Melville Davisson Post

“ I suppose we remained there for perhaps twenty minutes, until the lights of the town disappeared and the train trailed out into the great open country.
Then Mooney proceeded to put his plan for the holdup into operation.
He went over to the door of the express car and knocked on it. One of the biggest men I have ever seen opened the door. Mooney’s weapon seemed to appear suddenly almost in the man’s face. He stepped back with a little cry, and we were instantly in the express car with the door closed and locked behind us. ”

“ Far out in the valley in the direction from which we had come I noticed a sort of blur; presently it became a group of dots moving about, as one has observed minute organisms under a microscope. The tiny things advanced until I presently saw that it was a crowd of men; then in the distance I heard the baying of the dogs.
They seemed to come slowly.
The sound of the dogs increased and in a little while I could make out individuals of the posse. ”

“ I thought the thing out and in my youthful fancy the girl became the fairy princess for which she each day made up. This woman was not her mother. She was some royal foundling, changed by the fairies or stolen at her birth. ”

“ A tall man moved in front holding two dogs on the leash. They came along our trail right down to the railroad. There the dogs stopped and I realized the efficacy of Mooney’s precaution against the bloodhound. When the dogs reached the place where we had turpentined our shoes, they stopped instantly and began to howl.
The man led them about in circles, across the track and beyond it, in every direction, but the dogs would not take up our trail. The turpentine was a complete safeguard against them; they would not follow it. The big man handled the dogs with skill ”

“ I suggested to Mooney that it would be easier to take a road, but he replied that the news of the holdup would be generally over the country and that it would be dangerous for strangers to be found on any of the roads. He said the plan was to follow the mountain until we came to the river about twenty miles farther west, and then to go down the river to a town from which we could take a train. ”