Lo, Michael!

by Grace Livingston Hill

Captured by Conductor After He Had Rifled Mail Bags on Union Pacific Express

Topeka, Kan., July—. A daring bandit was captured last night a he had robbed the mail car on Union Pacific train No. —— which left Kansas City for Denver at 10 o’clock.
The train known as the Denver Express, carrying heavy mail, was just leaving Kansas City, when a man ran across the depot platform and leaped into the mail car through the open door. The clerk in charge faced the man, who aimed a revolver at him. He was commanded to bind and gag his five associates, and obeyed. The robber then went through all the registered pouches, stuffing the packages into his pockets. Then he commanded the clerk to untie his comrades.
At Bonner Springs where the train made a brief stop the bandit ordered the men to continue their work, so as not to attract the attention of persons at the station. When Lawrence was reached the robber dropped from the car and ran toward the rear of the train. The conductor summoned two Lawrence policemen and all three followed. After a quick race, and a struggle during which the bandit’s arm was broken, he was captured. It appears that the prisoner is an old offender, for whom the police of New York have been searching in vain for the past ten months. He is known in the lower districts of New York City as “Fighting Buck,” and has a list of offenses against him too numerous to mention.

Michael did not know why his eye had been attracted to the item nor why he had read the article through to the finish. It was not the kind of thing he cared to read; yet of late all crime and criminals had held a sort of sorrowful fascination for him. “It is what I might have done if I had stayed in the alley,” he would say to himself when he heard of some terrible crime that had been committed.

But when he reached the end of the article and saw Buck’s name his heart seemed to stand still.

Buck! The one of all his old comrades whom he had loved the most, who had loved him, and sacrificed for him; to whom he had written and sent money; whose brain was brighter and whose heart bigger than any of the others; for whom he had searched in vain, and found only to lose before he had seen him; whom he had hoped yet to find and to save. Buck had done this, and was caught in his guilt. And a government offense, too, robbing the mail bags! It would mean long, hard service. It would mean many years before Michael could help him to the right kind of life, even if ever.

He asked permission to leave the office that afternoon, and took the train down to the farm where Sam had been staying for some weeks. He read the article to him, hoping against hope that Sam would say there was some mistake; would know somehow that Buck was safe. But Sam listened with lowering countenance, and when the reading was finished he swore a great oath, such as he had not uttered before in Michael’s presence, and Michael knew that the story must be true.

Nothing could be done now. The law must have its course, but Michael’s heart was heavy with the weight of what might have been if he could but have found Buck sooner. The next day he secured permission to begin his vacation at once, and in spite of great need of his presence at Old Orchard he took the train for Kansas. He felt that he must see Buck at once.

All during that long dismal ride Michael’s heart was beating over and over with the story of his own life. “I might have done this thing. I would have dared and thought it brave if I had not been taught better. I might be even now in jail with a broken arm and a useless life: the story of my crime might be bandied through the country in the newspapers if it had not been for Mr. Endicott—and little Starr! And yet I have hurt his feelings and alienated his great kindness by refusing his request. Was there no other way? Was there no other way?” And always his conscience answered, “There was no other way!”

Michael, armed with a letter from the senior Holt to a powerful member of western municipal affairs, found entrance to Buck in his miserable confinement quite possible. He dawned upon his one-time friend, out of the darkness of the cell, as a veritable angel of light. Indeed, Buck, waking from a feverish sleep on his hard little cot, moaning and cursing with the pain his arm was giving him, started up and looked at him with awe and horror! The light from the corridor caught the gold in Michael’s hair and made his halo perfect; and Buck thought for the moment that some new terror had befallen him, and he was in the hands of the angel of death sent to summon him to a final judgment for all his misdeeds.

But Michael met his old friend with tenderness, and a few phrases that had been wont to express their childish loyalty; and Buck, weakened by the fever and the pain, and more than all by his own defeat and capture, broke down and wept, and Michael wept with him.