bsolutely everything. See
here, Alf,--what in thunder are you doin' here? Why ain't you guardin'
them remains as I told you to do?"

"I _am_ guardin' 'em," said Alf. "I c'n guard 'em just as well from a
distance as I can close up, an' you know it. All I got to do is to walk
to the corner there an' I c'n see Hawkins's place as plain as anything.
I could see it from right here if it wasn't fer Lamson's store an' the
Grand View Hotel."

The marshal gave him a look of bitter scorn, and strode away. The crowd
straggled along behind. Anderson stopped at the _Banner_ office door
and, exposing the dirty envelope to the eager gaze of the crowd, advised
every one present to step in and take out a year's subscription to the
paper. Then he disappeared. The crowd surged forward, filling the outer
office with something like sardine compactness. The door to Mr.
Squires's private office, however, closed sharply behind Mr. Crow, and
for the next fifteen or twenty minutes the young lady bookkeeper was
busy taking subscriptions from the disappointed throng. She got
sixty-three new subscribers and definite promises from a large number of
citizens who were considerably in arrears.

"You'll see it all in your paper tomorrow morning," said Anderson,
coming out of the inner office at the end of half an hour's consultation
with the editor. "All I can say to you now is that I have captured one
of the most desperate criminals in the country. He has been wanted for
nearly three years for a diabolical crime. It makes my flesh creep to
think of him being loose among our women an' children all this time. Is
there any one here who ain't subscribed to the _Banner_?"

Tinkletown slept fitfully that night when it slept at all. The sole
citizen enjoying a peaceful night's rest was Jake Miller. A singular
circumstance connected with the broken rest of three-fourths of the
people of Tinkletown was the extraordinary unanimity with which Jake
became visible to them the instant they did drop off to sleep.

Bright and early the next morning, the _Banner_ appeared with its
gruesome story. Jake was in very large type, but not much larger, after
all, than Marshal Crow. The whilom Mr. Squires, revelling in generosity,
gave Anderson all the credit. He held forth at great length on the
achievements of the redoubtable marshal, winding up his account with a
recommendation that a movement be inaugurated at once looking to the
erection of a memorial statue to the fa