The bums all knew of Mary’s disappearance, but none of them would even make a guess as to what became of her. Almost ready to give up, I met one of the oldest and best informed bums on the road. His “monoger” (a corruption of monogram), “Hannibal,” was carved on every water tank between the two Portlands. I made his acquaintance in the Utah penitentiary, and had met him later on the road. He knew my connection with Foot-and-a-Half George, but did not know I was with him when he was killed. I had not seen Hannibal since George’s death, and naturally the talk turned to it.

The burglary was long since outlawed, there was no need for me to conceal my part in it, so I told him all about the caper. He listened very attentively, and when I was done said: “You must have been there, for that tallies exactly with what I heard. Over three years ago I met a bum by the name of ‘Rochester Red’ at Stew Junction (Puyallup, Washington). Red was five miles outside of that county seat the night you and George got that box. This is what he tells me.

“He’s just finished a long stretch in the stir at Canon City. His health ain’t none too good, so he jumps over into Utah and down on the poultice route, where he won’t be pestered by bulls while he’s recuperatin’ on good fresh air an’ green vegetables an’ plenty of bread and milk. He flops in a haystack five miles out of the town where you people cut the caper. At daylight the next morning the hoosiers drag him out and he thinks they’re goin’ to lynch him. They take him into the town an’ give him a look at the stiff laid out on the courthouse floor. He raps to George, an’ just as you say, he is almost cut in half by the two shotgun loads. Red don’t see any use in givin’ himself a bawl-out by identifyin’ any dead burglars, so he dummies up on the natives an’ in a couple of days they let him go, an’ he keeps on goin’, for they are proper hostile. When Roch’ Red tells me this, I dash into Portland and out over the Short Line into Pocatello, an’ tells Mary.”

“What was all your hurry about?” I asked.

“Hah,” Hannibal replied. “That’s somethin’ Red didn’t know, an’ somethin’ you don’t know. But you’re all right, an’ I don’t mind tellin’ you.