St. Landry democrat., 1888-02-18
a MESSENGERS TRICK.
How an Old Express Agent Wen the Cone
fidence of His Employ ers.

How an Old Express Agent Wen the Cone
fidence of His Employ ers.
eff you won't give me away" said
a mid dle-aged man whom we will call
Brown, because Brown is not his name,
Il will tell you a little trick I once
played on an express company for
which l was running as messenger
ON train not far from here. 1t was
in the days when they never thought
of sending out more than one man
with an express-car, and it was not
deemed necessary to arm him, as they
now do their messengers. l had
thought this scheme all out carefully
and tried to look at it in all its phases,
so that no unexpected evil result
woull come of it. One night we were
running along at a rafting speed, by
which l mean speed that made every
thing about the old Stacking
cars rattle till you couldn't
hear yourself think. The wind was
blowing very hard outside, and every
body on the train was hugging about
as tight as he could to stove. / had
things all my own way. First took
big coupling-pin and struck my end
door in such manner with it as to
show several large dents in it. Then
l stepped outside, locked the door,
and with a tremendous blow broke
the lock. / waited awhile, intending
that if any body was attracted by the
noise to say I had locked myself out
and dropped my key off the train.
But nobody came. Then closed the
door and quickly fired several shots
from an old pepper box pistol which ]
had loaded not very heavily: One of
these fired through the rim of my
hat In another moment I was back
in the passenger-coach, excited and
calling for help. The conductor, a
brakeman and several passengers
jumped up and followed me. I was
so excited l could hardly speak,
you know, but when they saw the
broken and battered door they
OWNED what ! did not tell them.
When my excitement had subsidized l
managed to explain how two masked
men had broken in the door; how /
had called for help in vain; how had
fought them both off with the stove
poker; how they had shot at me sew
eral times, I couldn't tell how many
times, and how, after I had miracu-
lousy escaped their bullets and fought
them off, calling for help as loudly as
I could. they had rushed to the plat
form and probably jumped off. OF
course let SOMEBODY else find the bull
let hole in my hat, and then expressed
surprise about it.
''Well, sir, it worked like charm.
The next morning the papers had long
accounts of it, and they all praised
me highly for keeping the robbers
away from the money-chest. was
the lion of the hour. The presidentot
the company, too, wrote a long
personal letter to me, and i'll
closed check for $500. Here
I made another point by sending
the check back, and saying that /
could not accept such a check for hav-
ing done merely my plain duty. From
that time on was very solid with the
company, and soon had one of the
best runs and the best pay they could
give me.
'There were two funny things about
that case. One was that the agent at
the station we had last passed said he
saw two hard looking characters
around the station just before the
train come in, and never saw them
again, while the conductor said no
such persons boarded the train as
legitimate passengers. Another funny
thing was that gentleman who oc-
casionally sent large sums of money
to his agent at the other end of the
road said he had telegraphed on that
day that he would send $4,000 that
night. 1t so happened, however, that
he did not send it till the next night.
He always thought it was his money
the robbers were after. Chica go
Times.