Robbery and Puts Up a Good Argument.

I used to think I would like to be a train robber, and have a nice
gang of boys to do my bidding. I have often pictured my gang
putting a red light on the track and stopping a train laden with
gold, holding a revolver to the head of the engineer, and
compelling him to go and dynamite the express car. Then we would
fill our pockets and haversacks with rolls of bills that would
choke a hippopotamus, and ride away to our shack in the
mountains, divide up the swag, go on a trip to New York, bathe in
champagne, dress like millionaires, go to theaters morning, noon
and night, eat lobster until our stomachs would form an anti-
lobster union, and be so gay the people would think we were young
Vandergoulds. Since Pa and I were captured by the Hole-in-the-Wall
gang I have found that all is not glorious in the train-robbing
and capturing-for-ransom business, and that robbers are never
happy except when a robbery is safely over, and the gang gets good
and drunk.

The first day or two after Pa and I and the traitorous cowboys
were captured, we had a pretty nice time, eating canned stuff and
elk meat, and Pa was kept busy telling the gang of what had
happened in the outside world for several months, as the gang
did not read the daily papers. When they robbed a train they
let the newsboy alone for fear he would get the drop on them.

[Illustration: Pa Told Them About the Wave of Reform.]

Pa told them about the wave of reform that was going over the
country, and how the politicians were taking the railroads and