ied, the safe blown open, its entire contents missing, and the room
still retained a strong odor of powder.

It was a genuine robbery, and, for a place of the breadth and thickness
of Attica, it was something much more than an ordinary, every-day
affair. The postmaster had barely enough money left to wire for help.

When I arrived on Wednesday he informed me that no strange persons were
seen in town prior to the robbery, but that on Monday morning about six
o'clock, two young men called at the residence of Mr. James Beasley, a
farmer residing about six miles eastward, and wanted to engage him to
take them to Thorntown, a distance of about twenty miles as an Indiana
crow flies. Beasley was a busy farmer, and, not being in the livery
business, declined.

They than asked the distance to the nearest station on the Wabash
railroad, and when Beasely informed them, they told him if he would
hitch up and take them over they would give him a dollar and a half for
his trouble.

Beasley said he would do it, just to be accommodating, and by so doing
made a blunder. If he had told them he would do it for two dollars and
a half he would have been engaged just the same, and Beasley saw his
mistake, as a great many others do, when it was too late.

The only vehicle handy that morning was a small buggy containing one
seat, and into this the three men placed themselves, Beasley in the
middle, and proceeded to ride to the railroad. While Beasley was
hitching up it occurred to him that it was very singular that two
fine-looking, well-dressed gentlemen should call at his house so early
in the morning and want to hire him to take them to Thorntown, and
finally be satisfied with a mile and a half ride for dollar and a half,
which was a dollar a mile, to another place.

His curiosity was thoroughly aroused, and when he got into the buggy
with them he intended to look them over very closely indeed, and give
them a few questions to crack.

Scarcely had they started before he asked them how it happened that
they came along so early. "Have not been walking all night, have you?"
he asked with a laugh.

The larger one of the two then told Beasley about his lovely home in
Kansas; about his poor mother dying in Ohio; about being on the way to
her funeral; about meeting Mr. Cushman, the other gentleman, on the
train; about Mr. Cushman being on his way to Cornell University, and
last, though not least, about the wreck on the I. B. & W., wh