Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1902-10-29

oAAo AS"oAo1 OuO fOON1uSO 4AC "do VIII
ing to try if he could not send the
shaft home after his ST. Louis col
leagues had sped their arrow and
missed the mark. TX ~ :.
He did not begin where the St..
Louis officers had left off. He saw
at once that the real identity of tho
robber had not been established by
the anonymous letter describing one
John Gavitt. He suspected that the
name was a mere mask, and the
proof of this was shortly clinched
by evidence easily procured that the
real John Gavitt had died in the lit
tie Iowa river town which was his
home, a short fortnight after the
date of the robbery.
Hence it followed that Gavitt had
been impersonated in the Belle
jules crew by the escaping culprit,
and with President Galbraith's de-
scription of the man for a starting
point, Griffin first searched the
'Rogues' Gallery" for face which
might stand for the original. This
search, though it was made as care
fully as if he fully expected to, find
the mans portrait in the criminal
records, was as barren of results as
he expected it would be.
1T is just about as T put it up"
he said, at the end of the photo
graph inspection. 1.-THE fellow isn't
a professional at all; he is some
hare-brained crank, and this, is his
first break"
This point esta blished, there were
two courses open; to try to trace
the man in New Orleans, and so to
determine his identity; or to take
up the lost clew in St. Louis. Since
it asked for less time, Griffin did the
latter first, and succeeded in besting
the St. Louis officers by one move.
For them the fugitive had disap-
peared, handcuffed, in tho runaway
carriage; for Griffin he reappeared a
little later at Mr.. Abram Some
schein's emporium, but was lost
again when he left with his pur.
chases.
Griffin went back to New Orleans,
baffled but not discouraged. AS be-
fore, the case turned upon the pivot
of identity. When he should have
learned the mans name and place in
the world it would be an easy mat.
ter to track him down.
Accordingly he went to the bank
and asked again for the anonymous
letter.
"You have tried every means to
place the writer of this, Mr.. GAL
braith?" he queried.
Everything we could think of. It
might be any one of the hundred
transient customers we served that
day"
1T is a woman" hazarded Griffin,
at a venture.
''Doubtless."
"Was there a woman in the bank
when you went with the fellow to
cash the check?"
''There was. She was at the
teller's Window
"Did you notice her particularly? ."
"Not well enough to be able to
describe her. I had other things to
think of just then"
''Sure enough. What was she do
ing?"
Getting draft cashed, I pre-
sumed."
"Where would that draft be now??'
"In. the possession of the issuing
bank, and probably cancelled long
ciroo no,111r4 1o
identified. We've been over all that"
"Of course; but was hoping we
might stumble upon something that
had been overlooked. May I use the
'phone?"
Certainly"
Griffin, shut himself into tho
'phone-box and called up the wharf.
masters Office on the levee.
"Hello! Is this Robertson? Say.
Dick, where is the Belle Julie now?
Up-river, you say? All right; I am
coming down to get you to wire
Capt. Mayfield for me-"
The "wire" sent q little later from
the wharf-master's office asked for
a list of the Belle jules lady pas
sengers on that voyage which began
on the day of the robbery. Griffin
was not above swearing a little when
the answer came. It was string of
twenty-odd names, and to have
speech with these twenty-odd women
meant weeks of continuous travel
for the detective.
That being the next move in the
game, however, he set about making
it methodically, beginning with
those most accessible, and working
through the list from name to
name; and at the end of weeks he
had interviewed every woman on the
list save two. These two lived in
small inland city in Minnesota, and
when he turned his face northward
to try the final cast of the die he
was weary enough to be disheart-
ened, if DISAGREEMENT had been
admissible.
It was evening when he reached
Wahaska, and since it was too late
to do anything he promised himself
that he would smoke but a single
cigar and go to bed. But when tho
cigar was alight he left the hotel to
smoke it in the open. There was
an unusual stir in the streets, and a
question asked of a chance passer-by
evoked the. reason. The new Grier-
son opera house was to be opened
that night by q company imported
from Chicago for the occasion, and
everybody was going to the theater.
ITO Be .Continued.]
..- A Medieval Survival. s
The inhabitants of q far-away vii