Unreal, and strangely magnified in the
white beam, an ape-like figure had risen
from the ties and with shambling gait was
making for a storage shed beside the track.
As the engine screeched to a halt, Hammond
grasped a Winchester and leapt to the track,
followed by the dark forms of the police
riding on the tender. If this was Bassoff
the knowledge that capture meant the hang-
man’s rope would undoubtedly cause him
to go down fighting.

“He’s right there—in the door!” came
Hallworth’s strained voice.

Slinking forward from bush to bush the
police saw a large figure crouching in the
doorway. Caught in a torchlight beam he
blinked a lone eye from a fringe of matted
hair and crept inside. “Hell!” shouted
someone. “That's not the bird we’re after.”

With drawn guns they rushed the door.
“Hands up!” shouted Tower.

From within came animal-like sounds.

“Rush him!” shouted Glover.

Leaping through the open door the light
of their torches flashed on a huge, huddled
figure in fur cap and mackinaw crouching
with an arm behind him in the corner.

“Careful!” warned Tower. “He’s reach-
ing for his gun.”

But the large, ape-like figure only glow-
ered stupidly at them from a single blood-
shot eye.

“My God,” laughed Glover nervously.
“He’s got his hand in a biscuit box.”

As the handcuffs clicked around his
wrists and swift hands snatched a wicked
Mauser from the shoulder holster caught
behind him the captive uttered a bellow

Malaspina
Hotel

Licensed
Premises

LUND, BRITISH COLUMBIA

E. LEE & COMPANY

V. J. MADDEN, Proprietor
General Merchants
Green and Dressed Furs

Hardware, Drygoods, Groc-
eries, Meats and Vegeta-
bles, Building Supplies
Post Office
Ucluelet, B.C.

Page Forty

of fury. Going through his clothes police
relieved him of a roll containing eighty
dollars, a glass eye and some dirty papers.
Unfolded they proved to be a passport and
exemption papers—and they bore the name:
Thomas Bassoff.

Disarmed, dirty and famished, suffering
intense pain from his swollen leg, infected

disguise. Ravenous with hunger, he had
cast all caution aside on reaching Pincher
and entered Alexander’s store to buy some
food. Knowing that his wounded leg would
be a giveaway he tucked the crutch under
his arm and, experiencing the agonies of
the damned, had managed to walk in and
out of the store without its aid. In broken

Reconstruction of the shooting of Bailey and Usher by Tom Bassoff. From the window at left Sherif
Robertson first spotted the two suspects and saw them enter the cafe.

from a gun wound, the deep-chested Coss-
ack shuffled between his guards to the wait-
ing room at Pincher station. Handcuffed,
he sank into a seat, his bloodshot eye un-
able to meet the hostile gaze of those about
him.

Alex Alexander, the local storekeeper,
pushing through the assembled crowd,
emitted a cry of amazement. “Why,” he
peered at the surly captive, “I saw that
fellow roaming the streets this evening.
He bought some biscuits in my store and
beat it as the train came in.”

The excited voice of a youngster broke
in. He, too, had seen the prisoner. For
nearly half an hour he’d chatted with him
on the steps of the hotel without for a
moment suspecting his identity.

Relief over the bloodless capture of the
desperado quickly gave way to amazement
at his hardihood in struggling nearly forty
miles through mountainous terrain, handi-
capped as he was with one leg so badly
smashed by a bullet as to necessitate him
limping every foot of the distance with
an improvised crutch. He'd succeeded in
working his way through the police cordon
and but for Engineer Hammond’s vigilance
might have outwitted searching police com-
pletely and obtained sanctuary among sym-
pathetic countrymen at Macleod, less than
thirty miles away.

Lodged behind the bars at Lethbridge
gaol the one-eyed Cossack maintained a
Muscovite stoicism, repulsed all efforts of
reporters to get his story, but admitted with
a grim chuckle that police had frequently
been so close to his hiding place they could
have stepped right on him. To the wardens
he opened up and told of meeting an old
man and giving him five dollars for his cap
and coat, and having taken out his glass
eye and put it in his pocket as a further

English he admitted he’d come from the
land of the Don Cossacks in 1913 and
worked out of Macleod and Lethbridge as

railroad labourer, lumberman and_ ranch
hand, but denied that he’d shot either of
the police.

C. A. ELKINGTON

General Merchant
TOFINO, B.C.
Branch Store: Bedwell River, B. C.
6
Operating
TOBINGSLOREE
TORIN@ BAG:

©
LET US TAKE CARE OF YOU

MRs. B. FARMER

General Merchant
Also Operating CLAYOQUOT HOTEL

Fishermen's Headquarters
Licensed Premises

A Good Place to Stay

Agent: UNION OIL PRODUCTS

Free Ferry to the Hotel

Clayoquot, British Columbia

THE SHOULDER STRAP