"BABY BANDITS"
IT WAS twenty-four hours before Detective Sergeant Flannagan awoke to the fact that something had been put over on him, and that a Kansas farmer's wife had done the putting.
He managed to piece it out finally from the narratives of the two tramps, and when he had returned to the Shorter home and listened to the contradictory and whole-souled improvisations of Shorter pere and mere he was convinced.
Whereupon he immediately telegraphed Chicago headquarters and obtained the necessary authority to proceed upon the trail of the fugitive, Byrne.
And so it was that Sergeant Flannagan landed in El Paso a few days later, drawn thither by various pieces of intelligence he had gathered en route, though with much delay and consequent vexation.
Even after he had quitted the train he was none too sure that he was upon the right trail though he at once repaired to a telegraph office and wired his chief that he was hot on the trail of the fugitive.
As a matter of fact he was much hotter than he imagined, for Billy and Bridge were that very minute not two squares from him, debating as to the future and the best manner of meeting it before it arrived.
"I think," said Billy, "that I'll duck across the border.Iwon't never be safe in little old U.S., an' with things hoppin'
in Mexico the way they have been for the last few years Iorter be able to lose myself pretty well.
"Now you're all right, ol' top.You don't have to duck nothin' for you ain't did nothin'.I don't know what you're runnin' away from; but I know it ain't nothin' the police is worryin' about--I can tell that by the way you act--so Iguess we'll split here.You'd be a boob to cross if you don't have to, fer if Villa don't get you the Carranzistas will, unless the Zapatistas nab you first.
"Comin' or goin' some greasy-mugged highbinder's bound to croak you if you cross, from what little I've heard since we landed in El Paso.
"We'll feed up together tonight, fer the last time.Then I'll pull my freight." He was silent for a while, and then: "I hate to do it, bo, fer you're the whitest guy I ever struck," which was a great deal for Billy Byrne of Grand Avenue to say.
Bridge finished rolling a brown paper cigarette before he spoke.
"Your words are pure and unadulterated wisdom, my friend," he said."The chances are scarcely even that two gringo hoboes would last the week out afoot and broke in Viva Mexico; but it has been many years since I followed the dictates of wisdom.Therefore I am going with you."Billy grinned.He could not conceal his pleasure.
"You're past twenty-one," he said, "an' dry behind the ears.Let's go an' eat.There is still some of that twenty-five left."Together they entered a saloon which Bridge remembered as permitting a very large consumption of free lunch upon the purchase of a single schooner of beer.
There were round tables scattered about the floor in front of the bar, and after purchasing their beer they carried it to one of these that stood in a far corner of the room close to a rear door.
Here Bridge sat on guard over the foaming open sesame to food while Billy crossed to the free lunch counter and appropriated all that a zealous attendant would permit him to carry off.
When he returned to the table he took a chair with his back to the wall in conformity to a habit of long standing when, as now, it had stood him in good stead to be in a position to see the other fellow at least as soon as the other fellow saw him.The other fellow being more often than not a large gentleman with a bit of shiny metal pinned to his left suspender strap.
"That guy's a tight one," said Billy, jerking his hand in the direction of the guardian of the free lunch."I scoops up about a good, square meal for a canary bird, an' he makes me cough up half of it.Wants to know if I t'ink I can go into the restaurant business on a fi'-cent schooner of suds."Bridge laughed.
"Well, you didn't do so badly at that," he said."I know places where they'd indict you for grand larceny if you took much more than you have here.""Rotten beer," commented Billy.
"Always is rotten down here," replied Bridge."I sometimes think they put moth balls in it so it won't spoil."Billy looked up and smiled.Then he raised his tall glass before him.
"Here's to," he started; but he got no further.His eyes traveling past his companion fell upon the figure of a large man entering the low doorway.
At the same instant the gentleman's eyes fell upon Billy.
Recognition lit those of each simultaneously.The big man started across the room on a run, straight toward Billy Byrne.
The latter leaped to his feet.Bridge, guessing what had happened, rose too.
"Flannagan!" he exclaimed.
The detective was tugging at his revolver, which had stuck in his hip pocket.Byrne reached for his own weapon.Bridge laid a hand on his arm.
"Not that, Billy!" he cried."There's a door behind you.
Here," and he pulled Billy backward toward the doorway in the wall behind them.
Byrne still clung to his schooner of beer, which he had transferred to his left hand as he sought to draw his gun.
Flannagan was close to them.Bridge opened the door and strove to pull Billy through; but the latter hesitated just an instant, for he saw that it would be impossible to close and bar the door, provided it had a bar, before Flannagan would be against it with his great shoulders.
The policeman was still struggling to disentangle his revolver from the lining of his pocket.He was bellowing like a bull--yelling at Billy that he was under arrest.Men at the tables were on their feet.Those at the bar had turned around as Flannagan started to run across the floor.Now some of them were moving in the direction of the detective and his prey, but whether from curiosity or with sinister intentions it is difficult to say.
One thing, however, is certain--if all the love that was felt for policemen in general by the men in that room could have been combined in a single individual it still scarcely would have constituted a grand passion.
