FIGHT ON A TRAIN.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIV, Issue 53, 26 October 1912, Page 6

FIGHT ON A TRAIN.

A COURAGEOUS ATTENDANT. The following was cabled from Now York to Australian papers on October 11th;— An exciting story of a train hold-up has been received from Fort Smith, Arkansas, where four masked bandits boarded a train, but were prevented from obtaining any valuables through the heroism of an attendant. _ The train was bound from Kansas City to Hatfield, Arkansas. The bandits presumably boarded the train at Kansas, and when it was travelling at top speed broke into tjie express car, whore a quantity of jewellery was locked in a safe. An attendant (Merrill Burgett) was in the car when the bandits started to break down the door. He opened tbe safe, took out the valuables, which he hid in the ventilators, and then barricaded himself behind some seats. When the bandits broke into the car Burgett fired, fatally wounding one of the attackers. Another picked up the wounded man and jumped with him from'the moving train. The other two robbers dropped behind seats, and opened fire with their revolvers on Burgett, who returned their shots until his ammunition was exhausted. Then the two threw themselves upon him and a desperate hand-to-hand struggle followed. Burgett was at last overcome, and the two kicked him insensible. They broke open the safe, hut finding no who was recovering consciousness, and valuables turned again to Burgett, tortured him in a horrible manner to make him say where the jewellery was hidden. The plucky car attendant refused, however, to tell the hidingplace, and he was again kicked into insensibility. The bandits then cut the air hose of the brake, stopped the train, and, dropping, off, vanished into the night. A sheriff’s posse is in pursuit, and is following a fairly clear trail. Burgett is expected to die from his injuries.