leaving a path littered with empty cham-
pagne bottles, Canadian and U. S. currency.
They painted Seattle often, and they painted
it in particularly bright colours. Their
renown as spenders grew mightily, and they
seemingly enjoyed the new reputation they
had built. Boatload after boatload of liquor
sold on wide margins of profit. But the pro-
ceeds all went the same way.

Suddenly there appeared in the Puget
Sound liquor trade a personage who cast a
long shadow across their easy pathway, an
adventurer with brains and vision as well as
daring. This was Roy Olmstead, one-time
Seattle police official, whose heavy invest-
ments in the liquor trade gradually gave
him a monopoly on the trade. In a trice
he slashed prices on the retail bootleg
market, cut down the rum runners’ profits,
and was in a fair way to bottle up the trade
for himself. He became the “‘czar” of the
Sound liquor trade. And the Eggers boys,
like a good many other smugglers, found
themselves high and dry and broke. And
that day marked the advent of the hi-jacker.

Theodore, Milo and Ariel Eggers (or
Ted, Micky and Happy, as they were
styled), having tasted of fast high life, were
not the kind to give up. In the months that
followed, their black-hulled speed boat, the
M-197, became the most feared of the hi
jackers’ craft in northwest waters, and
many an unwary whisky runner found him-
self alone in his boat with a disabled engine,
his liquor gone, after the Eggers gang had
overtaken him.

According to the record, the first vessel
they hi-jacked was Capt. Tom Avery’s
Pauline. Avery was hauling a load for the
Great Western Wine Company totalling
128 cases valued at $5,376 at the Canadian
border. He was to deliver it to Jack Kerns,
a Seattle runner.

But the boys were leading a fast life and
the money was soon gone. More they must
have.

H1-JACKERS OPERATE IN B. C. WATERS

A month or two later, in June, 1923, the
gang slipped into Smuggler’s Cove, Chatham
Island, near Victoria, B. C. The cove
offered safe anchorage and was a popular
rendezvous for trans-shipping liquor. It was
a chilly evening, and lying at anchor in the
cove was the two-masted schooner Emma H,
operated by Capt. H. Emery of Vancouver,
B. C. She was deep laden with whisky
and beer. About nine o’clock the Eggers
brothers rowed over to the Emma H and
boarded her. Capt. Emery said afterwards
that he smelled a rat. At any rate he re-
ceived his visitors as they climbed over the
rail with a couple of drawn automatics.
They persuaded him, however, that all they
wished was to get out of their own boat
for the night and sleep somewhere more
comfortable. They said it was too late to
return to Seattle and asked permission to
sleep on the Emma H. Emery assented and
the trio rolled into bunks below decks, where
Emery stationed an armed guard to watch
over them the entire night.

When morning came they took their de-
parture, and proceeding up the channel

Page Six

stopped at D’Arcy Island ten miles further
north. Here they found one of Olmstead’s
boats, the Erskine, skippered by a man
named Steele. Steele gave the men an invi-
tation to come aboard and have a cup of
coffee. There was a raw, damp, penetrating
wind whipping in from the Straits as the
trio vaulted over the Erskine’s gunwale and
followed Steele into the ship’s tiny main
cabin. A great black coffee-pot steamed
and whistled pleasantly on the little ship’s
range, and as Steele set out four cups he
chatted pleasantly with his visitors. He
told them he was waiting for another Olm-
stead boat from Seattle to take half the
cargo.

“JT guess you won’t be meeting him,
Cap,” dryly remarked the youngest of the
trio, Milo.

“No, how’s that?” enquired Steele, shoot-
ing a quick glance at the little blond-haired
rum runner. Then from the other side of
the cabin Theodore remarked casually:

“Look over here, Cap,” and turning

Milo Eggers, youngest of the bandit trio.

again, Steele found himself looking into the
muzzle of a .45 automatic.

Confronted by the pirates, who outnum-
bered him three to one, Steele quietly sur-
rendered.

Theodore took command. He ordered
Steele to proceed at full speed across the
international boundary line to Dungeness
on the shores of the Olympic peninsula,
towing the Eggers boat.

At Dungeness half the Erskine’s cargo
was beached and cached, the remainder
being transferred to the speed boat. Then
they parted company with Steele.

Srarts STILL HUNT FoR EGGERS

Olmstead was furious when he heard of
the exploit. H’s agents silently and craftily
started a still hunt for the Eggers boys, de-
termined to run them down and drive them
out of the northwest or make them pay.

Wisely they separated, but eventually
they were each located in different parts of
Seattle by a man acting for Olmstead, who
had a handful of their reputedly worthless
cheques. He told them that unless they
made the cheques good he would reveal their
whereabouts to Olmstead. This brought
them apparently to time. They claimed
they had been unable to sell the Erskine’s
whisky because every bootlegger knew it
was outlaw stuff and too “hot” to handle.
They offered to take up the cheques if,
instead of cash, the cheque-holder would

accept Erskine liquor on the basis of $5(
a case. The man said he would consider th«
proposition. He took the matter up witl
Prosper Graignic, chief engineer of one o:
Olmstead’s boats. Graignic agreed to handk
the Erskine whisky at the price agreed.

It was agreed that Olmstead would tak«
the man with the cheques to a rendezvou:
with the Eggers, who would then lead the
way to the whisky cache where the trans
action would be consummated. The mar
with the cheques was to meet the Egger:
boys the following day, outline the proposa
and get them to agree to a time and place
of further meeting. With this mission ir
mind he went to his room on the sixth floo:
of the Commodore Hotel in Seattle.

At 8 that evening, without warning, the
door of his room was suddenly flung open
and Theodore and Ariel Eggers burst intc
the room.

“We're on to your game!” exclaimed
Ariel with an oath. A gun gleamed in
his hand.

“Why, Dve arranged a deal,” remon-
strated the man.

“We know all about that, and you're
going to get yours for it, you dirty double-
crossing Ariel jabbed the
gun viciously in the man’s solar plexus.

Terror in his face, the man backed across
the room, and Ariel followed, his eyes nar-
rowed and the gun pressed close. Then
Ariel grabbed his quarry by the throat,
snarling—

“You
drop.”

The window was open and the gangsters
forced the unfortunate cheque-holder out
over the window sill. Frenzied with fear
of the six-storey drop and instant death,
the man screamed for mercy as he was
relentlessly pushed further out over the
sill. Suddenly his grip loosened on the’
window, and with a wail of terror he
pitched out. Wtih a sardonic grin, Eggers
quickly grabbed him by the ankles and held
him from crashing to the street below.
Something, certainly not pity, caused Eggers
to relent, and the shivering wretch was
dragged back into the cheap hotel bedroom.

“It won't do you any good to drop me,”
he babbled, “they'd get you for it. Better
listen to reason.”

You're going to take a long

Go-BETWEEN EscAPES AFTER FRAY

Outside in the hall there was the sound
of the elevator door opening. There was a
chance to make a getaway, and edging to
the door the cheque-holder wrenched it
open and fled. With a leap he landed in
the elevator and hoarsely ordered the boy
to take him down.

“Down to the basement,” he snapped.

The boy, sensing something wrong, sent
the cage rattling downward. The door
clanged open at the basement and the man
stumbled out.

In the basement of the Commodore in
those days (June, 1923) was a big sawdust
pile in front of the furnace. It was not only
a fuel pile, but also a convenient whisky
cache. Beneath the pile had been hidden
many a sack of outlaw liquor.

THE SHOULDER STRAP