Part 2

The features of the jail breaker for whom the reward was offered were those of Dowling. So had preparation been made for his coming. Gard had laid his plans with an understanding of the habits of the mountaineer to hide the fugitive. He had figured that such a fugitive might get into the confidence of those iron men of few words and filch from them their secrets. With the right culprits behind the bars the backbone of this defiance of the law might be broken.

Dowling's stream of talk won the friendship of Ty Jones and his sons as it had won his wife. The fugitive was tucked away in the hills and fed by the mountaineers. He came to know the intimates of the Jones family and his stream of talk entertained them for days and weeks. He hibernated with others of his kind for he found the hills full of men in hiding. He became a visitor at many a cabin and eventually struck the rock that responded to his confidence.

A young mountaineer named Ed Hill maintained an active still high up in the mountains--a virgin still that had never known the desecration of a raid. Hill was high spirited and companionable, unlike most of his neighbors. His was the soul of a poet, a lover of the wilds, a patriot of the mountains. The flame of adventure, the love of danger, the belief in the individual rights of the mountaineer, made him a moving spirit among the men who battled the government.

Ed Hill told the fugitive the whole story of the killing of Tom Reynolds and the shooting of Sam Lunsford. He told of the determination to rid the mountains of Todd, the livery stable man, and to preserve for the men of the Cumberlands the right to do as they chose in their own retreats.

It seemed that of all the men of the mountains who made moonshine whisky, there were but four who were willing to go the limit of spilling the blood of their fellows in resisting the law. Hill was one of these and saw his acts as those of the man who fights for his country. Ty Jones, contrary to the suspicions of Sam Lunsford, always advised against violence. But Jones had a boy of eighteen, a heavy-faced, dull-witted lad, who was possessed of the desire to kill, to be known among his fellows as a bad man. This younger Jones it was who had aimed his father's sawed-off shotgun at Sam Lunsford as that hulking figure of a man swayed back and forth as he rocked the baby that suffered from colic. The patriot Hill, Will Jones the born murderer, a father and son by the name of Hinton, had been the murderers of Tom Reynolds. There were no others who would go so far as to kill to avenge their fancied grievances.

The summer was dragging to its close as the conversational special agent got his information together. The yellow was stealing into the trees of the hillsides when Billy Gard, he whose health had been broken behind the ribbon counter, came back to Tenney's for another few weeks in the open. He wandered into the woods and met the fugitive from the South Carolina jail. The jail bird and the ribbon counter clerk talked long together and when they parted the plans were laid for the nipping off of the men who would murder for their stills.

It was a week later and the quiet of after-midnight rested upon the little mountain town of Wheeler. In such towns there are no all-night industries, no street cars to drone through deserted thoroughfares, not even an arc light to sputter at street crossings. There is but the occasional stamping of a horse in its stall or the baying of a watch dog in answer to the howl of a wolf on the hillside. But murder was planned to take place that night in Wheeler and A. Spaulding Dowling knew all about it.

As the town slept four stealthy figures crept down the trail that cuts across the point of the Hunchback. Soft-footedly, rifles in hand, they passed down a side street beneath the dense shade of giant sycamores. It was but three blocks from the woods to Main street. Reaching this artery of the town, two of the men crouched in the shadow while two others crossed the street and went a block further, turning to the left. Each group then shifted itself a hundred feet to the left and paused again.

So stationed the four men found themselves in front and back of Todd's livery stable. The building itself sat back a little from the street. On the ground floor were the stalls for the horses and the sheds where the wagons were stored. Overhead were bins of corn and hay and a living room where Todd slept that he might always be near his teams. About the whole was a roomy barnyard enclosed by a high board fence. The gates to the outer enclosure were locked, but once past this wall a man would have the run of the whole place.

The mountaineers, two in front and two in the rear of the building, swung themselves to the top of the fence and leaped to the ground inside. Rifles at hip they started to close in on the building. Each party entered at opposite ends of the corridor down the middle through which a wagon might drive. Nothing interfered with their progress and no sound was heard except a sleeping horse occasionally changing feet on the board floor of his stall. Stealthily the four figures gathered in a cluster and turned up the steep stairway that led to the sleeping room of Todd. With every rifle ready for action they pushed open the door. The moon coming in at a window disclosed what seemed to be a sleeping form in the bed. Deliberately the four rifles came to bear upon it. There was a pause and then from the leader came the order:

"Fire!"

Every finger pressed the trigger of its rifle. Every hammer came down on its cap. But no report followed. Not a gun had been discharged.

"Come on out in the open, you sneakin' cowards," came a clamorous voice from the barnyard that was recognized as being that of Todd. "Come out in the lot and I'll larrup you all."

The men in the room looked puzzled, one at the other, and then at the form on the bed. They approached the latter and found it to be but a dummy to represent Todd. They had been trapped. They would fight their way out.

The mountaineers charged down the stairway. As they came into the moonlight at the opening of the barn they faced the tall form of a man they knew well, the United States marshal of the district. With no gun in his hands the marshal raised his hands on high.

"Listen, men," he commanded. "A parley. You are trapped. There are armed men at every corner of this building and every man who runs out of it will be shot dead. Your powder has been wet and none of you can fire a shot. You can't fight armed men. There is but one thing for you to do and that is to surrender."

In the parley that followed the marshal asked each man to try his gun to see if it could be fired. None would respond. The mountaineers found themselves caught in the very act of attempting to kill Todd, whom they had often threatened. They had been duped and trapped.

So had these young detectives of the new school worked out a most difficult case and one which later proved, in the courts, to be effective, for every man arrested is now serving a long term in prison and the backbone of the defiance of law in this region is broken.

"Mr. Summer Boarder," said the curly-haired Dowling, "it is back to the ribbon counter for you. Your little vacation is over. But I will say that you have shown remarkable intelligence in this matter. You called me in to help you. Little drops of water put in just the right place saved all your lives. These mountaineers would have eaten you up if I hadn't fixed their ammunition. Please thank me--"

"Easy, Windy One, easy," interjected Gard. "Kiss the hand of the man who lent you the brains to do it with."

II

THE BANK WRECKER

Billy Gard was not thinking of business at all. As a healthy, ultranormal young man, he was drowsing over his breakfast as one has a way of doing when at peace with the world and when unaroused by any call of the present. He had reached the rolls and coffee stage of his meal in a spirit of detachment that took no account of the somewhat garish flashiness of the hotel dining-room in this typical hostelry of a city that had become noted as a maker of industrial millionaires. Then as his glance idly trailed among the other breakfasters, it automatically picked up an incident that flashed a light into his dormant brain and brought it to full consciousness.

A spoon had started from a grape fruit to the mouth of the tall, curly-haired man two tables away. Half way on its journey the hand which held it had twitched violently and spilled most of the contents. The brown eyes of the man stole out somewhat furtively to learn if anybody had noticed his nervousness.

Special Agent Billy Gard now gazed at the ceiling, but his mind was busy. It was running over the facts that it contained with relation to Bayard Alexander, who was this morning not himself and apprehensive lest the fact be noticed. For Alexander was of the class of men of whom it was his business to know. He was cashier of the Second National bank and Uncle Sam keeps a pretty close watch on such institutions when they happen to be located in communities of feverish activity.

So the special agent recalled that the tall man with the damp curls was a moving spirit in the city, an important instrument in its development, a man of many philanthropies, personal friend of a United States Senator, cashier and active head of one of the most powerful financial institutions in the community. He was a man of very great energy, but one who led a normal, wholesome life and who, at the age of forty-five, seemed just coming into his stride. The bank examiner, Gard recalled, had steadily given the Second National a clean bill of health.

Why, then, should Alexander be nervous and, granting him that privilege, why should he fear its being noticed?

All of which was the seemingly illogical reason why Gard went to Wheeling that very night and was not seen about the metropolis for a week thereafter.

"I am a poor man," he told Allen, the stout bank examiner, when they met in the West Virginia town. "Poor but honest and not trying to borrow money. I am on my way to the city of opportunity looking for a job."

"You have come away that you might go back, as I understand it," said Allen. "Couldn't you change your peacock raiment for a hand-me-down without coming to Wheeling?"

"Yes, but I couldn't see you, Cherub," said Gard, "and you are to make all things possible for me. You are to convert me from a dweller in gilded palaces to a bank bookkeeper out of work, but with credentials.

"There is in Wheeling a bank cashier of your acquaintance," explained the special agent, "who used to work beside a bookkeeper whose friendship I want to cultivate. You introduce me to the cashier, he finds out what a really good fellow I am, we become friends. He gives me a letter of introduction to the man I want to meet. I return to the city and thrust myself properly into the affairs of one Sloan, bookkeeper for the Second National. The next time the corpulent examiner comes around he gets the surprise of his life. Do you follow me?"

Billy Gard had reached the conclusion that, if there was anything wrong with Bayard Alexander's bank the examiner was being deceived and that, therefore, there must be a juggling of accounts. Bookkeeper Charley Sloan of the individual ledgers occupied the post most likely to be used for deception, and so the special agent was taking a lot of trouble to make the right opportunity for getting friendly with Charley. That mild little man was therefore favorably impressed when he was handed a letter from his former associate who had gone to Wheeling and become a cashier. The two visited so agreeably together that a friendship developed and Gard came to live at the bookkeeper's boarding house. The two accountants grew to spend many evenings together and naturally talked shop.

"I had a friend," said Gard one evening, "who worked in a bank in New Orleans. Next to him was a bookkeeper who went wrong. He was induced to do this by a depositor who had a scheme for making them both rich. All the depositor needed was a little money. So he proposed that he draw checks against the bank and that the bookkeeper charge them temporarily to other accounts. The depositor would cash the checks at other banks and, when they came in, the teller would merely turn them over to the bookkeeper, probably asking if there was money to meet them. In this way a depositor who never had a thousand dollars in the bank eventually checked out $50,000."

"There was a teller," Sloan volunteered, "who worked in a bank here who entered the deposits in the books of the people making them and put the money in his pocket. There was no record of it except in the pass books. He got nearly all the money that came in for two months before he was found out."

"There are a lot of ways in which a bookkeeper may hide the facts with relation to a bank," continued the special agent. "It is pretty safe to charge anything to the inactive account of an estate or an endowed institution. These are not often looked into. The accounts balance for the examiner. I'll bet there isn't one bank in a dozen that doesn't fool the examiner."

"It's the easiest thing in the world," volunteered Sloan, "to take the necessary number of leaves out of the loose-leaf ledger to counterbalance it if the cash is short, and hide the leaves until the examiner is gone."

"Did you ever know that to be done?" abruptly asked the special agent.

The bookkeeper colored to his temples and was noticeably confused at the question. Then he said he had heard of its being done. The sleuth would have sworn he had led the bookkeeper into a confession.

Nothing was more natural than that these two bank bookkeepers should recur occasionally to the possibility of so arranging accounts that were in questionable condition that they would be passed by the examiner. Gard would lead to this in such a way that the bookkeeper would seem to have begun these discussions. Then he would talk freely. He would tell so many stories that the timid Sloan would want to relate a few in furnishing his part of the entertainment. But Gard knew that the bookkeeper was a man without imagination and that he could relate only what had happened in his experience. So he was all ears when Sloan one night gave his opinions on the subject of kiting.

"Of course," he said, "all banks have depositors who kite their checks and thereby get hold of money which they may use for a week before they have to make good. A depositor may turn in a check for a thousand dollars, drawn on a New York bank where he has no money. At the same time he sends the New York bank a check for the same amount, drawn on you. This causes the New York bank to honor the check drawn against it. The check drawn on you has to find its way through the clearing house and it will be a week before it gets back. In the meantime the depositor has had the use of a thousand dollars.

"But when it comes to real kiting," continued the bookkeeper, "it is the banks themselves that do it. If a bank has a sudden call for $100,000 and hasn't the money, all it has to do is to send a messenger with a check to a friendly bank around the corner. The messenger gets the whole amount in cash. It appears as an asset of the bank. It will be two or three days before the check will come back through the clearing house and appear as a liability, or the friendly bank may hold it up even longer. The banks may be swapping this sort of favors. The bank examiner does not know of the outstanding check. He is out of town before it appears."

Special Agent Billy Gard was again practically certain that he had here been told a chapter out of the experience of the Second National. He began to see his way clear to a denouement.

That same night events were transpiring of which he was to know a week later but which as yet were held in confidence among the directors of the Second National. They took place at a meeting of these same directors called by a minority which was dissatisfied with certain features of its management. Director Hinton, a sprightly and quick-tempered little man, was the leader of the revolt. Senator Bothdoldt was present as a supporter of the management of the bank as represented by the suave, forceful cashier, Bayard Alexander, whose hand sometimes shook at breakfast.

"I want to protest," Hinton began by launching directly into the heart of the matter in hand, "against this new loan to the McGrath Construction Company. It has been three years now that we have been pouring out our money to these people. We have $400,000 of their paper and I want to be shown that we can realize on it. It is time to call a halt."

"And there are the notes of the Oldman Mercantile Company," somewhat heatedly argued a second disaffected director. "I have been reliably informed within the last two days that they are in danger of going to the wall."

"And we, as directors, are responsible for the bank," said Mr. Isaacs, who was conservative.

"I for one," said Mr. Hinton, "have reached the point where I insist on a new management. I would like to know the sentiment of the board upon this question."

But the cashier asked for a word of explanation. Broad-shouldered and upstanding he rose among these heavy, sleek, bald-headed business men. His high and intellectual brow and clear-cut features gave him a distinction that always made an impression. But the firm mouth and the damp curls were those of a man of physical force and determination. His voice was alluring and convincing as he made his plea and there was now no tremble of the hand.

He stated and called upon Senator Bothdoldt to witness that the McGrath Construction Company had just received from the Government contracts for the building of numerous locks in the Ohio River. He agreed with the spirit of conservatism of the board and shared it. He had heard the rumors with relation to the Oldman Mercantile Company and had sifted them to their depths and had found them without basis in fact. However, he had just called in a block of their notes. He painted a rosy picture of the condition of the bank and the prospects of the future. He reminded the directors that they had given him a free hand in the past and pointed to the institution as a monument to his accomplishment. At the termination of which speech, so convincing and so dominant was the personality of the man, Director Hinton withdrew his protest and the institution was left under the former guidance.

It was three days later that things began to happen. Gard had called upon Bank Examiner Allen to come to his assistance. The two of them had conferred the night before and settled upon a plan of campaign for testing the stability of the affairs of the bank.

It was in accordance with this plan that the rotund and genial Allen breakfasted in that dining-room where the special agent's suspicions had first been aroused. Bayard Alexander was at his usual table and Allen allowed the banker to see him although he appeared not to be aware of it. It was also in accordance with the cards played by the men of the Government service that Special Agent Gard, still a bit seedy in his hand-me-down suit, was loafing on the sidewalk opposite the Second National bank when the cashier came to work. It was a part of his plan that he should see as much as possible of what went on in the institution when the word was passed that the examiner was in town.

Gard was not surprised, therefore, when a messenger emerged from the bank and hurried off down the street. He believed that the story of the bookkeeper of the kiting bank was to be enacted before his eyes. He followed the messenger to another bank two blocks away and there saw him present a check. Gard crowded in on the pretense of getting a bill changed and saw blocks of bills of large denominations being taken from the vault. The messenger hurried back to the bank with them. It was evident that that institution was making ready for the coming of the examiner. It was as evident that its affairs were not as they should be or this preparation would not be necessary.

It was a part of the program that when Sloan, the bookkeeper, came out of the bank for lunch, Gard should be waiting for him. It was not unusual that they thus went to their noonday meal together.

"Will you do me a favor?" asked Sloan while they were at lunch. "Take care of this package for me. It is a large photograph, rolled, that I have just received from home. Please be careful of it."

The special agent assumed charge of the package which looked not unlike a roll of music. Later he found his suspicions justified for in the roll were a number of leaves from the bank's individual ledger. Gard was appalled at the amount of money that they represented. He carefully photographed them and returned them that night to the bookkeeper.

No pretext was omitted for getting a look into what was transpiring in the Second National bank on this particular day. Examiner Allen had called in the afternoon and had carefully looked over the balances. All appeared to be in order and no discrepancies were revealed. The bank seemed particularly strong from the standpoint of cash on hand.

It was just at closing time that two things happened. Gard presented himself at the Second National and asked to see the cashier. He had become known there as an associate of Sloan's. He was looking for a position as bookkeeper and it was for this he came. He waited.

It often happens that an individual may wander unannounced into quarters the privacy of which are ordinarily closely guarded. Gard found the door open that led into the corridor off of which were to be found the offices of the officials of the bank. He walked in and wandered down the row until he found that of the cashier. This he entered and found entirely empty. It was a spacious room with a big, flat-topped desk. Across one corner of this was thrown a coat, and a hat rested upon it. An open traveling bag stood on the table.

The special agent, by leaning on the table in the attitude of waiting, could look into the bag. There he saw a package of what he recognized as a well-known issue of industrial bonds which the examiner had listed as one of the chief assets of the bank. It should have been in the bank's vaults, instead of which it was in the cashier's traveling bag. This was a discovery well worth consideration.

Cashier Alexander entered the room hurriedly from another part of the bank. He was visibly startled to find some one present and demanded bruskly what the intruder was doing there.

"I am a bookkeeper, sir," said the special agent very humbly. "Sloan is a friend of mine and thought you might employ me."

"I can't talk to you to-night. Come around next week."

"But may I not come to-morrow?" said Gard.

"I will be out of town for three days," Alexander said finally. "I can't talk to you until after that."

The special agent took his dismissal. He had learned that the bank cashier was going away and that he was taking a package of the bank's most valuable securities with him. He was going some distance for the trip was to last three days. His destination was probably New York.

Meantime the genial examiner had rolled in upon the bank to which the Second National had sent its messenger, at about closing time. He had asked to see the transactions of the day. Among these was found the record of the check that had been cashed early in the morning. It was the personal check of Bayard Alexander and was for $125,000.

The two representatives of the Federal Government conferred hurriedly.

"And the securities," questioned Gard. "Were they intact when you were at the bank this morning?"

"Everything was in order," replied Allen.

"The package of the industrials. What was its value?"

"About $500,000," replied the examiner.