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The Wag-Lady
by
“That’s too bad,” said one of them. He crossed toward the desk behind which she sat, at which she softly closed the heavy safe door. It gave out a metallic click, however, which caused the fellow’s eyes to gleam.
“That safe ain’t locked, eh?” he inquired.
“Yes, it is,” she lied.
He smiled as if to put her at her ease, but it was an evil leer and set her heart to pounding violently. She was tempted to cry out and arouse her lodgers, but merely flung back the fellow’s glance defiantly.
The stranger ran his eye over the place and then said, “I guess we’ll set awhile.” Drawing a chair up beside the door, he motioned to his partner to do the same. They tilted back at their ease, and June fancied they were listening intently. For a half-hour, an hour, they sat there, following her every movement, now and then exchanging a word in a tone too low for her to hear.
She was well-nigh hysterical with the strain of waiting, when she saw both men lower the front legs of their chairs and rise together. The next instant the door swung violently yet noiselessly inward and a masked man with a gun in his hand leaped out of the night. Another man was at his heels, and they covered her simultaneously. Then a most amazing thing occurred.
June’s mysterious visitors pounced upon them from behind, there was a brief, breathless struggle, and the next instant all four swept out into the snow amid a tangle of arms and legs. Followed the sounds of a furious scuffle, of heavy blows, curses and groans, then a voice:
“Beat it now or we’ll croak the two of you! And peddle the word that no rough stuff goes here. Do you get that?” There was the impact of a boot planted against flesh, and the next instant June’s deliverers had re-entered and closed the door.
One of them was sucking a wound in the fleshy part of his hand where a falling revolver hammer had punched him, but he inquired in a thoroughly business-like tone, “Got a little hot water, June?”
June emerged weakly from behind her desk. “W-what does it all–mean?”
“Oh, it’s all right. They won’t trouble you no more.”
“They came to–rob me, and you knew it–“
“Sure! Harry Hope got full and told about leaving eight thousand dollars with you; so we beat ’em to it.”
“But why didn’t you say so? You frightened me.”
“We wasn’t sure they’d try it, and we didn’t like to work you up.”
“Please–who are you?”
“Us? Why, we’re Wag-boys! Llewellyn’s our pal. I’m Charley Fitzhugh; they call me the Dummy. And this is Thomasville.”
Thomasville nodded and mumbled greetings without removing his thumb from his mouth, whereupon June began to express her gratitude. But thanks threw the Wag-boys into confusion, it seemed, and they quickly bade her an embarrassed good night.
Now that they had removed the weight of obligation that had rested upon them, the Wags became more neighborly. Llewellyn and the Scrap Iron Kid called to explain that the Dummy and Thomasville had broken all rules of friendship by “hogging the spotlight” and to express their own regret at having been absent during the attempted hold-up.
June was eating her midnight lunch when they came, and after they had left Llewellyn said:
“She didn’t have any butter, Kid. Notice it?”
“Sure. Butter’s peluk. Rothstein cornered the supply, and he’s holding it for a raise.”
“Where does he keep it?”
“In that big tent back of his store, along with his other stuff.”
Now, the Wag-boys did nothing by halves. About dusk the following day the Rothstein watchman was accosted by a stranger who had just muched in from the creek. The two gossiped for a moment. Then, as the stranger made off, he slipped and fell, injuring himself so painfully that the watchman was forced to help him down to Kelly’s drug-store. Upon returning from this labor of charity the watchman discovered, to his amazement and horror, that during his absence two men had entered the tent by means of a six-foot slit in the rear wall. They had brought a sled with them, moreover, and had made off with about five hundred dollars’ worth of Rothstein’s heart’s blood, labeled “Cold Brook Creamery, Extra Fine.”