“They will be valuable, no doubt, for Little Eva and the ice, but for us they will hardly constitute a menace.”
He reached into his pocket and took out a flask of what one might imagine to be brandy.
“I have here,” he said, “a lotion to confuse his nose.”
He drew out the stopper, poured the liquid into his hand, and rubbed it carefully over our shoes. I knew on the instant, by the odor, it was turpentine. Mooney was very careful about this thing. The whole of our shoes were carefully painted with the turpentine. He explained the theory of the thing while he was at work.
“It makes me laugh,” he said, “to think how our brethren of the road have been chased about by dogs.... It is ridiculous to be chased by anything, especially a creature depending on its nose. It is the fine discriminating sense of odors that distinguishes the bloodhound. If our footweary predecessors had only thought about it they might have saved themselves the walking.
“How does one destroy a delicate odor?
“The solution is simple—by laying down over it a heavier, gross one. And here one must consider the instinct of the bloodhound. He will follow the trail of a man, that is, something living, a thing which he has observed to move, but he will not follow the trail of a pine tree. Turpentine, to the dog’s sensitive nose, is a tremendous stench that he will walk away from.”
The road, as I have said, ran parallel to the track. We got out now and went directly across the field to the railroad. Here, close beside the track, Mooney set up a piece of rotten cross tie. It was to be a signal, as I later discovered; and we should return this way.
Then he walked back along the track. I was perhaps at something more than half a mile that we came to a semaphore. It was only in the knowledge of future events that I understood what we were about to do; and it is in the light of this knowledge that I am able to describe what happened.
The men had determined to hold up the through passenger train from Washington to New Orleans. Their original intention was to stop this train at a water tank but for some reason they gave up this plan; I think it was because knowledge of the other train robbery made them fear that the usual stopping places would be watched. So they determined upon another device. A macadamized road paralleled the railroad track and they decided to commandeer a motor car, follow the track to some isolated point, and there stop the train.