone went the deluded deputies. For more than an hour they beat about the woods and then scattered in different directions, to remain on watch for the game should they start from cover before morning. The newspaper told with great simplicity how the astute burglars had fooled the deputies, and gloated over the fact that the treasure satchel had been found and of my futile attempt to get it. Fortunate indeed was the rolling downhill of that stone. To me it was a lucky-stone of the right sort. I was mighty near jail that night.

My attention was drawn from the paper at this point by the announcement that the east-bound train was due. Immediately a porter appeared with several men, guests of the hotel, and passed out into the street. I felt sure that here was my opportunity. I allowed the party to get a short distance ahead. To my satisfaction two men, behind whom walked the porter, formed one group. The situation could not have been more to my liking,--excepting the assurance that I was safely out of my troubles. I walked up to the porter and opened a conversation.

“You started for the train sooner than I expected,” I said, slipping a half-dollar piece in his palm. He had never set eyes on me until that minute. Seeing I had struck the right gait by means of the tip, I continued: “Your house is giving much better service now than when I was here last year. I’m very much pleased with it indeed.”

Before we had gone a quarter of the way to the depot, I had accomplished what I started out to do--placing myself on the basis of a long-standing acquaintanceship with the porter, so far as outward appearances were concerned. The tip was an excellent lubricant for his tongue, too, the rattling of which would have tortured me unmercifully under other conditions. I wanted it to run at its speediest notch on this occasion, and it did wonders. No opportunity on my part was neglected to keep it in motion. In the meantime we were falling behind the two guests, and that we might get closer I forged on a mite; enough to make the porter step a little faster. I wanted it to appear that I was the third member of this group of departing guests. On getting to the platform of the depot I felt like congratulating myself on the splendid manner in which my ruse had worked. It was well for me, I think, that I had thus planned, for about the first person my eyes met was a deputy sheriff, who was joined by another almost immediately after my arrival. I needed no one to tell me they were officers of the law, their actions plainly indicating the country sheriff. But I didn’t hesitate. Keeping as near to the porter and his group as I safely could, I bought a ticket for Pittsburg, and when it was not wise to stay too near them I walked in the shadows at the end of the platform. It was a season of great anxiety to me, which was only removed when the train came in on time. Casting a last sly glance in the direction of the deputies, noting that they were peering closely at this and that person, I boarded the first coach, and when the depot was left behind began to feel that I was really out of the lion’s jaws. I was soon rapidly going from the scenes of my ugly experiences, by means far more satisfactory than walking railroad ties.

My next anxiety was over the detectives at the depot in Pittsburg. They were in the employ of the railroad, and had been pointed out to me by Eddie Hughes when we were there before the start for the Cadiz robbery. I was obliged to change cars there, and would have to wait an hour for the train on the connecting road. The newspaper I had read at the hotel recited the offering of a reward for the capture of the two burglars yet at large, and I felt that the railroad sleuths might be on the watch for a man about my size. Feeling apprehensive, I knew, would not assist me a whit; therefore, upon arriving at Pittsburg about half-past one in the morning, I immediately ascertained the exact leaving time of my next train and hurried from the depot. Happily for me, not a detective was in sight, and feeling glad of it, I went in search of a restaurant, finding one, fortunately, two blocks away.

With the knowledge that I was at last nearing food and an opportunity to possess it, came a most distressing pain in my stomach. It seized me with so great a force that I was almost compelled to cry out. Only the thought that I might have to be sent to a hospital, which would, perhaps, lead to my apprehension, kept me from succumbing. Grinding my teeth to buoy up my courage, I went in the restaurant and ordered a portion of whiskey and swallowed it at a breath. I followed that with another. While I was meditating over what I would eat, the stimulant began to have a beneficial effect. My body was strengthened and nerves soothed. Sensibly, I ordered poached eggs, ate a little bread with them and drank generously of coffee. By the time I had finished my first meal in one hundred and four hours, it behooved me to get back to the depot, which I did, not long before the train arrived.

A railroad detective was there, but he seemed to pay no attention to me, being more interested in pickpockets than in bank looters, I guessed after slyly looking him over. I climbed in the second coach the moment the train came in, but as I did so I observed that he went in the first. It occurred to me that he would pass through the whole train, scrutinizing the passengers. My imagination made it easy for me to believe that he was, after all, looking for any one answering the description of the Cadiz burglars. I began looking for some sort of an aid in the way of diverting his attention from me, should he pass through my car. I had provided myself with a ticket to Altoona, not deeming it wise to get a through ticket to New York, and it occurred to me that it might be wisdom on my part to postpone my journey until another train. But fate played a trump card for me in saving the only vacant sitting in the car, and that was beside a very pretty young woman who was holding on her lap about the cutest two-year-old cherub my eyes ever dwelt on. The mother, for so she proved to be, was well dressed, and had an exceedingly refined face. I considered it fortunate that I could sit beside her in the predicament I believed myself in. She graciously permitted me to occupy the seat, whereupon I immediately put on my best deportment, and much to my satisfaction we were in a quiet conversation when the detective walked through the car, paying not the slightest attention to me. Perhaps my precaution was not at all necessary, but I will not believe until this day that it was not a wise action on my part. I have travelled many thousands of miles on railroads, since that long-ago day, and, as I think of it now, that was one of a very few occasions when I sought out a woman for a companion on a train.

I soon learned that she was going to Harrisburg, that her husband was a dry-goods merchant there, and that she’d been away visiting and was anxious to get back, which accounted for her travelling at that unseemly hour.

It was not at all to my liking to be untruthful to so sweet a woman, but I was forced to for self-preservation. I told her that I was a salesman for A. T. Stewart and Company of New York, and was on the way to Philadelphia on business. I wondered if her husband bought his goods in the New York market, and when she said no and added that he believed that Philadelphia was the better place to trade, I good-naturedly disagreed with her, winding up by telling her that she’d better advise Mr. Harrisburg to investigate the New York market, and the prices of A. T. Stewart and Company in particular. She smiled at what she believed to be my warm recommendation of the firm employing me. We were chatting on the most familiar terms when we reached Altoona, whereat I politely requested her to join me at a meal in the Logan House. She accepted the invitation, and I, in as calm a manner as possible, lifted the child, sleeping, like an angel in all its innocence, thus relieving my matronly companion, and escorted her to the dining room. After eating a hasty meal, for which the dear little woman insisted upon paying her share, and I as insistently declining to let her, I purchased a ticket for Philadelphia, and we got on the train again. The child was awake by this time, and on much of the journey to Harrisburg I fondled, danced, kissed, and, I must declare, came to love that dear parcel of sweet babyhood. I will not open my soul enough to tell all the twinges of remorse that seized upon me as I pressed the smooth, rosy cheeks to my lips, time and time and again, while the mother, God bless her, looked proudly, innocently on, happy that even a stranger could be won by her babe. I bade these companions farewell at Harrisburg and never saw them more. While serving me as a shield to ward off the minions of the law, I shall ever regret that circumstances were so ordered that I was compelled to tell base lies to so goodly a woman as she seemed to be, and I have no doubt was. Though many years have passed since then, that babe’s innocent face and merry prattle still live in my memory.

I got to the Quaker City at four o’clock in the afternoon without any happening worth mentioning, and, purchasing a complete change of clothing, including underwear, went to the Girard House, where I bathed my body, supped like a prince, and laid myself wearily in a soft bed, it being the first one in ten never-to-be-forgotten days, and slept, dreamlessly, until very late the next morning. That afternoon I was back in New York.