“An’ remember t’ make th’ description as full as ye kin,” added Jed. “Don’t leave out th’ bullet-hole. Every little helps. Ye didn’t happen t’ know any of ’em, did ye?”
“I recognized one of them,” answered Allan, in a low voice, “and I believe I know the others. They’re those convicts who got away from the penitentiary not long ago.”
“Th’ deuce they are!” cried Jed, slapping his thigh. “Oh, this is too easy—this is child’s play! Why, we’ve got ’em sure—every police-station in th’ State has got their photygrafts! Git that off jest as quick as ye kin, an’ then wait fer us here. We’ve got t’ come back this way, from th’ mine, an’ I’ll bring an extry hoss fer you.”
“All right,” agreed Allan, and Jed led his men away into the darkness.
A gasoline torch, hung to one of the telegraph-poles, flared and sputtered above the boy’s head, as he sat down on a rock beside the track to write the description required of him. At the top of the pole, silhouetted against the sky, he could see the linemen labouring to make the connection. The operator had already found an old box, placed it at the foot of the pole, and screwed his instrument down to it, ready to commence work. Indeed, he had gone farther than that, and attached to the inside of the box a hook for orders—for that box would no doubt represent the Coalville station for some days to come.
Allan got from him a sheet of paper, braced his back against the pole, and began to write, using his knee as a table; he described the men as accurately as he could; then, with compressed lips, he added that in company with the gang was Dan Nolan, a prisoner parolled from the Ohio penitentiary, and that from some words he had overheard, he believed the other men to be the convicts who had escaped from there about a week before. As Jed Hopkins had said, every police-station in the State already had photographs of these men, and it did not seem possible that they could escape the net which this description would draw around them.
Suddenly the instrument on the box began to chatter, and Allan knew the connection had been made. As he read over his description, his ears mechanically caught the first words spelled out on the instrument, and his eyes clouded with sudden tears, for the words were:
“Is West safe?”
“Yes,” the operator answered. “He’s right here writing a description of the robbers.”
“O. K. Let’s have it,” clicked the instrument, and Allan handed the description over.