ority

worth Kansas

[Illustration:  a drawing of a torn ticket.]

On the reverse side in faint penciled characters were the words:  “it to Cook,” From the blurred appearance of the words it was evident that a rubber had been used to erase them.  These words had escaped Chip’s notice, but as soon as Mr. Pinkerton saw them, he said: 

“I see it all, Chip.  I see it all.  A message was written on the tag, probably giving some instructions, such as ‘Send it to Cook,’ or ’Give it to Cook,’ and the person sending it changing his mind about writing his instructions so openly tried to erase the words with a rubber, but failing to do it tore the tag up and addressed another one.

“The package to which this was to have been tied was sent to some man whose name ends in ’ority and who was in Leavenworth, Kansas.  We can find that out to-morrow, Chip, so turn in and get some sleep.”

The next morning the books of the company were overhauled, and after a long, patient and careful search it was found that on October 23d, two days before the robbery, a valise had been expressed to a Daniel Moriarity, Leavenworth, Kansas, charges prepaid, by a man named John Williams.

That evening Chip left St, Louis for Leavenworth and Mr. Pinkerton returned to Chicago.

CHAPTER VII.

The tramp.

About the middle of November, after the now famous express robbery had taken place, a man, roughly dressed in a coarse suit of blue, wearing a woolen shirt open at the neck, and, knotted around his throat, a gaudy silk handkerchief, was strolling leisurely along the east bottoms near Kansas City.  His face was tanned by exposure to the sun, and his shoes had the flattened and battered condition which is the natural consequence of a long and weary tramp.  He walked as if he had no particular objective point, and looked like one of those peripatetic gentry who toil not neither do they spin, the genus “tramp.”  He complacently puffed a short clay nose-warmer, with his hands in his pockets, and taking first one side and then the other of the road, as his fancy dictated, found himself near the old distillery at the outskirts of the city.

A saloon near at hand, with its front door invitingly open, attracted his attention, and the cheering sounds of a violin, scraping out some popular air, gave a further impetus to inclination, and the tramp turned to the open door and entered.  Seated on an empty barrel, his foot executing vigorous time to his own music, sat the magician of the horse-hair bow.

Leaning against the bar, or seated at the small tables scattered around, the tramp saw a goodly number of the disciples of Bacchus, while from an inner room the clicking of ivory chips and half suppressed expressions of “I’ll see you an’ go you tenner better.”  “A full house pat, what ’er ye got,” designated the altar at which the worshipers of “draw poker” were offering sacrifices.