It had been a hasty but important conference in Sheriff Joe Cook’s office. When it was over, and the agitated outsiders had departed, Deputy Sheriff “Shorty” McKay, who, apparently, had been lost in the pages of a book all during the confab, jumped to his feet excitedly.
“Boss, yuh let me go on that case!” cried Shorty.
“Yuh?” said Sheriff Cook, in disgust, “yuh—why what in Sam Hill do yuh know about it—with yuhr nose buried in a blamed story book all the time we was conferrin’. I’d a called yuh fer it ’ceptin’ I didn’t care to attract no attention to yuhr plagued indifference.”
Shorty put up protesting hands.
“No—no, boss!” he cried fervently. “I wus lissenin’ with both ears all the time—honest! I heard it all! I was just pertendin’ to be readin’—an’ anyhow—it ain’t no story book, this book ain’t. No sirree—lookit!”
Shorty flipped the volume down on the table, under the sheriff’s nose, and the sheriff grunted.
The book was titled—“Detective Disguises.”
“Ef yuh ask me,” blurted out Sheriff Cook, “I’d say that was worse’n any story book. “Detective Disguises,” eh? Waal, yuh lissen here—all the disguisin’ in this green world won’t make up fer yuhr lack o’ brains, y’understand?”
“Yessir!”
“An’ as fer sendin’ yuh on that case——”
“Lissen, boss” pleaded Shorty, “it’s a cinch yuh ain’t hankerin’ to go clear to Alamosa in weather like this, an’ mebbe have to go from thar to Salida er Pueblo! It ain’t gonna be no fun—but me, I’m crazy to go. I’ll betcha——”
“It’s a touchy kind o’ case!” said the sheriff, weakening a little as he realized that he did not have any desire to go on the trip.
“I kin handle it, boss!”
Sheriff Cook deliberated. He focused his gaze on Shorty’s offending book as he concentrated. His glare was intense enough to burn a hole through it, but the sheriff was doing some tall thinking. In a minute he aroused himself, grabbed the volume on disguises, and chucked it violently in the waste paper basket. Then he looked up at the flushed Shorty, who was trembling with eagerness.
“Yuh kin go,” said the sheriff. “Catch that nine fifteen train to Alamosa—but heaven help yuh if yuh bungle the job!”
“Yessir. Thank yuh boss!”
“Remember, we ain’t sure o’ our suspicions,” said the sheriff warningly. “Yuh gotta verify ’em afore yuh go makin’ any rumpus. Yuh got that through yuhr thick noodle?”
“I has,” said Shorty, bowing.
Twenty minutes later, as the sheriff tramped the railroad platform, watch in hand, he cussed himself for giving in to his deputy’s pleas. Here it was time for the nine fifteen, and Shorty, who had rushed home to pack a grip, had not shown up.
“Blamed galoot!” said the sheriff hotly, “reckon he’ll be late an’ miss the train. That’s just like him. He’s a funny combination o’ ambition, laziness, nerve an’ nobody home in the attic. I told him perticular——”
There was a shrill whistle up the track and the rushing smoke of the passenger train could be seen.
Sheriff Cook looked down the road toward town—no Shorty in sight. The sheriff flung his cigar away.
The train drew in. The sheriff knew it waited five minutes. Perhaps Shorty would make it yet. The sheriff, consulting his watch every few seconds, kept an eagle eye on the road—but no Shorty. It was too late to send after him, he knew, and the train couldn’t be held. His deputy was going to miss the train sure as shooting!
Desperately Sheriff Cook poked through his pockets for another cigar. He found it. He fumbled for matches and didn’t find them. He glared around the platform. A tall, bewhiskered old rancher was lounging near by, evidently waiting to board the train. The sheriff wheeled on him just as the engine whistled—it was too late for Shorty to make the grade now!
“Gotta match?” muttered Sheriff Cook, choking with ill-concealed rage, “I gotta have a light.”
The rancher produced a box of matches, and his hand shook violently as he handed them to Sheriff Cook, who noticed the stranger’s great nervousness.
“Goin’ out on the train?” asked the sheriff.
The stranger didn’t answer. Instead his whiskers began to shake, then his shoulders, finally his whole body. The man quivered as though he were in a convulsion, and the sheriff stepped back a step in alarm.
“Yuh sick, mister?”
There was a long shriek of the locomotive’s whistle before the stranger could reply. Then the train began to move. The rancher sprang for a coach and made it, then swung around and waved at the sheriff.
“It’s me!” cried a familiar voice, “it’s me—Shorty—in disguise. I ain’t sick; I’m laffin’!”
The train was gone!
In Alamosa, some five hours later, Shorty was still chuckling to himself as he remembered the look of mingled surprise and rage that had flashed across the sheriff’s face as the deputy had spoken to him! In fact, Shorty had choked and giggled and shook in laughter during the whole trip. The brakeman and the conductor had both noticed it and decided that Shorty, whom they did not recognize, was crazy. They were relieved when he picked up his little black grip as Alamosa was announced and alighted at that town. The conductor, however, got off and pointed Shorty out to the Alamosa town marshal, who always met the trains.
“See that ol’ bird with the billy-goat whiskers?” asked the conductor, pointing at Shorty. “Waal, marshal, yuh keep an eye on him. He’s plumb loco is my guess; got on the train at Monte Vista an’ I seen the sheriff up thar lookin’ him over close just afore we pulled out.”
The marshal’s eyes popped.
The eyes of two strangers, who lurked near by, and who had heard the conductor’s remarks, also popped—but discreetly. As Shorty shouldered through the crowd on the platform the strangers nudged each other and followed him. Shorty didn’t glance back once. He plowed right up the main street and entered the Grand View Hotel as though he owned it.
“Well,” said the tall stranger, “he’s our meat. Him bein’ a stranger here will make things all the better!”
“We’ll wait here,” said the other man, “and brace him when he comes out—ef he comes out soon enough!”
Shorty, meanwhile, was examining the Grand View register with deep concern. The clerk asked him if he cared to register, but Shorty ignored the suggestion. Presently—apparently satisfied—Shorty looked around the lobby until he saw a batch of grips on the floor, evidently belonging to guests about to depart on the next train for Salida. Shorty added his grip to the group. He crossed the lobby and looked into the dining room, but ducked back immediately.
Then, whistling softly to himself, Shorty returned and reached for his grip, where he had left it with the others. Now he hesitated. He was not quite sure, it seemed, which was his bag. Eventually, after pawing them all over, and squinting at initials on some of them, he chose one and departed with it. The clerk watched him go with keen regret. The regret vanished a few minutes later when the town marshal, dropping in, announced that a crazy man was in town. When the marshal began to describe the fellow the clerk interrupted with a hoarse cry.
“He was in here not ten minutes back! I knowed he was looney the way he acted! Reckon he’s a dangerous feller!”
Meanwhile, on the street, Shorty had been accosted by the two strangers who had followed him from the depot. They watched him come from the hotel, and they overhauled him in rapid strides. One passed to either side of him.
“Stranger here?” asked the tall man, and Shorty stopped.
“Yep,” said Shorty suspiciously, “an’ who are yuh?”
The tall man pulled back his coat to disclose a scintillating badge on his vest. The other man did the same.
“Detectives!” whispered the tall man. “We want yuh to help us, brother; yuh look honest!”
“I am!” said Shorty, but his knees shook. He was in for it, he figured. Detectives! They must have seen he was in disguise! Well, there was nothing to do now but see it through.
“What do yuh want me to do?” faltered Shorty.
“Yuh look purty smart fer a hayseed,” said the tall detective, patting Shorty on the shoulder. “That’s why we picked yuh out, brother, an’ further, yuh’re a stranger. Now can we trust yuh to help us?”
Shorty, stealing a glance at the unmistakable bulge on the stranger’s hip, nodded.
“Yuh sure kin, mister!”
“All right,” said the tall man, talking rapidly, “here’s the dope, brother. We’re here after a feller—a blamed crook—an’ we wanta take him quietly, without fuss, fer we think the town marshal here is shady, too. See? Waal, here’s what we want yuh to do. We’ll point out the feller we’re after, an’ we want yuh to pass him on the street an’ speak to him.”
“Speak to him?”
“Yes, speak to him, and that’ll give us an excuse to grab him. We’ll be right behind yuh. All yuh gotta do is to speak to him and pass on. We’ll go up an’ flash our badges on him and put him under arrest—see?”
Shorty was perplexed.
“An’ what’ll I say to him?” he asked.
The two detectives laughed.
“Anything,” said the taller of the pair, “but mebbe yuh better just say ‘Hello thar—pard!’ as yuh pass him.”
Shorty nodded understandingly.
“All right. Whar is he?”
“In the hotel,” said the officers, “but he’ll be hotfootin’ it down here purty pronto to catch that Salida train. We’ll wait for him here—in this doorway.”
Shorty, at the strangers’ suggestion, stepped into the doorway. Then the taller of the pair noticed his grip.
“That grip don’t look right,” he said. “Hardly be right fer yuh to be airin’ the fact that yuh’re a stranger here when yuh speak to our man. He might not speak back, and that’s what we want him to do. All depends on that, brother. Say, I’ll take yuhr grip an’ check it fer yuh at the station. Yuh kin git it after we pull our stunt, how’s that?”
Shorty hesitated.
“Waal,” he said, finally, “ef yuh gents will excuse me while I git out a clean hankerchief——”
“Sure, hop to it!”
Shorty, turning his back on the pair, opened his bag and then snapped it shut quickly. He pulled a handkerchief out of one pocket, surreptitiously, and then put it back again with such a flourish that the strangers could not fail to see it.
“All right,” he said, “yuh kin check the grip!”
The short man took the grip and went briskly down the street while Shorty held his breath in dismay. What if that grip was lost! But the short man was back in a few minutes and handed Shorty the claim check for the grip.
“Yuh kin git it after yuh help us,” he explained.
“Our man will be due in ten minutes!” said the tall man, consulting his watch. “Now, brother, yuh know what to do? When we see him come outta the hotel yuh start walkin’ toward him, an’ when yuh git close to him, slow up an’ just say ‘Hello thar—pard!’ Then pass on. We’ll be right behind yuh. When he speaks to yuh, we grab him an’ hustle him off. Yuh better keep right on goin’ an’ don’t look around! We’ll attend to him. He might shoot, yuh know—so yuh don’t stop. Yuh go an’ git yuhr grip, see?”
Shorty nodded. It was all beyond him. Still he had no choice. He was on the verge, once or twice, of confiding the fact to the detectives that he, too, was an officer, but somehow he couldn’t get the courage.
“Now!” said the short man suddenly, pointing.
“Yes!” cried the tall man, “that’s him—thar he comes with a bag in his hand. Git goin’, brother!”
Shorty, however, his eyes bulging, stood rooted in the doorway until the strangers gave him a shove. Then he started. He walked briskly toward the man who was coming down the street with the grip. Shorty’s heart almost stopped beating, but he got a hold on himself and threw back his shoulders. He could hear the two strangers right at his heels.
“Remember!” he heard one of them hiss at him.
Shorty tugged at the collar that seemed to be choking him. He staggered a bit, but went on.
Now the man with the grip—the crook—was but a few paces ahead. Shorty took his courage in his hands.
“Hello thar, pard!” Shorty sang out.
“Why—hello—hello yuhrself!” said the man, hesitating and peering hard at Shorty, who kept on going.
In a twinkling, the two men who had followed Shorty up the street jumped for the man with the bag. They grabbed him by the arms. He endeavored to jerk away, and they threw back their coats, displaying their badges.
“We want yuh!” Shorty heard the tall man say. “We’re officers! We want to know who yuh are—and why yuh just spoke to that criminal yuh just passed?”
Shorty, almost believing his ears had deceived him, stepped nimbly to one side and vanished into a doorway, where he crouched, hardly daring to breathe. The officers had said he was a criminal! Then they must have seen through his disguise. Still——
“I’m no criminal!” the man Shorty had spoken to, under orders, was protesting, “I’m a bank cashier; that’s who I am! And I swear I didn’t know that fellow. He spoke to me—yes—but I didn’t——”
“He called yuh ‘pard’!” cried the tall detective, “an’ yuh answered him! He’s a desperate crook we’ve been trailin’—an’ we want to know ef yuh’re another one?”
In vain the man with the grip protested his innocence; in vain he tugged and struggled.
“We’ll take yuh up to our headquarters an’ find out who yuh are,” said the tall detective. Shorty was straining his ears to get the gist of the conversation. “Here, put out yuhr hands—straight out—an’ drap that bag!”
The astonished stranger dropped the bag. The short detective grabbed it up, while the tall officer snapped a pair of handcuffs on the man’s wrists.
“C’mon with us, bo!”
Shorty, peering around the doorway, saw the two detectives marching their captive diagonally across the street. He watched them gain the other side and disappear up a rooming house stairway. It was dusk, and the struggle on the street had not been noticed. Shorty, throwing his shoulders back and breathing free for the first time in an hour, stepped out from his hiding place.
“Hey, yuh!” cried a voice.
Shorty turned, to behold the town marshal walking toward him. As Shorty halted the marshal stopped, too.
“I just wanted to tell yuh,” said the marshal, in a quivering voice, “that yuh better leave town purty sudden. We ain’t used to nuts here in Alamosa.”
Shorty grunted savagely, then dashed across the street, and vanished up the rooming house stairway, leaving the marshal gasping in astonishment. At the head of the stairs Shorty hesitated, then pussyfooted it down the corridor, listening. There was a light through one transom and voices from within that room. Shorty halted when he recognized the whine of the man the two detectives had nabbed a few minutes before on the street.
“I tell yuh I’m Grant Loren, cashier o’ the Front Range bank at Monte Vista!” the man was crying. “That’s who I am, and I swear it to yuh! I don’t see why yuh handcuff me. I’m no robber, or gunman.”
Shorty heard the taller of the detectives speak.
“But yuh acknowledged the greeting of that crook who spoke to yuh on the street,” he said, suavely, “an’ do yuh think we don’t know who he was? That was Bill Means, the rustler! Yes, that’s who—an’ birds of a feather flock together. What yuh got in that grip, mister?”
“About eight thousand in cash,” he sputtered, “an’ I ain’t no rustler! I didn’t know that feller with the whiskers at all.”
Shorty, his ear glued to the door, had not heard the stealthy footfalls behind him. He jumped a foot when a heavy hand was laid on his shoulder and he swung around to stare the town marshal straight in the face. The marshal retreated.
“I tol’ yuh,” he said, shaking a finger at Shorty, “that yuh better leave town.”
“Say!” whispered Shorty, beckoning to him. “How many detectives yuh got in this town, marshal?”
The marshal’s face went a shade whiter.
“Yuhr sure plumb loco, mister!” he gasped out. “How many detectives? Why, we ain’t got any!”
Shorty grinned broadly.
“Thought so!” he said, and the next minute he reached under his long duster and whipped out a six-gun. The marshal faded down the corridor, but Shorty paid him no heed. Instead he put his ear to the keyhole once more, and listened intently.
“How yuh open this grip, mister?” he heard the shorter of the two detectives ask. That was all Shorty waited for. He seized the door knob and threw his weight against the door, crashing into the room like a young cyclone.
“Hands up, yuh hombres!” he cried.
The two detectives instantly reached for the ceiling. They had been taken by surprise. Shorty, passing one swift hand over them, in turn, tossed two revolvers to the floor. Then he turned and gave the man with the handcuffs a look.
“Hello, Loren!” said Shorty. The bank cashier cringed in his chair and put up his manacled hands to ward Shorty off.
“I—I—dunno—yuh. I swear it!” cried the cashier.
“Blamed right yuh don’t!” retorted Shorty and then he turned on his captives with a sneer.
“Back up agin the wall and keep yuhr hands reachin’, yuh fake detectives!” he cried. “I reckon I got yuhr number! Detectives—bah! I noticed when yuh showed me yuhr badge, yuh tall buzzard, that it didn’t say ‘detective.’ It said ‘water inspector.’ I only got a glimpse, but my eyes are good.”
“Yuh—yuh—rustler!” stuttered the tall man.
“Rustler, bah!” said Shorty, “I’m on to yuh fellers, but yuh fellers ain’t on to me. I been studyin’ up on detective work, I have, an’ I know yuhr game. Yuh got me to speak to this cashier here, so yuh’d have an excuse to grab him an’ hustle him off the street to a room, whar yuh meant to rob him. Ain’t that it? Waal, it sure is! It ain’t such a bad trick, at that, but th’ bird yuh picked fer a dupe was the wrong guy, gents. It was me!”
The detectives sputtered.
“Yuh said the marshal o’ this town was crooked,” went on Shorty, “and—”
“They did, eh?”
The marshal, who had crept back down the corridor, bounced into the room, but Shorty ignored him.
“Waal,” said the tall stranger, “I guess the jig is up. Yuh got us; mebbe we did mind to rob this cashier, but we hain’t done it yit, so yuh ain’t got anything on us. We recognized him as the Monte Vista cashier when he came in town this mawnin’ an’ reckoned he had dough in that bag.”
“Yep,” said Shorty, “that’s Grant Loren!”
The bank cashier was still too puzzled to make things all out. He glared at Shorty.
“I don’t know yuh!” he cried.
Shorty chuckled.
“Of course yuh don’t,” he agreed readily.
Then he snatched at his false whiskers and his wig; both came away in one hand. “But now yuh oughter. I’m Shorty McKay, deputy sheriff o’ Monte Vista, Mister Loren!”
“Awk!” gurgled the cashier, sinking back in the chair.
“An’ while I’m arrestin’ yuh two fake detectives fer attempted robbery,” said Shorty, turning to the two men along the wall, “I want to thank yuh both fer putting the handcuffs on Loren here. He was the man I was after! He blew out of Monte Vista early today, with about eight thousand dollars in bank funds in his bag. The bank officials hushed it up, an’ I came after him, in disguise.”
“Whew!” said the town marshal in admiration.
“And that grip,” said Shorty, laughing again as he pointed to the black bag that the shorter of the two bandits had been trying to open as Shorty had busted into the room, “is really my grip. I switched grips in the hotel after I saw Loren in there. His grip had initials on it. I had it with me when yuh birds stopped me. When I excused myself to get a hankerchief out of it I was just peekin’ inter it to see if the money was thar as I expected. It was. That confirmed the fact that Loren here was runnin’ away with it. That grip, I believe, one o’ yuh boys kindly checked fer me at the depot; isn’t that right?”
The two pseudo detectives, now shown up as plain robbers, were too completely dumfounded to make any coherent reply; they just stood and stared.
“An’ that train conductor,” gasped out the old town marshal, as Shorty slipped the bracelets on the two bandits, “said yuh was plain loco—an’ here yuh git three birds with one stone. Ef anybody is loco, it’s the conductor himself!”