Branded

in-Clot

e, I had an adventure which, while it had no immediate bearing upon my escape, is worthy of record becaus

dently scrutinizing each of the debarking passengers in turn. Some acute inner sense instantly warned me, telling me that this silent watche

curtly, twitching his coat l

ing alive in blood and brain; but the publicity of the place and the blank hopeles

wanted fo

r. Will you go quietly, or

role had already been put on the wires. In the natural order of things I should hardly be missed unt

the lie of sham bravado: "I don't know of any reason why

to the foot of Seventeenth Street, and so on up-town, the plain-clothes man keeping even step w

e plain truth, as the law required, and now I found the inventive machinery singularly rusty. But the wheels were made to turn in some fashion. By the time

es and descriptions of "wanted" criminals. With wits sharpened now to a razor-edge, I came quickly to the conclusion that I had been mistaken for some one

put me on the rack, begin

as not, strictly speaking, my right name. I had been christened "James Bertrand," after my father. My mother had always called me "Jimmie," but for others the "Bertrand" was soon shortened into "Bert" and from that a few hom

nd, and a pad and a pencil wer

it without any of the hesitation which might otherwise have b

from?" was th

a lie might be profitably planted-profitably an

t and

amiliar with that city, and now I gave the location of a boardin

were yo

about forty miles

health, I suppose? W

ll a halt somewhere, and this

no shadow of right to arrest me without a warrant. Neither have you any right to try to tan

quiet down!" advised the plain-clothes man

w you are trying to give me the third degree. You've got me here, and you may make the most of it-unti

the thumb-prints. Suddenly the inspector whirled upon me with his lips d

lled off with a forged check in C

effect of a shock and a surprise,

Chicago in my life," I replied; and since both statements were

ntly still suspicious and unsatisfied. As a compromise they did the thing which determined my second flight. They took me into a room at the rear of the buil

he list of possible refuges for me. With my photograph in the police blotter, discovery and recapture would be only a question of time, if I shoul

unch-counter meal, eaten in a cheap restaurant within a block or so of the City Hall, I made a round of the employment offices. In fr

as familiar, in a way, because the mine in which Abel Geddis had sunk his depositors' money was said to be in the Cripple Creek district. What chiefly attracted me in the bulletin-b

e of the marks of a successful pick-and-shovel man. All he wanted or cared for was his two dollars and something on two legs and in the shape of a man to put into his gang against the collected fee. I was told to show up at the Union Station at six o'clock