The Farmington times. (Farmington, St. Francois County, Mo.) 1905-1926, 1912-08-15
BOB FUREY'S STORY.

"The touch-off on the Red Star Elk.
press? DO recall It? Well should
smile. That was one OF the biggest
and neatest jobs ever put up In New
York 1t was hair-raiser from start
| to finish. A Job like that ought to
have been worth q million. 1t would
have been but for one OF the unex-
pected things that come around to
crooks as well as TO other people.
| tumblcd on the business by acct
dent one afternoon as l was going
| from Washington to New York, ! was
sitting in the smoker putting away on
bit OF Havana, when couple OF
gents dropped in and took the seat
in front ! did not pay any attention
to them until overheard them talking
about money bags and gold coin. |
picked up from their conversation that
they were agents for an express com.
| pany that had contract for hauling
money for the government, and had
| charge OF the stun while It was in
| transit from Washington to the mint
in Philadelphia or TO other eastern cit
| les.
This OF itself did not specially In
terest me, but when heard them talk
| about how carelessly the coin was
handled by the agents east of Chi
! cage, q territory in which the cars
were believed to be perfectly safe,
began thinking a bit. Before | reach
| ed New York had made up my mind
/ to pick up n few additional facts on
this subject. If 1t turned out as rosy
as these fellows indicated l would
! teach some Of them a lesson in the
art Of performing their duty. | learn.
ed from them incidentally that the
Red Star Express, on the Erie. car.
ried more money than any other com
pany, and that the agents guarded
| sl,000,000 about as closely as the or
binary citizen would a nickel.
| gave these citizens a silent vote
of thanks when We parted. lmme-
dately afterward / began an official
investigation. ! had learned the trade
of machinist when was a young fell
low, so the first thing | did was to
make application for job in the Erie
railroad repair shops In Jersey City.
While working On the car | got ac-
quainted with Pop Thompson. He was
called Pop because of his general good
nature, and,not because he was old. |
made myself as friendly with him as
7 he
in lafayette, ~ Y. a little station up
the line ways. hired n room in
boarding house near him. We met
very often. and he seemed to take
a fancy to me- After while he talk
ed quite freely about his business,
though It was always about trips that
he had made and never about trips
that he was going to take.
When got this far into the scheme
I called in Johnny Dobbs, Big Jim
Brady. Walt. Herrick and Pete Dur.
and, four of the wisest crooks that
ever lived, and put them onto Pop and
his car, with the idea that one of
them would stick to him every day and
go away with him on every trip to get
the run Of the business. In this way
Johnny Dobbs picked up in Chicago
that Pop had weak side. In short,
he was leading double life. Nothing
could have suited me better, for that
gave me a chance to pull him into the
traces.
There was no longer any use of my
working in the shop, so ! quit and
went to chicago to wait for Pop to
turn up. 1t was some weeks before he
landed there. but fixed It so that I
would meet him coming out OF his
home No. 2 in Chicago, which gave
me q chance to call him down. He
was not as much surprised as ]
thought he would be, and 1t was not
until he got ready to return home that
he suggested that 1t would be well to
keep quiet what had seen.
l promised never to mention 1t, and
returned with Pop. 1t was the first
show that l had to throw out any
feelers. l gently. rather playfully,
limited that Pop was carrying large
amount of money for other people, and
II was a wonder to me that none OF 1t
had ever stuck to his fingers. Pop
manifested more interest In this talk
than had ever hoped for. He said
he was tired Of working for nothing.
He limited that II I could suggest any