The times dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1903-1914, 1911-07-09

They needed him. They told him frankly that
his skill would make their everlasting fortunes
would make his own. The! had secured hiin-at
least they had secured his presence.
For the first forty-eigh, hours Dan Ormiston
kept telling himself that could lead Il horse
to water but could not make him drink. And
suppose he did not drink. They would never let
him go They may have made a mistake in
diagnosing his case-but they could never let him
So-that much The little hunchbac5
had driven it into his brain with deeper croak
than usual.
Not until YOU of us" he said Not
until you run the same risk that run"
. An reasoned it all They fed him. talked to
him joked with him. but once did they
leave him alone. In the end because the case was
hopeless and because he twenty three. ana
because he was afraid he engraved the hundred
dollar bill He even took strange delight IN It,
Tor his skill far ahead even of In. little
hunchback's. and when midnight. somc six
weeks later. they tool; tho first Impression Of IL,
he crowded around The press almost with the same
eaeerness that they themselves displayed.
The hunchback was unusually excited He
drew forth from his wallet genuine hundred dol
lar bill Of the vintage of 1909 and compared with
the counterfeit
You can't tell them apart" he excla lnrcd in
clec. Il swear you can't
Wherein he mistaken. as all counter
f"ters arc But the man of the motor car laid
his hand upon Dan Omissions shoulder and wits.
pered in his
You're OF us. my boy" he said You're
tainted just as we Now YOU are free to co.
But now being free to go. Dan ormlston
found that he was tainted only with their
crimes, but with their sense of fear Before they
would not Let him so and now he did not dare
to go. His fear so much fear of the
law as IL was that these his companions might
set the law against him.
I \ the croak OF the old hunchbacks you can CO.
there was thrcat--a threat that Ormston felt
that he must heed
1t was week later that the first batch OF
hundred dollar bills went out 1t was month
later that something else happened. ana happened
without the previous knowledge of the men on
that top floor and IL happened at two O'Clock in
the morning.
Twenty Secret Service men crept liz from all
points of the compass. wormng their way
through underbrush, creeping in the shadows OF
the trees. moving noisolcssy as silence itself
Then suddenly. at the click OF gun they closed
in upon tho house
In another instant all was uproar The bat
tie had begun. The Secret Service men swarmcd
was appalling. There was fusilladc OF shots from
below and another from above
Tic first fuslndc awokc Dan Ormiston in his
narrow littlc bedroom at tho northwest corner of
thc house. He was fully dressed a procaution that
he si observed and nc stcalthily opened his door.
lie heard the c.oal of the hunchback, the
commands OF the man of the motor lie saw
the glin, of their weapons in the moonlight
Then came tho second fusadc of shots. Dan
ormistoi turned back into his room involuntarily
seized an Oblong package from a table opened
his window and by some trick that desperation
had lent him. lie climbed down a lightning rod
descent, icaped 10 the ground and ran away Hc
did not know how why he had escaped and
the newspaper accounts the following morning re-
ported the round up complete
Clearly the authorities had known nothing of
him, ana clearly his companions, temporary
inmates Of the county Jail. had kept complete
silence.
still shivcrns with dread, however. ormiston
put many miles between himself and the v;laino,is