“Discharged any one lately?”
The committee rose as one man, and, staring at each other with bulging eyes, said “Jake!” all at once.
“Jakey, b’ gosh!” repeated the constable to himself, kicking his own shins softly as he tugged at his beard. “Jake, by thunder!”
Jake was a boy of eighteen, who had been employed by the farmer to do chores. He was shiftless, and a week or two before had been sent away in disgrace. He had gone no one knew whither.
The committee told the inspector all about Jake, gave him a minute description of him,—of his ways, his gait, and his clothes,—and went home feeling that they had been wondrous smart in putting so sharp a man on the track he would never have thought of if they hadn’t mentioned Jake’s name. All he had to do now was to follow it to the end, and let them know when he had reached it. And as these good men had prophesied, even so it came to pass.
Detectives of the inspector’s staff were put on the trail. They followed it from the Long Island pastures across the East River to the Bowery, and there into one of the cheap lodging-houses where thieves are turned out ready-made while you wait. There they found Jake.
They didn’t hail him at once, or clap him into irons, as the constable from Valley Stream would have done. They let him alone and watched awhile to see what he was doing. And the thing that they found him doing was just what they expected: he was herding with thieves. When they had thoroughly fastened this companionship upon the lad, they arrested the band. They were three.
They had not been locked up many hours at Headquarters before the inspector sent for Jake. He told him he knew all about his dismissal by Farmer Dodge, and asked him what he had done to the old man. Jake blurted out hotly, “Nothin’,” and betrayed such feeling that his questioner soon made him admit that he was “sore on the boss.” From that to telling the whole story of the robbery was only a little way, easy to travel in such company as Jake was in then. He told how he had come to New York, angry enough to do anything, and had “struck” the Bowery. Struck, too, his two friends, not the only two of that kind who loiter about that thoroughfare.
To them he told his story while waiting in the “hotel” for something to turn up, and they showed him a way to get square with the old man for what he had done to him. The farmer had money and property he would hate to lose. Jake knew the lay of the land, and could steer them straight; they would take care of the rest. “See!” said they.
Jake saw, and the sight tempted him. But in his mind’s eye he saw also Rover and heard him bark. How could he be managed?