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THE GREAT

K. & A. TRAIN-ROBBERY




[Illustration: Frontispiece]




The
Great
K. & A.
Robbery

[Illustration: Trains]

By

Paul Leicester Ford

Author of The Honorable Peter Stirling

New York
Dodd, Mead and Company
1897




_Copyright, 1896,_
BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.

_Copyright, 1897,_
BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY.

University Press:
JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A.




TO

MY TRAVELLING COMPANIONS

ON SPECIALS 218 AND 97

THIS ENDEAVOR TO WEAVE INTO A STORY SOME OF OUR
OVERLAND HAPPENINGS AND ADVENTURES

IS GRATEFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED.

       *       *       *       *       *

_TO MISS GEORGE BARKER GIBBS._

_My dear George_:

_At your request I originally inscribed this skit to our whole
party. In its republication, however, I can but feel that the
dedication should be more particular. Written because you asked
it, first read aloud to beguile our ride across the great
American desert, and finally printed because you wished a copy as
a souvenir of our journeyings, no one can so naturally be called
upon to stand sponsor to the little tale. Should the story but
give its readers a fraction of the pleasure I owe to your
kindness, its success is assured._

_Faithfully yours,_

_PAUL LEICESTER FORD._




Contents


  CHAPTER                                           PAGE

        I  THE PARTY ON SPECIAL NO. 218                1

       II  THE HOLDING-UP OF OVERLAND NO. 3           17

      III  A NIGHT'S WORK ON THE ALKALI PLAINS        30

       IV  SOME RATHER QUEER ROAD AGENTS              43

        V  A TRIP TO THE GRAND CANYON                  55

       VI  THE HAPPENINGS DOWN HANCE'S TRAIL          69

      VII  A CHANGE OF BASE                           82

     VIII  HOW DID THE SECRET LEAK OUT?               93

       IX  A TALK BEFORE BREAKFAST                   107

        X  WAITING FOR HELP                          118

       XI  THE LETTERS CHANGE HANDS AGAIN            130

      XII  AN EVENING IN JAIL                        140

     XIII  A LESSON IN POLITENESS                    153

      XIV  "LISTENERS NEVER HEAR ANYTHING GOOD"      165

       XV  THE SURRENDER OF THE LETTERS              175

      XVI  A GLOOMY GOOD-BY                          186




THE

Great K. & A. Train-Robbery




CHAPTER I

THE PARTY ON SPECIAL NO. 218


Any one who hopes to find in what is here written a work of
literature had better lay it aside unread. At Yale I should have
got the sack in rhetoric and English composition, let alone other
studies, had it not been for the fact that I played half-back on
the team, and so the professors marked me away up above where I
ought to have ranked. That was twelve years ago, but my life
since I received my parchment has hardly been of a kind to
improve me in either style or grammar. It is true that one woman
tells me I write well, and my directors never find fault with my
compositions; but I know that she likes my letters because,
whatever else they may say to her, they always say in some form,
"I love you," while my board approve my annual reports because
thus far I have been able to end each with "I recommend the
declaration of a dividend of -- per cent from the earnings of the
current year." I should therefore prefer to reserve my writings
for such friendly critics, if it did not seem necessary to make
public a plain statement concerning an affair over which there
appears to be much confusion. I have heard in the last five years
not less than twenty renderings of what is commonly called "the
great K. & A. train-robbery,"--some so twisted and distorted that
but for the intermediate versions I should never have recognized
them as attempts to narrate the series of events in which I
played a somewhat prominent part. I have read or been told that,
unassisted, the pseudo-hero captured a dozen desperadoes; that he
was one of the road agents himself; that he was saved from
lynching only by the timely arrival of cavalry; that the action
of the United States government in rescuing him from the civil
authorities was a most high-handed interference with State
rights; that he received his reward from a grateful railroad by
being promoted; that a lovely woman as recompense for his
villany--but bother! it's my business to tell what really
occurred, and not what the world chooses to invent. And if any
man thinks he would have done otherwise in my position, I can
only say that he is a better or a worse man than Dick Gordon.

Primarily, it was football which shaped my end. Owing to my skill
in the game, I took a post-graduate at the Sheffield Scientific
School, that the team might have my services for an extra two
years. That led to my knowing a little about mechanical
engineering, and when I left the "quad" for good I went into the
Alton Railroad shops. It wasn't long before I was foreman of a
section; next I became a division superintendent, and after