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Show i!eculiar Experience of a Literary ;an Prom the Sleepy Shades of St. Louis. , AD COMMITTED NO CEIME, )etective Followed Him All Around ig His Peregrinations He Found It Out Later On. re you ever 'shadowed? " inquired inent literary man of a friend at ion league the other night. I never was 'shadowed,' as you I've never done anything to get ed for, But what's the story! i there is one?" " nothing much. I just saw in the here the detectives were shadow-iiri, shadow-iiri, and it reminded me of an ad-i, ad-i, or rather an incident, of several igo, when I was shadowed for a of weeks by the Pinkertons. i remember the Cummings ex-obbery ex-obbery of 1880, don't you? It a great deal of excitement at the u St. Louis particularly. This whose name, by the way, wasn't ngs at all, if you recollect, got express car with a messenger Fotheriugham on a forged order e superintendent. After the train 11 under way he put a pistol at senger's head, bound and gagged fled the safe of 75,000 in cash ot of other stuff, and made his Fotheringham was accused of robbed himself, was arrested and mt meanwhile tho detectives had j ; at work, and, stimulated by a reward, were moving heaven th to get tangible proof of the tor's guilt or the identity of the od Jim Cummings. SUCCESSIVE "SCOOPS." 1, at that time I was a sub-editor if the St. Louis morning papers, i anxiously trying to get esclu-ws esclu-ws bearing on the sensation of The detectives were like clams, juldn't give up a word of what 1 done, were doing or hoped to were posing on the principle of II known adage about keeping (1 making people believe one omething. One morning, how-few how-few days after the robbery, we a letter which gave ns a great It was from 'Jim Cummings' He said he had seen in our i account of the arrest of Fother-and Fother-and merely , wrote to tell them y weren't giving the messenger i deal. , That he was innocent Idn't have helped being robbed, irantee of his identity the writer a number of torn express money s, with the request that we them and his letter to the ex-iple. ex-iple. , I had charge of the affair and ;he writer requested. Say, the people threw, up both hands, slopes were identified as having ong those stolen from the car. :t day I got another letter in- ' Josing a lot of jewelry, receipts, etc., "inch the writer said he had no use for, ; isd some information regarding the lo-ation lo-ation of a cache where he had hidden "me other stuff useless to him. Both roved welcome and everything turned at as represented. Wo were 'scooping' lie country, the detectives were wild, ad all was merry as a wedding hell. Sis correspondence kept np for a fort-light, fort-light, the robher writing always to our aper. Once he sent a communication a reply to an incendiary letter from 'me crank roasting 'Jim Cummings.' Iguin he inclosed a clipping from an-liher an-liher paper in which it was stated that iman from Texas had been engaged as a express messenger, but couldn't give iund. ' ' i " 'Tell them to give him the job.' note onr audacious correspondent; 'I'll Phis bond. Seventy-five thousand in :iih ought to bo good securitj-?' A UNIQUE VACATION TEIP. "Well, the detectives by this time We hot in the region of the collar. hadn't turned np a clew, and we wouldn't give up a scrap of writing or snything else; getting even on them. Things were at this stage when my wnual vacation came around. I had ar-smged ar-smged for a trip to Chicago, thence to Milwaukee, up around the great lakes "id back. It was to take two weeks, and wife accompanied me. "These detectives got on to my in-'-nded excursion and immediately the right idea seized their minds that I was Ping to meet Jim Cummings some-'here some-'here to turn up some more romance of robbery. My wife and I started and Pt as far as Chicago without incident. Ve were leaving there on the boat and i was leaning over the rail as we went "it into the harbor, when a gentleman "Pproached and entered into a casual conversation with me. Ho introduced timself s a Texan, theu in tho cotton "rokerage business in New Orleans, bent 5pon a pleasure trip. He was pleasant, right and companionable. We talked, 'whanged cards and became friends. said he believed he would take my r"ute for his trip all through. We were pleased with each other's companv and ' gladly seconded his proposition. Well, 'f. during that whole trip that man and Myself were rarely far apart, now that I unk of it. We stopped nearly always t! the same hotel, and smoked our pipes the decks of the steamers every night. ."He left us at Cbicngo on the return and I went back to St. Louis. I ver saw him again. But abont a year I was in Pinkertons office on some ''ashless when one of the men, looking Ije sharply, said: 'Isn't your name I said it was. 'Prom St. Louis? '"Formerly; left there three years "'WeD, he replied, smiling, 'here's nething that might interest you. It ,'rrJVed a great disappointment to tis. owever,' and he drew out a package of Mumente. They were reports of a de-tive de-tive to his chief, and they conveyed J1! 'afinitesimally perfect account of my ,riP around the lakes four years before. 'And it was mv friend, the cotton ftoser from New Orleans, whom I had Je' on the steamship. He did the job ."well that I was in the most sublime orance of being an object of pohca rveillance at alL They canght 'Ctun-J1In' 'Ctun-J1In' without my assistance. -My shad-S' shad-S' was all in Tain "Chicago ilail. - i |