Together Billy and Bridge trussed up the two tramps. An
elephant couldn't have forced the bonds they placed upon
them. Then they carried them down cellar and when they had
come up again Mrs. Shorter barred the cellar door.
"I reckon they won't get out of there very fast," she said.
"And now you two boys run along. Got any money?" and
without waiting for a reply she counted twenty-five dollars
from the roll she had tucked in the front of her waist and
handed them to Billy.
"Nothin' doin'," said he; "but t'anks just the same."
"You got to take it," she insisted. "Let me make believe I'm
givin' it to my boy, Eddie--please," and the tears that came
to her eyes proved far more effective than her generous words.
"Aw, all right," said Billy. "I'll take it an' pass it along to
Eddie if I ever meet him, eh?"
"Now please hurry," she urged. "I don't want you to be
caught--even if you are a murderer. I wish you weren't
though."
"I'm not," said Billy; "but de law says I am an' what de
law says, goes."
He turned toward the doorway with Bridge, calling a goodbye
to the woman, but as he stepped out upon the veranda the
dust of a fast-moving automobile appeared about a bend in
the road a half-mile from the house.
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