Catoctin clarion. [volume] (Mechanicstown, Md.) 1871-1940, 1914-07-23
NO.. 49,.

ne stopped 10 recover DreaCn, ana TWO
brother officers from the Adams street
station, who had received the sum-
mons few minutes before, came pant
ing up to join him. Then all three
gasped in wonder
For with series of light, cur
vetting plunges, resembling those of a
graceful colt, the chair leaped upward
on it's single wheel and, surmounting
the steps, began to run easily at about
fifty miles an hour across the bridge.
The way seemed clear. But, even
as the chair gained the summit and
raced forward, the cripple saw body
of police come running across the
bridge toward him. They were from
the Manhattan end, and, not content
with stretching ropes to bring him to
grief, had resolved to intercept him
and gain the credit for his capture.
On they ran, five abreast, thrusting the
pedestrians aside, their revolvers in
their hands, and barely hundred
yards distant.
The cripple stopped the chair dead
and looked back Behind him, not
more than sixty yards away, the three
Brooklyn policemen were in pursuit,
led by the stout, elderly fellow who
had fired at him Intellectually. AS the
chair stopped, with grinding and jar
ring Of brakes that flung the cripple
forward against the wedge front, the
three men aimed again, But they did
n hitting
policemen who were approaching from
the opposite direction, and so ran for.
ward, yelling to their quarry to sur
render.
The cripple hesitated. To charge
full tilt into the advancing men would
undoubtedly kill them; but it might
kill him. Besides, a chair is not an
easy mark to miss, when it is advanc-
ing Immediately upon one, whatever it's
speed, especially by five policemen,
each firing a number of rounds, and
each presumably practiced in the use
of the revolver. The man looked up
ward. The immensely long loops OF
the steel cables, inclosed in their
chilled steel casing, which held up the
gigantic structure, lowered themselves
here to a point barely five feet above
the ground. Without further hesita-
ton the cripple skipped nimbly out OF
the chair, clinging for support to the
ironWork OF the structure. Then,
stretching forth his powerful right
arm, he hoisted himself upon the cable,
clinging there like some disabled
monkey upon perch. The policemen
yelled in triumph and precipitated
themselves toward him from before
and behind. The nearest was barely
five and twenty yards away. The last
was less than forty.
The cripple laughed shortly, and.
clinging now by the left hand, reached
down and grasped the chair firmly
with his right Then, when his pur-
suers were almost upon him, they saw
the muscles of his right stand out like
loops of rope, saw him pick up the
chair, and deposit it upon the narrow
six-nch cable in front of him. 1t stood
there, buzzing like top and motion
less, and, while the policemen stood
still in amaZement, the cripple
climbed in, not budging the chair by a
fraction of an inch, and was speeding
away.
And looking at him, they did not
even fire.
Not that they could have hit him
even If they had tried. But awe, and
something as nearly akin to terror as
a New York policeman can feel re-
strained them. For this crippled man
In the crazy car was soaring away, far
over their heads, climbing to the very
summit Of the high structure along
that six-inch cable, till at last he SEEM
ed no more than black spot against
the blue sky, running with security at
the rate of an express train, with a
drop of hundreds Of feet into the river
on one side of him, and, on the other,
fall to certain death upon the struc-
ture Of the bridge.
He seemed to soar like an eagle; he
reached the topmost tower, and then,
seeing the pathway under him heavy
with stalled cars, and the roadway
black with cheering, gasping specta-
been Intellectually stretched forth to
hold him, he laughed, waved his hand
genially, and, at tremendously ac-
CELEBRATED pace, began to glide down
the cable line that stretched to the
Manhattan entrance.
He reached the end of it, travelling
as steadily as bicyclist, hit the as
phalt with gentle jolt twelve feet be-
hind the little group Of police who had
idly gathered there, staring across the
bridge, not thinking to glance upward;
shot over the loops Of the street car
lines, and dashed into Park Row,
Across the City Hall park he raced,
crossed Broadway under the horses
noses, reached the river front, where,
nothing but slow-moving wagons
blocked the wide street, and dashed
northward at rate Of hundred miles
IAN hour. He reached the extreme linn
its of Manhattan, crossed into West
chester, and, like streak of light, he
entered the suburban districts, passed
them, and SO gained open country and
was lost to the knowledge Of all.
Ten minutes later he stopped the
chair under a tree, descended, and
bathed his face and hands in the water
of a gurgling brook. That was the first
of his exploits and there was much yet
to be done. Vengeance on all who had
banded against him, broken up his
home, thrust him for five lonely years
into the western jail--this must be
meted out. But now, having regained
tiny fraction of his own, he had funds
with which to start on his immediate
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