The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1938-06-02
Xena st ts}
by Captain
G.. Elliott Nightingale
Copyright, WNU
AND so ONE THING LED
TO ANOTHER, UNTIL

hit quite few people. In fact, the
body of the suicide was barely cold
in death before an unsuspecting citi-
zen was tarred and feathered, and
the latter event caused another ex-
plosion because it forced sergeant
to desert from the Royal Northwest
Mounted Police. At any rate, let's
get back to the beginning.
Tim Jillis was a lazy, good-for-
nothing sort, and booze-fghter, to
boot, all of which kept his hard
working wife, and his two fine chill
dren on the outermost edge of desti-
tuition and want. Neighbors did all
they could, of course, for the sake of
the youngsters, and just when things
were about as bad as they could be,
Mrs. Jillis had a bright idea. She
would change the house bit and
take in a lodger, someone who
would pay for good food and warm
room. With the income from the
boarder, she could make it all right,
she felt sure, and soon a Charlie
Brown was part of the household.
Now Brown was sober, hard-work-
ing chap, and when he saw the gen.
eral economic conditions in the Jill
lis household, he dug down into his
pockets and provided plenty of food,
some necessary clothing, and nice
pile of fuel.
Naturally, the heart of Mrs. Jillis
was about to burst from sheer graf
itude, and she put herself out to
make Brown feel right at home.
His slightest wish was law, and the
Jillises began to emerge from desti-
tuition to a fair measure of comfort
and well-being. All of this, strange
to say, aroused the anger and dis
pleasure of the no-account husband
and father who spent his days in
local barrooms bewailing the fact
that Brown the lodger was stealing
his wife and gradually breaking up
the Jillis home.
Instead of shooting the lodger, as
most people had expected, Jillis
stuck the rifle barrel in his own
mouth, pressed the trigger, and
scattered his brains all over the
bedroom walls. The coroner and
the Mounted Police soon realized
that it was a plain case of suicide,
and the case would have been closed
right then had not a gang of half a
dozen masked men barged into the
Jillis home and seized Charlie
Brown, the lodger. They took him
to a lonely spot and there they
tarred and feathered him from cap
to boots. They drove him back to
the tiny settlement and threw him
into the lobby Cd of the local hotel
which was hardly more than an
ordinary six or seven-room house.
Hours later Brown found, his way
back to his room in the Jillis home,
and about the only clue he had as to
the identity of his kidnapers was
that all the talking and all the or
ders had been spoken by a man
with distinctive western drawl
such as was common along the
Montana boundary.
Things quieted down, and Brown
stayed on at the Jillis place. And
then, months later he was sitting on
hotel veranda in Lethbridge, Al
berta, when his ears caught up a
voice that he would never forget as
long as he lived. He knew he had
found the leader of the kidnap gang,
and in half an hour the owner of the
distinctive western drawl w s
breaking down under stiff question
ing on the part of Men of the Mount
ed. Later he admitted leading the
gang, and was held for trial. And
then, while assembling all the nee
essary data and information for the
trial, the inspector of the Mounted
Police in the district made a most
startling and distressing discovery.
Five of the six gangsters were ac-
counted for, and the Inspector, while
moving heaven and earth to find out
the identity of the sixth, found that
the much-wanted lawbreaker was
one of his own sergeants, a man
with years of creditable service be-
hind him, and man who had al
ways been above reproach in every
way. At any rate, perhaps a bit
enraged by this discovery, the in
spector did all he could to make a
strong unshakable case against the
sergeant. But, as the days passed,
it appeared that the Inspector was
more hell-bent on getting" that
sergeant than anyone else, and just
when conditions looked bad for the
three-striper, he turned up missing.
The fact is, the tiny settlement
was loyal to the sergeant, and while
the inspector was fussing and FUN
ing over evidence and court pro-
cedure the sergeant's many friends
dug into their pockets, made up a
stable purse of money, and staked
the sergeant to a midnight getaway
on one of the finest and fastest
horses in the region. Moreover,
while the Inspector was looking up
the law on this and that, a fair
sized escort of mounted citizens
were escorting the sergeant over
the border into Montana.
And . /. that's how one thing led
to another, until well it
was difficult to find out just where
this all started and when and where
it finished. At any rate, it added
few gray hairs to the inspectors
scalp. No doubt about that.