MY HUSBAND IS SHOT
I reached there late in the afternoon and went straight to the postoffice. This was always the accepted rendezvous for professional criminals when no other place had been agreed upon. Detectives in every city might very profitably spend more of their time watching the postoffice, for wherever the criminal is he makes a point of calling there at least once every twenty-four hours to keep appointments with his friends or in the hope of running across some acquaintance.
Ned and George were there waiting for me, and mighty glad they were to see me, for they had heard vague rumors of a woman having been arrested on suspicion that she knew something about the Palmer robbery.
The best opportunity the sleepy little town afforded seemed to be a general store run by a man named Johnson. I dropped in there late one evening, and, on the pretext of buying a crochet hook, saw the old proprietor locking the day's receipts—quite a respectable bundle of money—in a ramshackle safe which offered about as much security as a cheese box.
We got everything in readiness to break into the store the following night. It was a foolhardy time for such a job, as there was a bright moon—but we were hungry for money, and one more good haul would supply enough to keep us in comfort until we could lay our plans for some robbery really worthy of our skill.
There was really little I could do to help the men, but I could not bear to be left behind. Just after midnight I stole out of the railroad station, where I had been waiting ostensibly for the night train to New York, and hid myself in the doorway of a livery stable, where I had a good view of the store we were going to rob.
Pretty soon I saw my two comrades come cautiously down the main street from opposite directions. They met underneath a window of the store on the side which was in the dark shadow of a tree.
The window was so high above the ground that my husband had to climb up on George Mason's shoulders to reach it. I could hear the gentle rasp of his jimmy as it worked against the fastenings.
At last he raised the sash gently and stepped into the store. Then he leaned far out across the sill and stretched his brawny arms down toward his companion.
Mason gave a leap, caught hold of Ned's wrists, and, with the agility of a circus performer, swung himself up into the window.
All was as silent as the grave. The only sign of life I could see in the peaceful street were two cats enjoying a nocturnal gambol on a nearby piazza roof. I shivered for fear they might start yowling and awaken somebody to spoil our plans.
Just at that instant one of the cats upset a flower pot which stood at a window opening on the porch roof. To my horror that pot went rolling down the roof with a tremendous clatter, hung suspended for a second on the eaves, then fell to the stone steps with a crash that woke the echoes.
At once the whole town awoke. In every direction I could hear windows being thrown open, children crying, and sleepy voices asking what the trouble was.
At a window directly over the store where my two friends were a night-capped head appeared and a frightened woman screamed, "Help! Burglars!" at the top of her lungs.
That completed the havoc which the playful cats and the flower pot had begun. From every house half-dressed men armed with rifles, shotguns, and all sorts of weapons poured into the street.
All this racket had started too suddenly for me to give Ned and George any warning. I could only crouch farther back in the shadow of my doorway and trust to Providence that the villagers would overlook me in their excitement.
"There goes the burglar now!" some one shouted, and just then I saw my husband dash past my hiding place so close that I could have touched him. He was headed for the open country beyond the railroad tracks and was running faster than I had ever supposed a man of his weight could.
"Stop, or I'll shoot!" yelled an old white-whiskered farmer, who stood, rifle in hand, not a dozen yards away.
But Ned, if he heard the command, made no move to obey. Instead, he only ran all the faster, hunching his head down between his shoulders and zigzagging back and forth across the road as if to make his bulky form a less favorable target.
The old farmer raised his rifle as deliberately as if he had been aiming at a squirrel instead of a fellow man. Three shots blazed out in rapid succession.
The first shot went wild. At the second my husband stumbled. At the third he threw up his hands and pitched forward headlong in the road.
"We've got him!" the crowd shouted with what seemed to me fiendish glee, and rushed up to where Ned's body lay in a quivering, bloody heap.
I supposed he was dead, but, whether dead or alive, I knew there was nothing I could do to aid him. Nervous and trembling at the awful sight I had seen, I slipped out of town unnoticed.