"And you?" turning to Sam.
"Doctor Skinner, at your service,"
"Then you're the two I have to thank for my being here."
"We helped the thing a little."
As they were talking, Weaver returned with the detective, bringing several packages of money, still in the original wrappers, which Wittrock had taken from the safe of the express car.
The sight of the recovered plunder placed a quietus on the arrested men, who now saw that the last link in the chain had been forged, and felt the walls of the penitentiary looming up before them.
Settling into a stubborn silence, they sullenly refused to utter another word, and maintained this position until they were placed on the train for St. Louis, where they were locked up to answer the indictments which the grand jury had already found against them.
*****
Fotheringham, who had all this time laid in jail, still protested his innocence. He stated that the letter heads found in his trunk he had taken from the general desk in the company's office, and that the reason the signatures of Route Agent Bartlett was found on the paper, was due to the fact that he was about to write for a permit for a vacation Christmas, and simply practised writing the name.
This explanation was received with smiles, but his friends came to the rescue, and proved that he was in the habit of writing names on every bit of paper which came to hand. That this eccentricity was well known, and his explanation should be received with favor. The grand jury, however, found an indictment against him, and he was held as an accomplice to the robbery.