Show en of the mounted men bunted by captain G elliott nightingale copyright AND SO ONE THING LED TO ANOTHER UNTIL WHEN old tim mills jims blew his brains out with a rifle he also set et off a box of fireworks thit that jumped about hither and yon and hit bit quite a few people in fact the body of the suicide was barely cold in death before an unsuspecting citizen was tarred and leathered feathered and the latter event caused another explosion because it forced a sergeant to desert from the royal northwest mounted police at any rate lets leta get back to the beginning tim jillis was a lazy good for nothing sort and a booze fighter to boot all of which kept his bis pard working wile wife and his two fini fine children on the outermost edge of destitution and want neighbors did all they could of course tor for the sake of the youngsters and just when things were about as bad as they could be mrs jauis had a bright idea she would change the house a bit and take in a lodger someone who would pay for good food and a warm room with the income from the boarder she could make it all right the felt sure and soon a ch charlie arlie brown was part of the household now brown was a sober hard work ing chap and when he saw the general economic conditions in the jillie household he dug down into his pockets and provided plenty of food some necessary clothing and a race nice pile of fuel naturally the heart of mrs was about to burst from sheer gratitude and she put herself out to make brown feel right at home his slightest wish was law and the Jillis es began to emerge from destitution to a fair measure of comfort and well being all of Us this stran strange ge to say aroused the anger and displeasure disband of the no account hu husband s band and father who spent his days in local barrooms bar rooms bewailing the fact that brown the lodger was stealing his wife and gradually breaking up the jilius home instead of shooting the lodger as most people had expected stuck the rifle barrel in his own mouth pressed the trigger and scattered his brains all over the bedroom walls the coroner and the mounted police soon realized that it was a plain case of suicide and the case would have been closed right then had not a gang of half a dozen masked men barged into the jillis home and seized charlie brown the lodger they took him to a lonely spot and there thera they tarred t and feathered him from cap to boots they drove him back to the tiny settlement and threw him into the lobby 7 of the local hotel which was hardly more than an ordinary six or seven roomed house hours later brown found his way back to his room in the jillis home and about the only clue he had as to the identity of his kidnapers was that all the talking and all the orders had been spoken by a man with a distinctive western drawl such as was common along the montana boundary things quieted down and brown stayed on at the jillis place and then months later he was sl sitting on a hotel veranda in lethbridge alberti A berti 4 when his ears caught up a voice that he would never forget as long as he lived he knew he had found the leader of the kidnap gang and in half an hour the owner of the distinctive western drawl w was a a breaking down under stiff questioning on the part of men of the mounted later he admitted leading the gang and was held for trial and then while assembling au all the necessary data and information for the trial the inspector of the mounted police in the district made a most startling and distressing discovery five of the six gangsters were accounted for and the inspector while moving heaven and earth to tad find out the identity of the sixth found that the much wanted lawbreaker was one of his own sergeants a man with years of creditable service behind him and a man who had always been above reproach in every way at any rate perhaps a bit enraged by this discovery the inspector did all he be could to make a strong unshakable case against the sergeant but as the days passed it appeared that the inspector inspect oi was more hell bent on getting that sergeant se rge a nt than anyone else and just when conditions looked bad for the three striper he be turned up missing the tact fact Is the tiny settlement was loyal to the sergeant and while the inspector was fussing a and nd fuming over evidence and co court rt procedure the sergeants many friends dug into their pockets pocket made up a sizable purse purs e of money and staked the sergeant to a midnight getaway on one of the finest and fastest horses in the region moreover while the inspector ini was looking up the law on this and that thac a tair sized escort of mounted citizens were esi escorting orting the sergeant over the border into montana an and d i s how one thing led to another until well it was difficult to find and out just where this RU all started and when and where it finished at any rate it added a few gray hairs to the inspectors Inspector 1 calp no doubt about that |