all the rubes you could deputise.  One of ’em is worth ten of your fellow-citizens, Mr. Crow, begging your pardon for the remark.  You and I can keep the secret and we can do the right thing, but we would be asses to take more Tinkletown asses into our confidence.  If you’ll agree, I’ll write to Mr. Pinkerton this evening.  He can have his men here, disguised and ready for work, by Thursday afternoon.  If you don’t mind, I’d like to have you take charge of the affair, because you know just how to handle thieves, and I don’t.  What say you?”

Anderson was ready and eager to agree to anything, but he hesitated a long time before concluding to take supreme charge of the undertaking.  Mr. Gregory at once implored him to take command.  It meant the success of the venture; anything else meant failure.

“But how’n thunder am I to know the robbers when I see ’em?” demanded the marshal, nervously pulling bluegrass up by the roots.

“You’ll know ’em all right,” said Andrew Gregory.  Thursday came and with it the “troupe.”  Anderson Crow had not slept for three nights, he was so full of thrills and responsibility.  Bright and early that morning he was on the lookout for suspicious characters.  Gregory was to meet the detectives from New York at half-past seven in the evening.  By previous arrangement, these strangers were to congregate casually at Tinkletown Inn, perfectly diguised as gentlemen, ready for instructions.  The two arch-plotters had carefully devised a plan of action.  Gregory chuckled secretly when he thought of the sensation Tinkletown was to experience—­and he thought of it often, too.

The leading members of Boothby’s All Star Company “put up” at the Inn, which was so humble that it staggered beneath this unaccustomed weight of dignity.  The beautiful Miss Marmaduke (in reality, Miss Cora Miller) was there, and so were Miss Trevanian, Miss Gladys Fitzmaurice, Richmond Barrett (privately Jackie Blake), Thomas J. Booth, Francisco Irving, Ben Jefferson and others.  The Inn was glorified.  All Tinkletown looked upon the despised old “eating house” with a reverence that was not reluctant.

The manager, a busy and preoccupied person, who looked to be the lowliest hireling in the party, came to the Inn at noon and spread the news that the reserved seats were sold out and there was promise of a fine crowd.  Whereupon there was rejoicing among the All Star Cast, for the last legs of the enterprise were to be materially strengthened.

“We won’t have to walk back home,” announced Mr. Jackie Blake, that good-looking young chap who played Orlando.

“Glorious Shakespeare, thou art come to life again,” said Ben Jefferson, a barn-stormer for fifty years.  “I was beginning to think you were a dead one.”

“And no one will seize our trunks for board,” added Miss Marmaduke cheerfully.  She was a very pretty young woman and desperately in love with Mr. Orlando.

“If any one seized Orlando’s trunks, I couldn’t appear in public to-night,” said Mr. Blake.  “Orlando possesses but one pair of trunks.”