Miss Anastasia Simpson
“It was ascertained that Mr. Wellington Peters, proprietor of the prominent and well known low priced hardware store bearing his name, and whose business is advertised in our columns, while standing on the corner talking with a traveling man near the hotel, heard a dull booming sound from the direction of the court house, at about 2:45 P.M., but thinking that it was boys making some kind of a racket, he paid no attention to it. Several other prominent and well known citizens heard the same sound at the same hour.
“The tall and mysterious stranger was seen by Miss Simpson to walk south after leaving the court house. She went to another window to further observe him, but he had disappeared.
“The little tin box which the artful and designing robber had left ‘for safe keeping’ with J. Milton Tuttle, and which he locked up in the safe, was opened and found to contain nothing but a bag of sand.
“It was evident to all that the tin box was a subterfuge. It was used as an excuse to visit and inspect the ‘lay of the land’ in the office of the treasurer of our county.
“About noon, on Monday, a posse was formed by the Hon. Cyrus Butts, our gentlemanly and efficient sheriff. The posse, consisting of three prominent and well known citizens, Oliver K. Gardner, Silas B. Kendall and Elmer Dinwiddie, accompanied by the sheriff, made a circuit of the town. They ascertained that the mysterious stranger had stopped at the pleasant little home of Mr. Mike Carney, the genial and well known butcher of our town, and asked for a drink of water, which was given him. He had then taken a southerly direction along the section line road. The posse procured Toppington Smith’s mottled blood hound and put the intelligent animal on the trail of the fleeing burglar. The pursuit continued for about twelve miles. The fugitive was evidently making a bee line along the section road for the river marshes. A team was met on the road, with a load of baled hay, and impressed into service. All of the bales but two were unloaded and left by the roadside. The two bales were retained on the wagon for use as a barricade in case of a revolver battle with the burglar.
“Drivers of teams, met along the route, reported seeing a man enter the woods before they met him, and go back into the road a long ways behind them after they had passed. The variations in the course taken by the hound confirmed this.
“About ten o’clock at night there was a full moon. The trail left the road and led into some thick underbrush, near a small slough. Some smoke issued from the brush, where the fugitive had evidently built a fire and expected to spend the night. The place was surrounded and the posse cautiously advanced, but the burglar was gone. It was thought that the cunning malefactor had got wind of his pursuers, that he had turned aside and lighted this fire in the brush with a view of delaying and baffling those behind him with artful strategy.
“The hound left the brush, and a few minutes later a tall figure, with a light gray coat, was seen a few hundred yards away on a bare ridge in the moonlight. It was unquestionably the fugitive and the hound was with him. The posse opened fire with revolvers, but at such a distance it was futile. The man and the dog disappeared over the ridge into the woods. The burglar had escaped, and the dog had evidently joined forces with him.
“Further pursuit that night was considered hopeless. The posse slept at a farm house and resumed the search Tuesday morning. They found the dog tied to a tree near the edge of the big marsh, there were tracks in the soft mud at the margin of the slough, and an old boat belonging to a farmer in the vicinity was gone. There were marks in the mud showing where the boat had been shoved out to the water.