"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 073 - Crooks Go Straight" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

"Yes. That was the rub. They took to robbing more banks. Zurk was caught; he went back into the jug.
Then the law landed Targon -"

"I know the details. The pair of them made another break. More crimes. They've been in now for three
years and the governor has pardoned them, despite their accumulated sentences."

"Accumulated sentences. You've hit it, friend. That's the point that won the governor over. If those
fellows hadn't made their first break, they'd have finished their original terms a couple of years ago."

"I didn't realize that."

"Here, read the details."

The first passenger shoved his newspaper to the second. The latter studied the columns, then began to
nod slowly as he laid the journal aside.

"That makes it different," he admitted. "They were hunted men. Crime was their only course."

"Self-preservation," agreed the other passenger. "Man's first instinct."

"I guess the governor deserves credit. Those fellows will have a chance to go straight. I'm glad that
they're out. I wonder where they've gone?"

"The newspapers don't know. Leastwise, they're not saying. Zurk and Targon were whisked away in an
automobile after the gates of the penitentiary clanged behind them. That's all the report that's given."

Grinding brakes up ahead. The observation car jolted slightly. The limited was heading to a stop. A
distant blare of the locomotive whistle.

THE chatting passengers forgot their former subject.

"Wonder what this is?" questioned one. "Sounds like a station stop. But there's none on the schedule.
We're supposed to make a nonstop ninety-minute run -"

"There's a stop, though," broke in the second passenger. He was referring to a time-table. "Place called
Dupaw. Time-table says to refer to note M. Here it is: 'Will stop Saturdays and Sundays only to receive
through passengers for New York.' That must be it. Somebody getting on at this jerkwater station."

"Hope there's more than one," chuckled the first speaker, "It says 'passengers'тАФnot 'passenger.' Well,
this is a Sunday, so it makes passengers eligible."

The train was almost to a stop. Peering from the window, the passengers saw the dingy lights of the
station. Then the limited reached a full halt. A dozen seconds passed. Then came the muffled, heavy
chugging of the locomotive.

"Dupaw, all right," observed the man with the time-table, as the observation car rolled slowly past the
little waiting room of the station. "See? There's the sign."

His acquaintance nodded. The two reverted to their newspapers and began a comment on the sporting
news. Like the subject of the pardoned convicts, the stop at Dupaw was forgotten.