“Give me the bag!” Dinkins ordered again. Reaching through the window, he made a grab for the bag, but the teller jerked it back. Angrily, Dinkins shot him. The slug hit the teller between the eyes, and he collapsed on the floor behind the teller’s cage, with the money bag still clutched in his hand, out of Dinkins’ reach.

“We got to get out of here now!” Beeman yelled.

Bells were ringing all over town. Dogs were barking and citizens were running, some for cover, and some to find a place from which to shoot.

“Everyone, out the back door!” Dinkins shouted, and the four men ran out the back door, then down the alley to their horses. Mounting their horses, they saw that wagons had been pushed across the alley at both ends, blocking them off. Their only exit was to ride up the narrow opening between the bank and the shoe store.

When they reached Decker’s Road, which was the main street, the angry citizens of the town were ready for them. The first person to take a shot at the would-be bank robbers was a clerk who had come outside to stand on the front porch of the general store. Armed with a double-barreled 12-gauge Greener, he let loose. Beeman, his chest opened up by the load of double aught buckshot, was knocked from his horse. Kilpatrick’s horse was killed by someone firing a Winchester rifle, and when Caldwell turned back for him everyone with a gun started shooting at the two men. Kilpatrick and Caldwell’s return fire was effective enough to drive several citizens off the street and provide cover for Dinkins.

“Bill, come here! Help me get Henry up on Beeman’s horse!”

Dinkins looked back at the two men, then at the armed citizens, and turned and galloped away.

“Dinkins! You cowardly son of a bitch!” Caldwell shouted angrily.

Dinkins didn’t look back, but continued to ride as the shooting was going on behind him. He rode hard, until he realized nobody was giving chase. He could hear the last gunshots being exchanged between the citizens of the town and Caldwell and Kilpatrick. Then the shooting fell silent, and he knew they were either captured or killed. Dinkins had gotten away with his life, but none of the bank’s money except for the five twenty-dollar gold pieces he had gotten in exchange for the one hundred dollar bill.

When Dinkins reached the town of Snyder, he dismounted, slapped his horse on the rump, and sent it on. He hoped if anyone was following him, they would follow the tracks of his horse.

He walked the rest of the way into town, then went to the depot to buy a ticket on the next train out. He was pretty sure nobody would be looking for a bank robber on a train. Bank robber. He scoffed at the term. Some bank robber he was. He had not gotten away with one red cent.

CHAPTER ONE

Washington, D. C.

Sally Jensen had been back East for almost six weeks, during which time she had visited her family in Vermont, friends and relatives in Boston and New York, and as the last part of her trip, she was in Washington, D.C. At the moment, she was sitting in the reception room just outside the Presidential Office in the White House. As she waited to meet with the president, she was reading the novel, A Study in Scarlet, written by the English author, Arthur Conan Doyle, in which he introduced a new character, Sherlock Holmes. Sally enjoyed the intellect and deductive reasoning of the Sherlock Holmes character. So engrossed was she in the book that she did not notice Colonel Lamont, the appointments secretary, approaching her.

“Mrs. Jensen?” Colonel Lamont said.

Sally looked up from her book. It took her a second to come out of the story and realize exactly where she was.

“Yes?”

“The president will see you now.”

“Oh, thank you,” Sally answered with a broad smile. Slipping a book mark in between the pages, she stood, then followed the secretary into President Cleveland’s office.

The president was rather rotund, with a high forehead and a bushy moustache. He was wearing a suit, vest, and bowtie, and he was smiling as he walked around the desk with his hand extended. “Mrs. Jensen. How wonderful to see you.”

“The pleasure is all mine, Mr. President,” Sally replied.

President Cleveland pointed to a sitting area over to the side. “Please, won’t you have a seat? And tell me all about your wonderful West.”

“As you say, Mr. President, it is wonderful. You really should take a trip out there sometime.”

“I agree, I must do that. And your husband, Smoke? He is doing well?”

“He is doing very well, thank you. Right now he and the others are involved in the spring roundup.”

“The spring roundup,” President Cleveland said. “What exciting images those words evoke.” The president glanced toward the door to make certain no one could overhear him. “Please don’t tease me about it, but from time to time I read novels of the West. I find them a wonderful escape from the tedium of reports, analysis, bills, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, ad naseum.”

Sally laughed.

“And how is your family?”

“They are doing well, thank you. It was my family who insisted that I call upon you before I return home,” Sally said.

“And rightly so,” President Cleveland replied. “When I was governor of the state of New York, I vetoed the bill that would have reduced the fare to five cents on the elevated trains in New York. That was an extremely unpopular veto, and your father’s support, even though he was not a resident of New York, helped convince several legislators to change their vote and support me when the legislature attempted to override the veto. Had I lost that veto, I believe my political career would have been finished. I do not think it would stretch credulity too far, to suggest that I am occupying the White House partly because of your father’s early, and important, support.”

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