Page:St. Nicholas (serial) (IA stnicholasserial402dodg).pdf/694

1086 mile clip, running down two hens and a stray dog, all the time chewing away at that straw as if he had nothing more exciting on hand than feeding the stock,—all that, I say, took my breath away, and when I staggered out of the back seat of that vehicle, I went up to him, and said, ‘Mr. Cyrus Hammer, let me shake your hand. You certainly understand your business, and I must have you for this job. I will pay you eight dollars a night to stay with your rig at the police station, ready to take them out the instant you get the alarm, and while you are out on the job, you will get four dollars an hour extra.’ You should have seen Cy Hummer's eyes open at the prospect of such wealth. ‘B-b-but, the thieves,’ he sputtered. ‘Oh, you need not worry about them,’ put in my friend. ‘The police will take care of them. All you need do is to drive the car, You ‘d better take the job, Cy, it ’s the easiest money you will ever see.’ So Cy took the job, and he was there every night puttering about his machine for about two weeks. Then, about two o’clock one morning, on a particularly dark night, the alarm went off. Immediately our operator notified the Jersey City and Kearney police, and the game was on. In less than a minute, the Kearney men were tearing full speed down the road, following the telephone wires. Cy knew every inch of that road like a horse. It was well he did, because it was pretty dark, and, of course, the machine carried no lights. When they had covered about two or three miles, they made out a dark object that looked like a truck wagon drawn up along the roadside. The next instant, there was a volley of shots which smashed the wind-shield to bits, and peppered the car-with buck-shot. ‘Stop the car and scatter,’ cried the police sergeant, but Cy had already jammed on the emergency brakes and brought the car up with such a jerk that they were all but pitched out. Then the police ran for cover, but in the meantime a second volley caught them. The sergeant got a rifle-ball in the fleshy part of his back, one of his men got a load of shot in the calf of his leg, while the other man had a clean hole drilled through the lobe of his ear with a buck-shat. As for Cy’’—here the narrator had a fit of laughing—“Cy tumbled down behind the dash-board the instant he jammed on the brakes; but he was not built right for that cramped shelter, His lanky legs hung way down over the side, and a rifle-bullet cut through his trousers, grazing one of his shins, The crippled police answered very bravely with their revolvers, but what could their little pea-shooters do against rifles and shot-guns? In another moment, the