Anderson Crow, Detective Part 5

"The marshal of Tinkletown," added Anderson, vastly relieved by her singularly intelligent answer.

"Advance and give the countersign!"

"All right. What is it?" inquired Mrs. Crow.

A couple of non-commissioned officers joined the sentry at this moment.

They were but half dressed.

"What the devil's the meaning of all this?" exclaimed one of them, planting himself beside the car and flashing a light in Mrs. Crow's face. "Don't you hayseeds know any better than to bust into a military camp--"

His companion interrupted him. "Keep your shirt on, Bill. Didn't I hear the man say he was the marshal of Tinkletown?"

"No, sir, you didn't! I said _we_ are the marshal of Tinkletown. I--"

"All right, all right. Do you happen to be chasin' a gang of joy-riders?"

"We do--we are!" cried Mrs. Crow.

"They zipped through this camp like a rifle-shot about ten minutes ago.

They've raised a lovely row. Officer of the day bawlin' everybody out, and--Here, hold on!"

"We've just got to catch them men," pleaded Mrs. Crow.

"One of 'em's got a sick wife," added Anderson, "an' we've got to tell him he's on the wrong road."

"Well, you just sit right where you are," spoke the top sergeant.

"They'll be back this way in a few minutes. This road ends about a mile above here, and they'll have to come back. The sentries say they went through here so fast they couldn't see anything but wind."

"Are you going to stop them?" cried Mrs. Crow eagerly.

"We sure are," said the other non-com. "See that bunch of men forming over there? Well, they've got real guns and real bullets, and they're mad, Mrs. Marshal. You can't blame 'em."

Off at one side of the road a little distance away a company of soldiers was lining up. The sharp command of an officer rang out.

"Thank goodness!" cried Mrs. Crow.

"Look here, Eva," said Anderson nervously. "I guess you'd better pull off to one side of the road, just in case them soldiers don't stop 'em.

We're right smack in their way, an' gosh only knows where we'd land if they smashed into us. It'd take a week to find us, we'd be so scattered about."

"Don't be uneasy," said the top sergeant. "They'll stop, all right, all right."

"Let me whisper something to you, Mr. Officer," said Mrs. Crow. "It's very important."

He obligingly held up an ear, and she leaned down and spoke rapidly, earnestly into it.

"You don't say so!" he cried out. "Excuse _me_!" And off he dashed, calling out to his companion to follow.

A minute later the most extraordinary activity affected the group of soldiers over the way. Commands were now issued in lowered tones, and men marched rapidly away, dividing into squads.

"What did you say to that feller?" demanded Anderson.

"I told him who those men are, Anderson Crow."

"You couldn't. They're perfect strangers. If they wasn't, how'd they happen to miss the road?"

"They are the very men I'm looking for," said she. "They're the robbers,--and the men who set fire to Smock's warehouse, I'll bet you--and everything else!"

"Jumpin' Jehoshaphat!"

An officer rushed up.

"Turn that flivver around in the middle of the road and jump out quick.

That will stop them. Let 'em smash it up if necessary. It isn't worth more than ten dollars."

While a half-dozen men were dragging the car into position as a barricade, Mrs. Crow exclaimed to her husband:

"That old skinflint! He said it was cheap at fifty dollars. Thank goodness, I--"

But Anderson was hustling her out of the car. In the distance the headlights of the bandits' car burst into view as it swung around a bend in the road.

Soldiers everywhere! They seemed to have sprung out of the ground. On came the big car, thundering into the trap. Bugle-calls sounded; a couple of guns blazed into the air as the car flew past the outposts, lights flared suddenly in the path of bewildered occupants, and loud imperative commands rang out on the air.

Into the gantlet of guns the big car rushed. The man at the wheel bent low and took the reckless chance of getting through.

Then, a hundred feet ahead, his lights fell upon the dauntless abandoned flivver. He jerked frantically at the brakes.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Then, a hundred feet ahead, his lights fell upon the dauntless, abandoned flivver_]

"Halt!" shouted Anderson Crow from the top of the roadside bank.

"Surrender in the name of the Law!"

He spoke just in time.

Crash! They halted!

Deacon Rank's little car died a glorious, spectacular death. (Harry Squires, in his account, placed it all alone in the list of "unidentified dead.")

Three minutes after the collision, brawny soldiers were bending over the stretched-out figures of five unconscious men.

Mr. and Mrs. Crow stood on the edge of the group, awe-struck and silent.

"They're coming around, all right," said some one at Anderson's elbow.

"He was slowing down when they struck. But there's no hope for the poor old flivver."

Anderson found his voice--a quavering, uncertain voice--and exclaimed:

"Stand aside, men! I am the marshal of Tinkletown, an' them scoundrels are my prisoners."