Thomas County cat. [volume] (Colby, Kan.) 1885-1891, 1888-03-01
4 MESSENGERS TRICK.


A MESSENGERS TRICK.
uov IN Old Express AGENT Won Tie Ooa-
Aienco Of His Elnploy ers.
ST you won't give me away" said
\ mid dle-ased man whom we will call
Brown. because Brown is not his name.
Il will tell you little trick l once
played on an express company for
which was running as a messenger
on a train not far from here. 1t was
in tho 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 / had
thought this scheme all out carefully
aud tried to look at it in all its phases.
so tina. no unexpected evil result
woul come of it O,e night we were
running along at q rafting speed. by
which I 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 rs 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
/ stepped outside, locked the door.
and with tremendous blow broke
the lock. I waited awhile. intending
that if any body was attracted by the
noise to say hal locked myself out
and dropped my key off the train.
Bat nobody came. Then / closed the
door and quickly fired several shots
from an old pepper box pistos which l
had loaded not very heavily. Oae of
these l fired through the rim of my
hat In another moment was back
in the passenger-coach. excited and
calling for help. The conductor. a
brakeman and several passengers
jumped up and followed me. 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 I
managed to explain how two masked
men had broken in the door; how /
had called for help in vain; how I had
fought them both of with the stOvo
poker; how they had shot at me sew
eral times. couldn't tell how many
tines and how, after I had miracu-
lousy escaped their bullets and fought
them of. calling for help rs loudly rs
l could. they had rushed to the plat
form and probably jumped of: o.
course l let SOMEBODY else find tho bull
let hole in my hat. and then expressed
surprise about it.
''Well. sir. it worked like charm.
The next morning tho papers had long
accounts of it. and they all praised
me highly for keeping the robbers
away from the money-chest. l was
the lion of the hour The presidento
the company, too. wrote long
personal letter to me, and in
closed a check for $500. Here
I made another point by sending
the check back, and saying that !
could not accept such check for hav-
ing done merely my plain duty. From
that time on I was very solid with tho.
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 wOull send $4,000 that
night 1t so happened. however. that
he did not send it till the next night.
H. always thought it was his money
the robbers were aitor. Ctica go
Times.