Jack Wright and His Electric Stage Part 4

"What did you do that for?"

"To summon a.s.sistance," coolly replied Jesse.

"You won't get any here."

"Oh, yes, we will. You'll see."

"I am going---"

He never finished that sentence.

Miller had heard the danger signal, came up in the hall, saw how the situation stood, and stealing up quietly behind Timberlake, he dealt the plucky officer a stunning blow with the b.u.t.t of his pistol.

It knocked the sheriff down.

He was hardly prostrate before the whole gang was upon him, and while one took the pistols away from him, the rest bound and gagged him.

He thus was rendered perfectly helpless.

When he recovered from the effect of the blow, he found himself at the mercy of the gang, unable to move or speak, and tied up to the old-fas.h.i.+oned bed post.

"Fool," said Jesse, standing before him, and bending a burning glance upon him of mingled hate and rage. "Are you soft enough to imagine you can get away with all of us single handed?"

Timberlake did not reply of course.

But the look of intense fury he bestowed upon Jesse, amply evinced all that was pa.s.sing in his mind.

"We are going to leave you here," preceded the king of the bandits, "and we are going back to Clay County. I'd like to blow your head off before we go, but that would run my bead in the hangman's noose. If you are unlucky enough to stumble across my path again, though, I shall be less merciful. I'd wipe you out as I would a viper."

Gagged as he was, Timberlake remained silent.

"Come, boys, let us begone," said Jesse turning to his companions. "We barely have time to catch the train."

They filed out of the room, and Jesse locked the door, carried the key away, and they left the hotel.

Making speed, they quickly reached the railroad depot.

A train was just leaving.

They quickly boarded it.

Away they were whirled to Missouri.

And that was the last Wrightstown ever saw of them.

CHAPTER III.

THE ELECTRIC STAGE.

Toward evening a chambermaid in the Sea Spider House went up to the room which had been occupied by the James Boys and discovered Sheriff Timberlake bound and gagged.

She was very much frightened at first, and ran screaming from the room, for she thought the apartment was vacant and had gone up to put it in order.

The landlord heard her shrieks, learned what frightened her, and hastening up to the room liberated the sheriff.

"Another victim of these villains!" he exclaimed.

"Have they got the best of some one else?" asked Timberlake.

"Yes; the evening paper contains an account of a clever check swindle they played on the Wrightstown Bank, by duping Jack Wright, the most respected young citizen in this town."

"How long have they been gone?"

"They departed a few minutes after you went up here at noon."

"Do you know which way they went?"

"The paper says they boarded a westbound train."

"In that case they've given me the slip again."

"Why did they treat you this way?"

"I am the sheriff of Clay County, Missouri, and they were Jesse and Frank James, the notorious bandits, and three of their gang."

"Good heavens! and I harbored them here!"

"Of course you did not know who they were."

"Certainly not, if I had I would have handed them over to the police."

"Let me read the newspaper account."

The landlord handed him the paper.

He read the article, which gave an account of how Jack Wright had been cheated, and added, in conclusion, that after the inventor entered the bank he discovered the swindle.

The police were notified.

They traced the James Boys to the hotel.

But when they got there the birds had flown.

Hastening to the railroad depot, they discovered that the bandits had made their escape on the cars.

They telegraphed to the authorities ahead of the train at its first stopping place to arrest the bandits.

But the reply finally came back that the cars did not stop there, as the bandits had taken possession of the engine, and were seen forcing the engineer to keep the train going by menacing him with their pistols.