Page:Newspaper writing and editing.djvu/106

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stopped and threw off the newspaper mail.

Just before the train entered the yards here, the bandit leaped from the car and, with the booty in a small satchel, made his escape. It is not known how much money and valuables the bandit obtained, but it is supposed he got a big haul. Six registered mail sacks were cut and their contents rifled.

When the train reached this city, John Wilson, one of the postal clerks, was found locked in the clothes closet, while Henry Devine, the other, was under the table with a jumper drawn over his head and his arms tightly bound with a rope. It was then that the story of the robbery was learned.

When the train stopped at Bonners Ferry at four o'clock this morning, a man came to the door of the postal car, and throwing in a mail sack and a small satchel, announced that he was R. F. Burton, a postoffice inspector.

"I will return in a few minutes and ride with you to Spokane," he said to Wilson, the clerk on duty. Devine, the other, was asleep under the table that was covered with mail sacks.

After the man left the car, Wilson awoke Devine, and told him that an inspector was to ride with them to this city, and that he, Wilson, would awaken him again shortly.

Just before the train started from the Idaho town, the man entered the car again. "Is there any mail for me?" he inquired of the clerk. "There ought to be some. Please look."

Wilson looked over some mail and when he turned around to inform the supposed inspector that there was none, he found a big revolver pointed at his head.

The robber, after warning the clerk to make no outcry, ordered him to