Detective Bob Bridger — page 233: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

226 ' DETECTIVE BOB BRIDGER. “And drop ‘crooked’ work,” added Bridger, “or New York detectives will pull you in soon enough on their own hook.” “Truth, every word of it, truth, Bridger, and I take your plan from this hour. I wish to Heaven I could repay your forbearance and kindness in some way. Before God, it would do my soul good if I could do so.” “That is not necessary.” “By the way, Bridger, I'll tell you what I can do for you. I’m going to make a clean breast now. You know in the sawdust ‘racket’ we send out circulars to people we think might bite all over the country ?” és Yes. 2) “Well, when we get an answer from a man who owns a store, a hotel, or a farm, we frequently send him some genuine new bills, and ask him to shove them. He finds, of course, that they go allright, and the first thing he does is to mortgage his property, and come on to invest in the queer, thinkin’ that his everlastin’ fortune is made.” “T understand the racket.” “But you never worked it, and, as I was goin’ to say, before these fellows come on, they sometimes become very communicative in their letters. They seem to want to make us understand that they are genuine ‘crooks’ them- selves, and tell us of the various sharping ‘rackets’ goin’ on in their neighborhood. And I have just been thinkin’ now, as I’m givin’ over the business, that I’ve got a pack- age of letters from a fellow in Kentucky, who’s engaged in the moonshiner line, that give facts which might interest you as an Officer of the government.” Bridger, as we have seen, was at the time expecting to be sent to Kentucky to look into the affairs of a band of ‘crooked’ whisky men there, and the letters of the euy posed moonshiners did interest him. “What does the fellow say in his letters?” he asked. ‘He says that he is the secretary of a gang who have half a dozen distilleries runnin’ in the mountains, and that the whisky is loaded at night on a boat in the river, and is shipped as tar, in tar daubed barrels at Cincinnati.” “What is the man’s name and address ?” - ‘Let me see—John—John—hang it all, why can’t I think | of it. But it’s only a short walk across town to my place. — Step over along, and I’ll give the letters and welcome if — they might be of service to you.” Goucher’s manner seemed sincere, and, being ignorant of a. comicbooks.com >