The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1912-11-08
Copyright by F. L. Nelson


in blank surprise. Then I told him
how l had just seen him in a watch
mans uniform over at the big whole
sale house.
"'Billy,' he caAed to Billy the Bite,
who was behind the bar, How long
have been sittin' in this here chair?'
BILLY looks at the clock and says:
Tree hours, an youse has had foive
drinks Dere never was no profit in
temperance blokes.'
BILLY might have lied but at that
Sam couldn't have got out of his
uniform and beat me across town.
If it wasn't Sam it was a dead, living
ringer for him. Like a t1asn 1t came
to me.
"'Sam,' said, this here has been
handed to us by Providence. If you
haven't got that job as a night watch
man you've got to grab it,
with that I took him over to the
place and We hung around until we
could get pipe at the Waterman.
With Sam standing there at my side
had to rub my eyes to believe that
wasn't him on the other side Of the
big plate glass. l kidded him along
by saying:
"'There's no Waterman in there,
Sam. That's just your reflection in
the glass;
ha nj
form he's got I'd be willing to believe
it myself he said.
with that we hikes right back to
Billy the Bites and frames up the job.
This Is the way it worked out.
First we pulled in Ed Kelly, Pete
Hall and Billy Myer, all men we could
trust. We put plant onto the store
and got every movement down so fine
that if the proprietors had been will
ing to step out and turn it over to us
we could have run it without hitch.
We found that very heavy trucking
business left the store in the early
hours of the morning in order to get
shipments out of the way before the
streets were blocked with traffic.
Pete Hall, who stood in with ev-
cry fence in town, then got about
dozen trucks together so that they
could be used at any time on call My
part Of the early work was to go over
to the east side and hire a house on
Madison street that could be used for
storage purposes. We then started
the trucks to running back and forth
in the neighborhood Of the Madison
street place. Each truck carried
dummies. My partners did the truck
ing and handled the cases. 1t soon be-
came thoroughly established in the
neighborhood that we were doing a
legitimate trucking and storage bust
ness.
while this was going on I laid all
the plans for cracking the store. l
fixed upon Monday morning as at that
time in the week they carried an un-
usually heavy stock of shipments
ready to go out.
Everything being in readiness,
gave the gang the tip to report at the
store with the teams at quarter of
four on Monday morning. We had five
trucks ready but only one drove up
to the shipping door first. I had learn
ed that the truckmen were in the
habit Of signalling the Waterman by
tapping on this door with an iron bale
hook. l gave him the signal and the
minute he opened the door Sam Snyder
laid him out with another hook.
He lost no time in stripping the
Waterman Of hi, uniform and getting
into 1t himself. To get rid Of Sans
clothes We slipped them onto the un-
conscious Waterman. The whole gang
gave a start to see what looked like
Sam himself, lying there stiff.
We worked as fast as possible and
doubt If five trucks ever were loaded
so quickly. When we had as much as
we dared carry We drove off. AS we
had at least an hour before us, had
Sam Snyder stay at the store, intend
ing to make a return trip with one
truck for some yelvets that had my
eye on. We dumped the stun into our
storage house and hustled back on
one truck at lightning speed.
Il went to the door and gave the
signal to Sam Snyder with the bale
hook. waited long while and he
did not reply. finally came to the
conclusion that he had seen some
thing suspicious and had made Off.
So we reluctantly returned to our
storage house, compelled to be salts
fed with the five loads. We put up
the horses and awaited the days de-
velopments. I was greatly troubled
in mind when, at the close of the day,
Sam Snyder had not put in his ap.
pearance at the warehouse.
Detective CARPENTERS STORY