THE DAUGHTER OF ANDERSON CROW

CONTENTS

CHAPTER
I. ANDERSON CROW, DETECTIVE
II. THE PURSUIT BEGINS
III. THE CULPRITS
IV. ANDERSON RECTIFIES AN ERROR
V. THE BABE ON THE DOORSTEP
VI. REFLECTION AND DEDUCTION
VII. THE MYSTERIOUS VISITOR
VIII. SOME YEARS GO BY
IX. THE VILLAGE QUEEN
X. ROSALIE HAS PLANS OF HER OWN
XI. ELSIE BANKS
XII. THE SPELLING-BEE
XIII. A TINKLETOWN SENSATION
XIV. A CASE OF MISTAKEN IDENTITY
XV. ROSALIE DISAPPEARS
XVI. THE HAUNTED HOUSE
XVII. WICKER BONNER, HARVARD
XVIII. THE MEN IN THE SLEIGH
XIX. WITH THE KIDNAPERS
XX. IN THE CAVE
XXI. THE TRAP-DOOR
XXII. JACK, THE GIANT KILLER
XXIII. TINKLETOWN'S CONVULSION
XXIV. THE FLIGHT OF THE KIDNAPERS
XXV. AS THE HEART GROWS OLDER
XXVI. THE LEFT VENTRICLE
XXVII. THE GRIN DERISIVE
XXVIII. THE BLIND MAN'S EYES
XXIX. THE MYSTERIOUS QUESTIONER
XXX. THE HEMISPHERE TRAIN ROBBERY
XXXI. "AS YOU LIKE IT"
XXXII. THE LUCK OF ANDERSON CROW
XXXIII. BILL BRIGGS TELLS A TALE
XXXIV. ELSIE BANKS RETURNS
XXXV. THE STORY IS TOLD
XXXVI. ANDERSON CROW'S RESIGNATION





CHAPTER I

Anderson Crow, Detective


He was imposing, even in his pensiveness. There was no denying the fact
that he was an important personage in Tinkletown, and to the residents
of Tinkletown that meant a great deal, for was not their village a
perpetual monument to the American Revolution? Even the most
generalising of historians were compelled to devote at least a paragraph
to the battle of Tinkletown, while some of the more enlightened gave a
whole page and a picture of the conflict that brought glory to the
sleepy inhabitants whose ancestors were enterprising enough to
annihilate a whole company of British redcoats, once on a time.

Notwithstanding all this, a particularly disagreeable visitor from the
city once remarked, in the presence of half a dozen descendants (after
waiting twenty minutes at the post-office for a dime's worth of stamps),
that Tinkletown was indeed a monument, but he could not understand why
the dead had been left unburied. There was excellent cause for
resentment, but the young man and his stamps were far away before the
full force of the slander penetrated the brains of the listeners.

Anderson Crow was as imposing and as rugged as the tallest shaft of
marble in the little cemetery on the edge of the town. No one questioned
his power and authority, no one misjudged his altitude, and no one
overlooked his dignity. For twenty-eight years he had served Tinkletown
and himself in the triple capacity of town marshal, fire chief and
street commissioner. He had a system of government peculiarly his own;
and no one possessed the heart or temerity to upset it, no matter what
may have been the political inducements. It would have been like trying
to improve the laws of nature to put a new man in his place. He had
become a fixture that only dissolution could remove. Be it said,
however, that dissolution did not have its common and accepted meaning
when applied to Anderson Crow. For instance, in discoursing upon the
obnoxious habits of the town's most dissolute rake--Alf
Reesling--Anderson had more than once ventured the opinion that "he was
carrying his dissolution entirely too far."