hake hands with_ SAM. _Enter_ JIM--EM'LY _runs to
him_.

EM'LY. Jim!

JIM _puts his left arm around_ EM'LY _and sits on anvil_.

SAM. [_Approaching and taking_ JIM'S _hand, smiling.] You_ didn't
think I done it, did you, Jim?

JIM. [_Nods at_ EM'LY.] No, not while _she's_ keepin' house for
me--ha, ha!

EM'LY. He's _always_ stood up for you, Sam.

JOE. Well, tell us 'bout it, Sam. Did the papers have it right?

_They are a semi-circle about SAM._

SAM. Yes, purty near.

JOE. _Did_ you help the feller into your car?

SAM. Yes, we were just pulling out of the depot when he came a-runnin'
up to my side door with an order from the superintendent for me to
carry him as fur as Vinita. He ran alongside and put his hand up, so
of course I pulled him into the car.

EM'LY. Wasn't you scared, Sam?

SAM. Why, no--I thought he belonged to the company, and he went to
work with me, sorting and fixing my express stuff.

JOE. Well, I'm durned!

SAM. [_Intensely serious._] I joked with him--just like I'm joking
with you--he was one of the nicest fellows I ever saw.

JOE. [_Wide-eyed with gossip._] Don't that beat everything?

SAM. When we were eighteen or twenty miles out, an' I was stoopin'
this way over a box--I felt him on my back, and grabbing at my
arms--why, why--even then I thought he was jokin', and I looked around
laughin', and here was his gun pokin' right into my face.

MRS. VERNON. [_Haunted._] Just think of it!

JOE. Then he tied you.

SAM. What could I do? There was his gun--and I wasn't even on my
feet--anybody could tie a fellow that way--I could tie you, couldn't
I? [_To_ JIM.

JIM. If you had the gun?

SAM. Yes.

JIM. Well, rather.

SAM. [_Indignantly._] The ropes cut clean through here at my wrists,
and there was a mark over one eye where I fell against the safe--and
then the company said I was an accomplice.

JOE. Then I s'pose he jis' deliberately packed his little valise full
of green-backs and--[_Pantomimes._]--got out!

SAM. A hundred and twenty thousand--

JOE. Jump off?

SAM. No--got off at a water-tank.

JIM. I s'pose you'd know him agin?

SAM. Anywhere.

LIZBETH. [_With nursery alarm._] He must a looked terrible.

SAM. [_Commonplace._] Well, he didn't--nice a lookin' feller as you
want to see. Black mustache--kind a curly hair--looked a little bit,
you know, like a race-horse man.

EM'LY. The company said Sam wrote the superintendent's order himself.

SAM. Oh, yes-