The guard did not quite understand and drew closer to the bars and took the card.
While he was waiting, a long thin hand reached through the grating to the handle of his six shooter and in a second he was peering down the muzzle of his own revolver in the hands of Bill Doolin.
“Keep perfectly quiet,” said the outlaw, “you know me, open that bull pen door very quietly.”
The guard silently obeyed. “Step in,” said Doolin, the guard stepped inside. The next thing and he with the novel was staring into the quick blue eye of Doolin and the ugly thing he held cocked in his hand.
“This way boys,” said Doolin, and the two guards followed him to his cell. When they were inside he locked the door, then he called for their cartridge belts and the revolver, which he with the novel still had about him.
In five minutes he was inside a heavy rain coat, had the guards’ midnight lunches stored in its pockets, a heavy Winchester in his hands and a hundred rounds of ammunition belted about him. Out into the night, and on to the street where some belated revelers’ horses were tied. He gathered up the reins of a fleet mustang and mounting into the saddle—“Richard was himself again.”
*****
For two years, I had been in the government secret service. I had no visible means of support except that of a newspaper correspondent. My reports for Marshal Nix’s office always went by a circuitous route, lest I be discovered, to have had my business known would have meant death. Even Marshal Nix never knew the real source of much information which reached his office.
I thought the outlaws were making a rendezvous at the little town of Ingrim, and I determined to see for myself. Going to the office of the Daily Leader, I secured a job at very poor pay to write up some towns in Oklahoma. Suddenly, under pretext of an affection in the head I became quite deaf. I knew better than go to the town of Ingrim first, lest I might excite suspicion. So I began at Tecumseh some thirty miles from Ingrim. I stayed in the town a week, solicited subscriptions and wrote up the prospects of the place, said many flattering things of the business men in my write-up, and when the papers came, I distributed them. The people were pleased with my work, but some complained at having to talk so loud to make me understand.