The Wilmington daily Republican. (Wilmington, Del.) 1890-1902, 1897-11-17
CHAPTER III,


I hurried Miss Cullen into the car,
and, after boiling the rear door, took
down my winchester from its rack.
"I'm going forward" I told her,
land will tell my boys to bolt the front
door; SO you'll be as safe in here as in
Chicago"
In another minute I was on my front
platform. Dropping down between the
two cars, I crept along beside-indeed
half under-Mr. Cullen's special. After
my previous conclusion, my surprise
can be judged when at the farther end
I found the two Britishers and Albert
Cullen standing there, in the most ex-
posed position possible. I joined them,
muttering to myself something about
Providence and fools.
"Aw," drawled Cullen, "here's Mr..
Gordon, just too late for the sport, by
Jove."
"Well," said Lord Rallies, Twelve
had a hand in this deal, Mr.. Superin-
tendent, and haven't been ported. The
scoundrels broke for cover the moment
we opened fire"
By this time there were 20 passen-
gers about our group, all Of them ask
ing questions at once, making it diff
cult to learn just what had happened,
but so far as could piece the answers
together the poker players curiosity
had been aroused by the long stop, and,
looking out, they had seen single man,
with rifle, standing by the engine
Instantly arming themselves, Lord
Rallies let fly both barrels at him, and
in turn was the target for the first four
shots I had heard. The shooting had
brought the rest Of the robbers tumbling
off the cars, and the captain and Cullen
had fired the rest Of the shots at them
as they scattered. I didn't stop to hear
more, but went forward to see what the
road agents had got away with.
I found the express agent tied hand
and foot in the corner of his car, and,
telling brakeman who had followed
me to set him at liberty, I turned my
attention to the safe. That the diversion
had not come a moment too soon was
shown by the dynamite cartridge already
in place and by the fuse that lay on the
floor, as if dropped suddenly. But the
safe was intact
Passing into the mail Car, I found the
clerk tied to post, with mail sack
pulled over his head, and the utmost
confusion among the pouches and sort
ing compartments, while scattered over
the floor were great many letters. Set
ting him at liberty, I asked him if he
could tell whether mail had been taken,
and, after glance at the confusion, he
said he could not know till he had ex-
amined
Having taken stock of the harm done,
I began asking questions. Just after we
had left Sanders two masked men had
entered the mail car and while one COW
cred the clerk with u revolver the other
had tied and sacked" him. Two moro
had gone forward and done the same to
the express agent Another had climbed
over the tender and ordered the runner
to hold up. All this was the regular pro-
grammc, as I had explained to Miss
Cullen, but here had been variation
which had never heard of being done
and Of which couldn' fathom the OBJ
ject. When tho train had beer stopped,
the man OH the tender had ordered the
fireman to dump his fire, and now it was
lying in the roadbed and threatening to
burn through the ties, SO my first order
was to extinguish it and my second was
to start Il new fire and get up steam as
quickly rs possible. From all l could
learn there were eight men concerned
in tho attempt, and I confess I shook
my head in puzzlement why that num-
Der should have allowed themselves to
DO scared off so easily.
My wonderment grew when I called
on tho conductor for his tickets These
showed nothing but two from Albu.
querquc, one from Laguna and four
from Coolidge. This latter would have
looked hopeful but for the fact that it
was party Of three women ana a man.
Going back beyond Lamy didn't give
for the conductor was able to
for every fare as either still in
The train Or as having got Of at some
point. My only conclusion was that the
ubbers had sntaked on to the platforms
II, SANDERS. and gave the crew a good