He had been called a hero, a fearless officer, and a lot of other pleasant things, by the astonished United States marshals, and he had been given to understand that he would hear from Washington before long. Mr. Bacon (Kurt von Poppenblitz) and Mr. Bonaparte (Conrad Bloom) had also called him something, but he didn't mind. His erstwhile partners, with their four or five henchmen, were now well on their way to limbo, and Mr. Crow was regaling his hearers with the story. During the first recital (this being either the ninth or tenth), Alf Reesling had been obliged to prompt him—a circumstance readily explainable when one stops to consider the effect of the murderous blow Mr. Crow had received.
"'Course," said Anderson, "they did fool me at first. But I wasn't long gittin' onto 'em. I used to sneak up there and investigate ever' now an' ag'in. Finally I got onto the fact that they was German spies—I got positive proof of it. I can't tell you just what it is, 'cause it's government business. Then I finds out they got a wireless plant all in order, an' ready to relay messages to the coast o' Maine, from some'eres out west. So today, I goes over to Justice Robb's and gits a warrant for intoxication. That was to make it legal fer me to bust into their shanty if necessary. Course, the drunk charge was only a blind, as I told the U. S. marshal. I went right straight to that underground den o' their'n, an' afore they knowed what was up, I leaped down on 'em. Fust thing I done was to put the big and dangerous one horse de combat. He was the one I was worried about. I knocked him flat an' then went after t'other one. He let on like he was surrenderin'. He fooled me, I admit—'cause I don't know anything 'bout wireless machinery. All of a sudden he give me a wireless shock—out o' nowhere, you might say—an' well, by cracky, I thought it was all over. 'Course, I realize now it was foolish o' me to try to go up there an' take them two desperadoes single-handed, but I—What's that, Bud?"
"Mrs. Crow sent me to tell you if you didn't come home to supper this minute, you wouldn't git any," called out a boy from the outskirts of the crowd.
"That's the second wireless shock you've had today, Anderson," said Harry Squires, drily, and slowly closed one eye.
THE BEST MAN WINS!
Anderson Crow Meets His Waterloo and His Marne
For sixteen consecutive years Anderson Crow had been the Marshal of Tinkletown. A hiatus of two years separated this period of service from another which, according to persons of apparently infallible memory, ran through an unbroken stretch of twenty-two years. Uncle Gid Luce stoutly maintained—and with some authority—that anybody who said twenty-two years was either mistaken or lying. He knew for a positive fact that it was only twenty-one for the simple reason that at the beginning of the Crow dynasty a full year elapsed before Anderson could be convinced that he actually had been victorious at the polls over his venerable predecessor, ex-marshal Bunker, who had served uninterruptedly for something like thirty years before him.
It took the wisest men in town nearly a year to persuade the incredulous Mr. Bunker that he had been defeated, and also to prove to Mr. Crow that he had been elected. Neither one of 'em would believe it.
It was the consensus of opinion, however, that Anderson Crow had served, all told, thirty-eight years, the aforesaid hiatus being the result of a decision on his part to permanently abandon public life in order to carry on his work as a private detective. Mr. Ed. Higgins held the office for two years and then retired, claiming that there wasn't any sense in Tinkletown having two marshals and only paying for one. And, as the salary and perquisites were too meagre to warrant a division, and the duties of office barely sufficient to keep one man awake, he arrived at the only conclusion possible: it was only fair that he should split even with Anderson.