The Saint Paul globe., 1899-05-28

- :, - a1t.tt - s.
containing $1,000 in quarter eagles and.
ssealed it up again. When the superin->
tendent sent down for his money and it
was loaded into wagon the two soldiers
Immediately deserted, which. of course
excited the suspicious of the officers
courier was at once dispatched to the
agency to see if the money was all right.
and the theft was soon discovered The
superintendent, who was then Mai Gull
len, had handbils struck off giving the
description of the deserters and Offering
S6O0 for their capture and the return of
the money. CourierS were dispatched in
all directions to effect their arrest and
one of the .handbilIs reached Henderson,
which was the county seat of Sibley
county some twenty miles down the
river from the point at which 1 took the
stage. "A deputy sheriff of that county
had started out to hunt the thieves and
secure the reward, carrying one of the
handbills with him, and had proceeded I'D
the river as far as LIE Sueur, about half
way between Traverse des Sioux and
Henderson.
1t is we'll to state here that the stages
carried the mails and always stopped at
the post towns long enough to deliver
the incoming and receive the outgoing
mails, which afforded time for q bit Of
gossip, drink and a stretch os the legs
There We're two po:stC .fices in LIE Sueur in
a
mile and a half apart. AS soon as the
stage stopped at upper town the deputy
sheriff handed me the hand bill through
the window, announcing the theft and
Ge scribing the thieves. I read it right in
the face of my vis-a- Wis, anu after con-
graduating myself that ] had no respon-
sibility for the lost money, l remarked
to the sheriff: "Of course you don't ex-
pect to find these fellows OH the main
thoroughfare; they are probably going
down the Missouri in a canoe and MOTH
ing more transpird until we arrived at
the lower town postofslce, where we again
stopped to change thc mails.
Let me here state that the man in front
of me was the Frenchman, and the man
on the front seat with the driver was the
German. the Qesel ting thieves. The
Frenchman was slight of build, but the
German was a powerful fellow, and had
in his hand a double-barreled shotgun
l. of course, had idea of their iden-
tity at this time, but they, and especially
tie Ffenchman, knew me perfectly we'll,
having frequently seen me about the gar
rison. They had construed my anxiety
to go on the stage into the belief that I
knew them and was after them, and had
made my remark to the sheriff as a
mere blind connected with some scheme
for their capture. 1t must have been
trying ordeal for the man in front of
cry move, and feeling the weight of his
guilt, supposed | kcnw all about It.
While We were waiting The change of
mail at Lower LIE Sueur. the deputy sher-
fff asked me to get out of the stage AMI
said to me: Major e. was called major
in those days., had we not better take
another look at those fellows on the
stage? They are going out of the coun-
try when everybody is coming IN. 1t looks
TO me suspicious" agreed with him,
and took another look. [ at once dis
covered that they were both dressed
from head to foot in new slop shop
clothes, indicating the necessity for an
entire change of costume, and I concluded
$ from this clue there were sufficient
grounds. to suspect them. So the deputy
said: You hold the stage ten or fifteen
minutes and I'll go to Henderson and
take out warrant and arrest them on
the arrival of the stage. so that If we
are mistaken, no particular harm will be
done. He started on. l got my hand
bag out of the boot and buckled on my
six-shooter, all of which was seen by the
thieves, who must have fully understood
the programme; at least such must have
been the case with the Frepchman, as
subsequent events led me to doubt wheth-
er the German was participant in the
theft, or more than a mere deserter
had a sense Of uneasiness ahout the
double-barreled shotgun carried by the
German, but 1 thought l could handle the
Frenchman. We started and, much to my
relief, when we reached the ferry over
the river the German fired one barrel of
his gun at pigeon and snapped several
caps on the other, which refused to go
off. AS we approached Henderson, quite
a crowd had gathered at the hotel to
see the arrest, and just as the stage 1
swung to the sidewalk tho Frenchman
took out of his pocket small -renknife,
the largest blade Of which could not have
been over four inches long: He opened
1t so quietly that it did rot excite my
apprehensionsi In the least. although Il