A Bo and a Bulldog by Emmet F Read online

  Railroad Man’s Magazine, October, 1910

  A Bo and a Bulldog

  by Emmet F. Harte

  HE fact that I sat dozing in the shadow

  swindled me out of two dollars due for

  of a ramshackle corn-crib at York, arduous labor as a section-hand under the T Nebraska, does not signify that I was rules and regulations, down at Red Cloud.

  ditched, because I wasn't. I was doing

  In redress thereof I don’t pay over no

  window-glass signs at the time in that section money of mine to that company for railroad of the State, and had cleaned up a very genteel fare. I bide my time until the effacing shadows little stake at that particular county seat.

  of nightfall envelop the surroundings, and then Under such circumstances you’d think

  effect a hiatus per the blind, the trucks, or the I would have bought a ticket for Grand Island, breeze-fanned Pullman-roof, and save my

  whither I was bound, and rode in on the red money.

  plush along with the law-abiding and

  Thus, true to conviction and

  otherwise uninteresting traveling public—but unharassed by either hunger, conscience, or not me. A minion of the B. and M. once

  weather, I sat nodding until four hours should

  Railroad Man’s Magazine 2

  elapse and the west-bound train should potter families sky-blue with envy. Look at him, along as scheduled. There always intrudes a don’t he show up select?”

  note of discord, however, into every serene

  “He’s stumbled into grievous bad

  and poetic languor of mine.

  company,” I commented.

  A local rattled in a while before

  “‘True ’tis, ’tis pity; pity ’tis, ’tis

  sundown, a local pulled by an antiquated din-true,’” quoted Fitz, unruffled, “but it might be maker rigged with a blower, and they worse. In fact, it has been worse, as I was coughed, buzzed, and sputtered around there, goin’ to tell.

  switching up and down past my shed for half

  “You ought to seen the bunch that had

  an hour, making much disturbance of my him in tow when I got him. Box-car thieves, peace. Finding, finally, that I couldn’t sleep, I depot-sneaks, and suit-case-lifters, that was sat up, looked about me and there, not ten feet the kind of company he was in then; and a away, I saw Fitz Souders in the company of a kick in the slats when he didn’t wag his tail to white bulldog, the two of them engaged in the suit; eh, Bench?”

  eating of a pie.

  The dog flicked his ears and turned an

  I’ve known Fitzhugh Souders for years

  adoring eye in Fitz’s direction.

  and years, but the bulldog was an entire

  “It was down in St. Jo,” continued the

  stranger. Fitz is a bo of the unabashed stripe.

  narrator, “Jesse James’s town; a tolerable—

  A few of us pretend to have some means of like village, with aspirations, and boastful of support; he don’t.

  being the healthiest speck on the map, but He’s hobo, true to name and smudged with some of the worst two-for-a-warranted, flotsam pure and simple, and not nickel thieves from Sioux City to St. Louis.

  ashamed to approach the grandest dame that

  “I hung around there almost a week.

  ever made swishing sounds along a cement

  The coppers are an easy-going lot of peace-sidewalk, in the garish light of high noon, to promoters, having a grudge at only two kinds ask genially for a dime or a quarter. I threw in of people, namely, gun-tooters and lid-lifters.

  my clutch and honked over to renew

  “Once in a great while they catch a

  affiliations.

  stick-up artist or a porch-climber; just to show

  “Well, well!” he said, in recognition.

  their versatility; or a cycle-sleuth chases an

  “Wich way, bo? Who’d have thunk it? Have a automobile up a telephone-pole or into the piece of pie? It’s pumpkin.”

  river for exceeding six miles an hour; but, on

  “Thanks!” I said. “I’m headed for the whole, St. Jo isn’t boisterous.

  Grand Island. Where’d you get hold of the

  “Its river-front and frame-shanty

  pup?”

  districts are, as I said before, pretty

  “That,” he remarked, “is another story.

  considerably frequented by a class of light-Sit down and make yourself at home. Happen fingered gentry, however, who steal

  to have any makings? Ah!—” a pause; silence everything they can from the railroads, from broken by the snuffling of a nose, the hurried the coal that scatters off in the yards, to the exhaust of the freight-engine kicking a car off wheels off of the passenger-coaches. There some distance away, the crash of draw-heads was a regular gang operating in and around when it hit a fellow victim, then Fitz struck a the place.

  match, lit up, and resumed:

  “They would secrete themselves into

  “He’s an English bull; thoroughbred,

  box cars of merchandise in the yards. Then pedigree from A to Izzard, with a line of when the train pulled out through the edge of ancestors to make our great American first town, they’d slide the door open and heave out

  A Bo and a Bulldog

  3

  caddies of tobacco, cases of canned goods, Terminal tracks along the bank.

  cigars, tomato-catsup, shoes, bananas, kegs of

  “I kept him in sight until he finally

  bad booze, and bales of cotton piece, to be went into a house somewhere down southeast picked up by other members of the association of the bridge. Then I sized up the same as to who were waiting for that purpose, and hauled locality and general aspects, so I’d be able to to town in a wagon.

  find it again if necessary.

  “I went back the way I had come,

  concluding to stay over another night. The morning papers would probably have an ad in the Lost and Founds: ‘Ten dollars reward for the return of a white bull pup and no questions asked,’ which would look good to me.

  “I had an inkling in my own mind as to

  what I’d do if such proved to be the case.

  While I was going along cogitating with

  myself about the matter. I fell in with another bo. He was a stranger to me, though he was evidently an old-timer in the profession, for he was seedy, sloppy, and shy several shaves.

  “‘ S’y, friend,’ he said, ‘c’d yeh stake

  meh to a match?’ I could, would, and did. In return for the favor he asked about freight-

  “Easy, wasn’t it? Huh! It was like trains, outgoing, north, east, south, and west.

  gathering manna on a bumper-crop year of

  He wasn’t seemingly particular about w’ich that commodity! It was a cinch!

  way he went.

  “All this I found out later. I stumbled

  “You’ve got me faded,” I told him. “I

  on the thing by accident—as good a way as only ride passengers. No freights for mine. I any, I guess.

  couldn’t tell you within six hours of the

  “I was loafing on a hickory settee leaving time of any one of them, because I opposite the baggage-room of the Union don’t know.”

  station, one dusk, arguing with myself

  “That seemed to interest him

  whether to go to Omaha or K. C, when I saw a considerably. He studied it over. Then we man frisk this pup here from the baggage-talked on a while about this, that, and the room and make his getaway without a soul

  other, and the first thing I knew the man was seeing him but
me, I do believe, The dog was pumping me.

  tethered to the handle of a trunk by the door,

  “Quite a sweater he was, too; doing it

  and the party with the sticky fingers just sidled in a roundabout way, mixed in with other

  along, clipped the cord and slipped across the conversation of no moment, and a few stories, street between a trunk-van and a streetcar, strictly new, clean, and well told. As soon as I leading the dog, ducked into a cross street, and tumbled to the catechism game I played dead did the vanishing skiddoo.

  and told him the history of somebody else’s

  “I whipped up and took his trail. It

  life, acknowledging the same modestly as

  wasn’t hard to follow the guy; a blind man mine. We went over and sat on the river-bank could have done it. He went toward the river a and made friends each with each, quite

  ways, then he turned and took down the chummy and good-humored, for two hours or

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  4

  more.

  any; at the same time keeping out of the sight

  “The upshot and outcome of my nice

  of railroad employees.

  little story of hard luck, which he snaked out

  “Everything looked all correct and

  little by little, was that he told me his name regular. We examined every car; nothing

  and address, and also revealed his line of doing.

  business. He was a ‘Q.’ detective. Andy Byers

  “Byers told me where I could find him

  was his handle, and he needed some if anything turned up, and rambled for the assistance, he said, to get a line on a bunch of Hannibal yards to inspect a train going out box-car robbers who were doing a land-office over there. I ensconced myself in an empty on business in that community.

  a parallel track then, and did some heavy

  “Night after night cars were broken

  sleuthing.

  into, either at the freight-houses or in the

  “Fitz Souders, secret service! That was

  yards, and stuff of all kinds carried off. It was me. And, Aunt Annie! Didn’t I have the good getting fierce—the company was getting about luck that night?

  all they wanted of it.

  “Why, bo, it was all cut and hung on

  “I suggested that maybe employees of

  the line, for me! It was too-nice for anything.

  the road themselves were doing the frisking ; but he rather thought not, as he said he had been watching the daily life and habits of every man and his family to the third and fourth generation, who ever even applied for a job with their company. No, he thought it was a gang of home-talent pilferers who did but little else and had it down to a fine system.

  “What he wanted me to do was this: if

  I would beat my way back and forth, night after night, between St. Jo and Rushville on the south, and Amazonia on the north, keeping both eyes peeled for the thieves, it would give him more time to watch the yards.

  “It was strictly a commission contract,

  he said; no catch-a the t’ief, no make-a the mon’, but if I happened to get next to a clue that would lead to the identity of the rascals he’d undertake to say that the company would do the right thing by me.

  “I didn’t much like the idea of riding

  freights but there was nothing else for it, so I

  “When the train started I slipped out of

  hired to him for a week and got my the empty and slid in under a car, and I’ll assignment—a train then making up in the

  make you a jurat that we didn’t go a distance lower yards for the Southwest. It was a clear, of twenty car lengths until a man hopped up warm night—only three weeks ago, you out of the dark onto the very car I was stowed know—we drilled over and took a prospect

  away under, and began to juggle with the

  along the train for broken seals or suspicious door. By moving along the rods a few feet I characters loitering around, if we could find could have reached out and grubbed him.

  A Bo and a Bulldog

  5

  “He clung on while they were creeping

  the last box, for there were three of them when out of the sidings, and then he drew up his they finally drove off. I hope he had better legs and disappeared. I guessed he had got the luck getting off than I did. If he didn’t lie lost door open and crawled inside. Offal business, some hide, I’ll bet.

  wasn’t it?

  “I loped out after them when they

  “All I had to do was watch out for the

  started, keeping far enough behind to be out of first package that bumped the ballast; if he sight in the darkness and close enough to not threw anything out, get off and camp by it till lose them. They didn’t go up through South somebody came after it, then see where it Town; they went round back of the packing-went. If he didn’t throw anything out, then I houses along a by-road through the river-would simply go on and on to see what he did bottoms, striking the end of South Fourth do. It was an easy voyage either way for

  Street. We didn’t meet very many people, and Hawkshaw Souders.

  it was dark enough so that what few we did

  “Along down the bottom, a little ways

  meet didn’t likely see me, and I never lost that below the yard-limit post, my pirate began to grocery wagon not for one minute.

  get busy. He heaved out a box of canned

  “Try dog-trotting six miles over a

  tomatoes or lemon extract or something, and country road once. Phew! Hawkshaw, was the minute I heard it bump the gravel I pretty much all in when they landed up at last gathered myself together to follow it.

  in an alley quite a ways up in the village, but it

  “Ever get out from under a box car

  was great sleuthing for an amateur. Fine!

  going a pretty good hickory? It’s hard on the

  “And say! Where do you think they

  features. I guess that train wasn’t running over stopped? It was the same place the guy had twelve or fifteen miles an hour, as they had a sloped to with the white dog.

  fair string of loads and only one engine, but I

  “I was just naturally too tired to wiggle plowed up the road-bed with my nose just the my little finger when I got that far, and the same.

  thought of drilling away beyond Sixteenth

  “I tried to light clear of the ballast and Street to see Byers, and report, was beyond did, all spraddled out in the raspiest lot of me. I couldn’t do it; at least, not then, and I weeds I ever mowed. Didn’t, break anything, didn’t have the price of a car ride.

  though, by good fortune, so I crawled a little

  “The chances were that he wouldn’t be

  farther into the tall timbers and laid low.

  there, anyhow. So I dragged myself over in

  “The pick-up party must have been

  the lee of a foundry or something close by, ready and waiting, for it wasn’t more than five made me a bed on some scrap-iron and went minutes before two fellows came sneaking

  to sleep.

  along the side of the track looking for spoils.

  “Did I sleep? Huh! It was sun-up when

  Hist-sh-sh! Sherlock, that was me! “D’rectly I woke up. I had quite a nap, and I was so stiff they came back carrying a box between ’em, and sore that I squeaked and whined in the and I slipped along behind on their trail.

  joints like a load of wood in Arkansas.

  “There was a wagon road a short

  “Aunt Annie! Railroad detecting is

  distance back, and there they had a horse wearing on the human frame. I was flat broke hitched to a delivery wagon, waiting. I and hungry as wolves and she-bears, but I burrowed under a near-by culvert and hid crippled over to Byers’s boarding-house and while they loaded up the rest of the stuff.

  they said he was there, but had gone to bed.

  “The fellow wh
o had thrown the loot

  “I said I had important news from the

  out of the car evidently got off himself with front and demanded entrance. I suppose they

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  thought I was a Black-Hand envoy from the track.

  looks of me, but they finally permitted me to

  “We ransacked the house from cellar

  go up to his room. Byers, himself, didn’t know to shingles, and the only thing we found was me at first, as I had disguised myself in the the white bulldog tied in the coal-shed. He face considerably when I fell off the train, but was black and blue from kicks and cuffs, and he got a shove on himself when he heard me the old woman said he had come there several tell my little story.

  days before as a stray.

  “I related the whole thing, including

  “Her son wanted to keep him for a

  the stealing of the dog. w’ich he hadn’t heard watch-dog, she said, as they’d been losing about before, and it made a hit with him

  their coal out of the shed. The whole

  throughout.

  neighborhood gathered around, as is usual,

  “‘That’s the checker!’ he said, rolling

  and testified to the old woman’s tale and said out and getting into his clothes. ‘We’ll go slighting things about the mullet-headed

  right over and pinch the whole works. You’re minions of the law in general for descending there in a thousand different places. Bully!’

  on a poor widow woman in any such fashion.