The Albany register. [volume] (Albany, Or.) 1868-18??, 1869-06-05


Of all native criminals from his strictly
| preserved territory as for the acrobats,
they had fed with the first dawn of morn
ing, and were not likely to return till
they were brought back but he had
dispatched two of his small ''iorce'' In
pursuit of them and hence there was
more need of his personal vigilance.
Il shall be back at ?, as usual, my
dear, if not before" said Mr. John Scott.
About = y. NJ, from long habit, the
wife of the Chief Constable was accus-
toned to awake, and presently to hear
/ her husbands heavy football coming up
the stairs; but upon the present occasion
there was no such welcome sound. She
sat up in bed with her night cap tucked
behind her cars, and listened attentively
but In vain, for him. Notwithstanding
his precarious chilling, Glr. Scott was a
model of punctual:ty and as time, (Which,
in her opinion, was almost the only thing
that could do it) went on without him.
she began to be seriously alarmed lest
/ this admirable man, whom human inge-
nuity had never yet bafled, had been
overwhelmed by envious fate. There
had been thunder 10 the air that night
and a bolt might have struck him. But
at daylight she heard the front door open,
and slow tread come up the stairs. The
wife of a Chief Constable should be above
the suspicion of trepidation, but it was SO
unlike his ordinary step, that it made her
heart so pitapat. However, it was her
husband, whose noble spirit something
had evidently cast down. Instead Of
kicking his boots across the room, as
usual, he drew them off, and then sat in
his stockings, thinking.
'John," said she, In much confusion
and alarm, "what is the matter, my dear?
Have you not caught them albatrosses :?
I mean albinos."
"Yes, ma'am, they're safe enough.
| But the deuce of it is that-in their at
sente-there has been another burglary.
Mrs. Col. Pewit's house has been broken
into just in the same way-through the
! second floor back window. It's nothing
less than magic, for that had mignon-
cite box, and there is no mark of ladder
to be found there neither. I've had my
bulls eye over every square inch of it.
''Lor, john"
''There was nobody in the room,' went
on the Chief Constable, musing, "and the
window was open; SO that the thing mi ght
have been doue easy enough, when he
had once got there. But how did he did
he get there-that's the question-unless
the devil had wings"
''But the devil has wings" was Mrs
SCOTS involuntary exclamation the
good lady was SO fiustered by her late
anxiety, that for once she spoke in a hur-
ry.
"You will presently cause me to imag-
inc that l have made a second mistake
in my life, ma AMIN the having married
fool" was her husbands stern rejoinder.
Then he went on soliloquizing. sThe
thief, whoever he was, took the same
things rings and pins, and such like
but he also took plated inkstand. That
And yet, to have effected an entrance
just where nobody would have thought
such a thing practicable, he must have
been most uncommon cunning. Cunning!
| No, for then I should see the thing as
| plain as the church tower. It's down
right unaccountable. How it is humanly
possible that things can be stole out of a
second story floor window without lad
der, or anything to climb up by, unless
it was water spout, that's what I want
to know And what's more, even if he
got up, how did he ever get down again?',
Hearing these remarks put aloud, and
in an interrogative form, Mrs. Scott
thought it incumbent on her to speak,
and the more SO, as she had ingeniously
elaborated theory of her own to account
for the whole mystery.
eff nobody could have got in from the
outside, John, people as was inside could
have done it easy enough. It was one of
them trapesing servant girls, who dresses
SO fine, and is always wanting money to
buy gew-gaws, you may take my word
for it"
"I don't suppose, ma'am," returned
the Chief Constable, with supreme con-
tempt, ssthat the Bench of Justices would