Bear and forbear

Tom Walton and I went entirely around the town of Centreport, visiting every part where there were detached buildings which presented to the incendiary favorable opportunities for plying his infamous trade. The main street, on which were located the principal churches, the bank, the post office, the library, and other public buildings, was so densely populated that the miscreants could not work to advantage. So far as we could discover, not a soul was stirring in the place. We saw nothing of the two men, and when we returned to the steamboat wharf, Tom was rather disposed to make fun of my fears.

“We haven’t seen a spark of fire yet, Wolf,” said he, as we seated ourselves on a box, much fatigued after the long tramp we had taken.

“That’s very true, and I am willing to give it up, and to believe there will be no fire in Centreport this time,” I replied.

“It was a wild goose chase.”

“Perhaps it was; but it may be that our coming on shore has saved some building from destruction,” I reasoned. “If we did not see the rogues, they may have seen us, and kept out of the way.”

“That may be, and then again it may not be. In any opinion, the two persons in that boat were a couple of honest men who had been courting, and sat up rather later than they meant to. Probably they knew the Belle, and did not want us to know who they were, for fear they would get blackguarded,” replied Tom, with an expansive gape, which I could hear, if I could not see.

“You are ingenious, Tom, and very likely your explanation of the mystery is a reasonable one,” I added, with a yawn as expansive as that of my companion.

“What time is it now?”

“I don’t know; about two, I should think.”

“Look at your watch,” added he, striking a match to afford me the needed light.

“Half past two,” I answered, consulting my watch.

“I’m as tired as a dog,” added Tom.

“So am I.”

“I suppose Waddie will not be back before five o’clock. He must see the young lady up to Mr. Pinkerton’s house.”

“I do not expect him before that time.”

“Well, Wolf, I move you we take a nap,” continued Tom, stretching himself. “Here’s the Raven, and we can bunk on board of her.”

“Her cabin is locked.”

“The standing-room is not, and we can lie down, as we did in the Belle.”

I approved the suggestion. We had our overcoats with us, and both of us were tough and hardy. We wrapped ourselves in the coats, and he took one seat while I took the other. Neither of us needed rocking, and we dropped asleep as readily as though we had been in our own beds on shore. By the side of the Raven, which was Waddie Wimpleton’s boat, lay the tender of the Grace, in which the strange men had crossed the lake. If they intended to return to Middleport in her, they could not very well get off without waking us.

I do not know what it was that aroused me in the morning, but the moment my senses came back to me, I was conscious that there was a grand commotion in Centreport. It was broad daylight, and I heard people shouting in the street above the wharf. I waked Tom, who had not been disturbed by the noise that had aroused me.

“Whats the row?” asked he, springing to his feet.

“I heard some one shouting up in the street. I should not wonder if there was a fire, after all.”

“A fire!”

“I don’t know. We will go up and see what the trouble is. There is some kind of a row in town, at any rate.”

We walked up the wharf; but we heard no more shouting. The Grace’s tender lay alongside the Raven, just as it had been when we went to sleep, and of course the strange men had not returned to Middleport in it. Just at the head of the wharf, and within twenty rods of the moorings of the Raven, was the house of Captain Synders, the constable of Centreport. As we approached it, we saw that officer rushing out in hot haste, buttoning his vest, as though he had not been allowed sufficient time to complete his toilet. I at once reached a correct solution of the noise which had disturbed my slumbers. Some one had been pounding at the door of the constable’s house, and shouting for him.

“What’s the matter?” I inquired, as we ran forward and overtook him.

“They say the Centreport Bank has been robbed,” replied Captain Synders, with all the excitement of manner which such a discovery was likely to create in a dignitary of his importance.

“Robbed!” exclaimed Tom.

“Robbed!” I repeated.

“That’s what they say, and I suppose it’s true, for Gibson, the porter of the bank building, came down to call me. He was almost crazy.”

Captain Synders quickened his pace, and we followed him to the bank. Gibson had already called Mr. Barnes, the cashier, who arrived about the same time that we did. He was terribly excited, as well he might be, and proceeded at once to examine the vault, which opened from the banking-room. The double doors were open, as the robbers had left them, and Mr. Barnes entered, intent upon ascertaining what loss the bank had sustained. My heart beat quick, also, for I had ten thousand dollars in bonds in the bank, which had been presented to me by Colonel Wimpleton. A similar princely gift from Major Toppleton had been deposited in the Wimpleton Bank for safe keeping. I was actually worth more than twenty thousand dollars, but I could not help feeling just then that riches take to themselves wings and fly away.

The cashier made a hasty examination of the drawers in the vault. All of them had evidently been opened, and valuable papers were scattered like chaff through the little apartment. The robbers evidently did not intend to encumber themselves with any useless documents.

“All the money is gone,” said Mr. Barnes, with a gasp.

“All your specie?” I asked.

“No; not all of it. I suppose it was too heavy for them,” he replied, examining the boxes which had contained the gold, at the bottom of the vault. “They have taken a great deal of it. All the bank notes are gone. They have made a good haul.”

“How much do you suppose they have taken?” inquired Captain Synders.

“I can’t tell; but not less than sixty thousand dollars.”

“Good gracious!” exclaimed the excited constable.

“I did not believe that this vault could be opened by any burglar,” added the cashier, as he turned to the riven doors.

A hole had been cut in the outer one, and screws applied by which the bolts on it had been doubled up and wrenched off. The robbers were evidently accomplished mechanicians, and had probably come a long distance, from some one of the great cities, to do the job. They had entered the building through a back window, by taking out the screws in the hinges of the shutters, and then cutting through the glass to unfasten the sash.

“The men we saw on the lake did this job,” said Tom.

“What men?” demanded Captain Synders.

We related our adventure in the Narrows in the night, and no one doubted that the two strange men were the robbers.

“What sort of men were they?” asked the cashier.

“We couldn’t see them very plainly. When we had lighted the bengola they were too far off to be identified,” I replied. “We supposed they came over to set fires, and we walked all around the town to find them, if we could.”

“What time was this?” inquired the constable.

“After twelve—about half past twelve,” I replied.

“Well, what’s to be done?” said the cashier, appealing nervously to the officer.

“I will look over the vault again, and see if I can find anything that will afford me a clew to the robbers.”

We went to the vault again, and Mr. Barnes picked up the papers on the floor. Among them were my bonds, none of which had been taken, for the simple reason that the villains could make no use of them. Nothing could be found to afford any clew to the robbers. There was no stray button, piece of cloth, nor any of the tools with which they had worked.

“I don’t think they had been gone long when I came,” said the porter. “I heard a noise on the back side of the building when I was opening the front door.”

“Why didn’t you say so before,” replied Captain Synders, savagely. “Have we been fooling away our time while the rascals were in town?”

“I didn’t think of it till just this minute,” pleaded Gibson. “I didn’t think anything of it at the time, and when I went in and found the bank had been robbed, I was so scared I couldn’t think of anything else.”

“What sort of a noise did you hear?” demanded the constable.

“I don’t know just what it was. It was a kind of a shuffling noise. Perhaps the robbers had thrown their traps out the window, and were flying round to pick them up.”

“You are smart!” sneered Captain Synders. “Why didn’t you go round to the rear of the building, and see what it was?”

“Because I didn’t think anything at all about it,” replied Gibson, who was terribly frightened by the charge that he had failed to do his whole duty. “I don’t go and look into everything whenever I hear a noise—do you?”

“I do, when a bank has been robbed.”

“Well, I didn’t know a bank had been robbed when I heard that noise.”

“Gibson did the best he knew how,” added the cashier. “If the robbers left only half an hour ago, they cannot have gone far by this time.”

“That’s so!” exclaimed Captain Synders, as he bolted out the door.

“Where are you going?” shouted the cashier.

“After a horse.” But he did not wait to answer any questions in regard to his intended movement, and we were left in the dark.

“Synders is a blockhead,” said Mr. Barnes. “He will make a great stir, and that is all he will do.”

“He will not be likely to catch the burglars,” I replied; for I had a poor opinion of the constable’s capacity to work up a case. “It’s a pity we haven’t a smarter man.”

We went out of the bank to the rear window, where the villains had entered the building. The ground was much beaten and tracked, and I was soon able to identify the footprints of the two men. I found the track by which they had come to the building, and that by which they had left it. The latter only interested me, and I traced it as far as I could. It led me through a narrow and circuitous alley, which conducted to a street back of the main one of the town. I satisfied myself that the villains had approached the bank in this direction.

“Tom, whoever robbed the bank, they were not strangers in Centreport,” said I to the skipper, after the cashier had gone to secure the valuable papers which were scattered about the vault.

“What makes you think so?” asked Tom.

“Strangers could not have found their way through these back alleys.”

“Who do you suppose they were?”

“I have no idea,” I replied, still studying the ground, at the junction of the alley with the back street, in order to ascertain in what direction the robbers had departed. “I can’t think of any one who is up to a deed of this kind.”

“Here’s the track!” cried Tom. “They went down towards the steam mill.”

One of the burglars wore a boot with irons on the outside of the heels, the print of which enabled us to follow them; but when we came to a street more travelled and harder than the other, we could no longer trace it. But we were satisfied that the rogues had gone down to the lake. There were no boats below the steamboat wharf, that we knew of, and we concluded that they must have returned as they came. We hastened towards the public landing.

“There they are!” shouted Tom, as we reached a point in the street which extended along the bank of the lake from Colonel Wimpleton’s mansion, from which we could see the end of the wharf.