“Well, now, here is where it happened. That whistle was enough to wake the sleeping saints. And just as the train got fairly going for the draw, tooting all the way, the door of that watch-box burst open and three policemen men came running out, hard as they could run. Of course there was only one thing to do, and that’s just the thing that Charlie Greenman didn’t do. He turned and ran in the general direction of the Swift House as fast as those long legs of his could carry him. Two of the officers ran after him and the other came for me. I yelled to Charlie to stop, but he’d got to a point where he couldn’t hear anything. The other officer came running with his night-stick in the air, but my Scotch-Irish was rising, and I threw up my guard.
“‘Don’t you touch me,’ I yelled; ‘don’t you touch me!’
“‘Well, come along, then,’ said he.
“‘Not a bit of it,’ said I. ‘I’ve nothing to do with you.’
“‘Well, you ran,’ he yelled; ‘you ran!’
“I just looked at him. ‘Do you call this running?’ said I.
“‘Well,’ said he, ‘the other fellow ran.’
“‘All right,’ said I, ‘we’ll run after him.’ So we did. Pretty soon they caught Charlie. And I was a bit nervous, for I didn’t know what he might say. But he was too scared to say anything. So I turned to the officer.
“‘Now,’ said I, ‘suppose you tell us what it is you want?’