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The rest of Roswell’s narrative was lost in the hullabaloo of command and action. The fickle populace turned its back on the burning warehouse and swept down the lane in quest of new excitement. The tottering wall came down with a crash, but its fall was unwitnessed except by those infirm old ladies and gentlemen who had lagged so far behind in the first rush for safety that they were still in ignorance of the latest calamity. It was a pity, wrote Miss Sue Becker in her diary, that the gods crowded so much into a single night when there were “three hundred and sixty-four more perfectly good nights available.”

The story of the two boys proved not only to be true, but also woefully lacking in exaggeration. The jail-delivery and the looting of the First National Bank of Tinkletown turned out to be but two in a long and fairly complete list of disasters.

Investigation revealed an astonishing thoroughness and impartiality on the part of the bandits. The safe in Brubaker’s drugstore was missing, with something like nineteen dollars in cash; Lamson’s store had been entered, and the cash-register rifled; Fryback’s hardware-store, Higgins’ feed-store and Rush Applegate’s tailor-shop were visited, and, as Harry Squires said in the Banner, “contents noted.” Two brand-new “shoes” and a couple of inner tubes were missing from Gillespie’s Universal Garage, and Ed Higgins’ dog was slain in cold blood by the “remorseless ravagers.”

* * * * *

Nobody went to sleep that night. Everybody joined in the search for the robbers. Citizens hurried home after the first alarm and did their part by looking under every bed in their houses, after which the more venturesome visited garrets, cellars and woodsheds.

Anderson Crow, after organizing a large posse and commandeering several automobiles, suddenly remembered that he had left his silver watch and a wallet containing eleven dollars under his pillow. He drove home as rapidly as possible in John Blosser’s 1903 Pope-Toledo and was considerably aggravated to find his wife sound asleep. He awoke her with some rudeness.

“Wake up, Eva! Consarn it, don’t you know the town’s full of highwaymen? It’d be just like you to sleep here like a log and let ’em come in an’ nip my watch an’ purse right out o’ your own bed. I wouldn’t ‘a’ been a bit surprised to find ’em gone–an’ you chloryformed and gagged. I–“

“Burglars, did you say?” cried his wife, sitting up in bed and staring at him in alarm.

“Dozens of ’em,” he declared, pocketing his watch and wallet. “Get up and help me search the house. Where’s my revolver?”

“Oh, Lordy, Anderson! Your–your revolver? You’re not going to shoot it off, are you?”

“I certainly am–if the derned thing’s loaded. Where’s it at?”

She sank back with a sigh of relief. “Thank heavens, I just remembered that Milt Cupples borrowed it last winter to–“

“Borrowed my revolver?” roared Anderson. “Why–“

“To loan to a friend of his’n who was going down to New York on business.”

“An’ he never brought it back?”

“He never did.”

Anderson’s opinion of Milt Cupples was smothered in a violent chorus of automobile horns. Mrs. Crow promptly covered her head with the bed-clothes and let out a muffled shriek.

“It’s only the posse,” he shouted, pulling the covers from her face. “Don’t be scairt, Evy. Where’s your courage? Remember who you are. Rememb–“

“I’m only a poor, weak woman–“

“I know that,” he agreed, “but that ain’t all. You are marshal o’ Tinkletown, an’ if you’re goin’ to cover up your head every time a horn toots, you’ll–“

“Oh, go on away and leave me alone, Anderson,” she cried. “I don’t want to be marshal. I never did. I resign now–do you hear me? I resign this instant. I was a fool to let the women elect me–and the women were worse fools for voting for me. That’s what comes of letting women vote. We had a good, well-trained marshal–because that’s what you are, Anderson. And–“