Before the people in the saloon had recovered from their astonishment, the detectives had taken desperate prisoner away, and finding a livery stable near drove to the Pinkerton headquarters.  Haight and Weaver had not gone a block before the two detectives arrested them without any struggle, so that within one short half hour the three principals of the great Adams express robbery were placed behind the bars.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Jim Cummings in Pinkerton’s Sweat-box—­his confession.

All night long “Jim Cummings” walked the narrow limits of his room—­ still undaunted and fearless as of old.  The gravity of his position only made him the more daring, and when the first beams of the morning broke through the barred window he had recovered his usual grit and nerve, and determined to die hard and game.  Mr. Pinkerton, alone, came into the room just as the outlaw had finished the excellent breakfast which had been served him.  Jim looked up, and holding out his hand, in a cheery voice said: 

“Good morning, Mr. Pinkerton.”

For a second Mr. Pinkerton hardly knew what to say.  He was prepared to encounter either a desperate or a sullen prisoner, and was somewhat taken back when he received such a cordial greeting.  It was but a second, and fully alive to all the tricks and maneuvers practiced by arrested criminals, he was on the qui vive.

“Good morning, Mr.  ‘Cummings’.  I trust you have had a good breakfast?”

“Oh, fair.”

“You slept well?”

“Tip-top.”

“I trust you will be able to amuse yourself during the day.”

“I won’t amuse you, that’s certain.”

“You have been doing that for some time.”

“That’s all right.  Now, what am I here for?”

“Just so.  What are you here for?”

“You’ve got the wrong man, Mr. Pinkerton.”

“Indeed?” “Just now you called me ’Mr. Cummings’.”

“I should, perhaps, have said Mr. Wittrock.”

“What did you call me ‘Cummings’ for, then.”

“As you christened yourself you ought to know.”

“I’m arrested, of course, now for what?”

“To tell the fact, Mr. Wittrock, it is because some time last October you played a little joke on the Adams Express Company, and they appreciated it so highly that they hired me to find you so that they could tell you so.”

“You dare accuse me of committing that robbery?”

“That’s about the size of it.”

“Why, man, I wasn’t within five hundred miles of the place when it occurred.”

“Where were you?”

“I was in New Orleans.”

“Positive of that?”

“I can prove it.”

“You can?”

“Yes, I can.  You go over to my coalyard at—­West Lake street, and ask my partner, Weaver.  He will tell you where I was at that time.”