He Was Homesick

"I never was in Mexico but once, and then I went as an amateur detective," said the ïnining expert. "It happened this way : A friend of mine in Pittsburg had nis confidential clerk - to whom he had given an opportunity by trusting him fully - skip with $10, 000. He knew where he was, just over the bordei from San Diego. But he was safe, for he kept religiously on the wrong side of the line. Several detectives had been sent down there to lure him over, but in sonieway he had detected the detective in theru, for they often acquirê a professional air in spite of tneix best efforts to the contrary. "I knew that my only chance would be to go and live there as a fugitive from justice myself and so secure his entire confidence. I decided. to be a forger. I took up my abode in the wretched little town and in about 24 hours was so sick of it that I was on the point of throwing up the whole schema and going back. But my friend had done me many a favor in business, and in decency I owed him some return. 01 course I did not make the slick man 's acquaintance. I was determined he should make mine. He held off for several days, evidently thiuking I was a I detective and expecting me to make, as they had always done, approaches to him. But I kept away, as if I were snspicious of him. The fellow was j fully homesick, and I don 't wonder, in ! that place. He used to go out on the ! desert and íóok at the stars and stripes across the border and wish he dared go back. He evidently began to think he was worse imprisoned than if he had been in some penitentiary. "Finally one day he ventured to address me. I replied very coldly to his salutation, which only made him the more anxious to know me. He began to inquire into my business and find out what I had come for. I gave him no special satisfaction until one day I said that I had come for a change of air. With the same kind of air in the United States a few miles away this was, of course, absurd, and he conclnded, as I intended he should, that I was there for the same reason he was, but I plied him with no questions. Finally, in his impatienoe, he burst out with: " 'What's the use of keeping up this pretense longer? I know and you know that we are both on the same errand down here. It is true, as you say, we can't live over there' - pointing toward tha country over the border. ' Let's own up and have done with the farce. ' So wo confessed to each other, he telling ine all about his crime, which I knew already, and I telling him all about my imaginary iniquity. "That was as f ar as we got for awhile, but it did him good. For it left him free to talk. He was very homesick, and we both acknowledged that it would be almost pleasanter to give ourselves up and serve out our terms than to stay there the rest of our Uves. I once or twice hinted that I was ready to do so. But he wasn't, and I knew that no ordinary inducement would get him where he could be taken. Bnt he had no opportunity of investing his money, and his cupidity naturally forced him to see that he had made a very poor bargain if all he was to get out of his rascality was to sit and spend it slowly in that little hole cf a Mexican town. "I had already iiiterested him with my stories of fortunes that had been made in lucky mine investments, and told him I knew of one rich deposit which I liad never reported to any one, inteuding to invest the amount of my forgery in its development if I could get sorue more to put with it. I told him it was in an out of the way locality in southern Arizona, and that we could get there without detection if we would go on foot or burro back and avoid the railroads. Finally ie concluded that he was willing to take the risk if I would and go and look at the property. The rest was easy. I wrote at once for au officer to be ready to head us off while crossing the Colorado river. We had traveled some distance without being challenged or exciting suspicion. I threw off my pretended apprehensiou, declared that we were safe from all interference and that we might as well take it easy. This proved contagious, and I saw that I would have no difficulty in getting him to the point I had designated to the ófficers. "We were ridiug slowly along in tho hot sun of the desert when suddenly from behiud a butte two men on horses shot out and rode swiftly toward us and were upon us alinost bef ore we had time to realize it. Although 1 had expected them, I confess I was taken by surprise - it was done so quickly and successfully. üf course they handcuffed me as well as him. But before we had reached the railroad station they had released me, and he understood how he had been fooled. I expected he would burst out in curses and reproaches, especially when they conflscated what he had left of his stealings. But he didn't. In f act, it was so great a relief that he made no defense at the trial and took his sentence with great indifference. I would hardly have been surprised if he had thanked me for the favor - he was so