Page:Cy Warman--The express messenger and other tales of the rail.djvu/181

Rh work, Doc departed. Friends of the accused hired a lawyer who made a beautiful picture of these innocent lads who had lived all their lives in this quiet country town, and who had never been guilty of a wrong until they were encouraged and trapped into it by the wicked young detective.

Alas for the criminals! One of the gang gave up to the sheriff, and by the finding of stolen goods and the property of a man who had been murdered, they were all, save the one who had weakened, sent to Joliet, where they are still receiving their mail.

Doc's remarkable success in this case encouraged the agency to send him to Southern Illinois, where he was successful in working out a mystery that had baffled the best men they had. But he refused another assignment, to the agency's surprise, and returning to the West again, entered the service of Uncle Sam as a railway postal clerk.

Finding a letter in the mail marked to me, he took his blue pencil and wrote on the back of the envelope: "Hello—Doc—R. M. S."; and I knew then that he was in the railway mail service.