TRAIN HELD UP.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLVI, Issue 263, 6 November 1912, Page 2

TRAIN HELD UP.

A BRAVE ATTENDANT

The following was cabled from New 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 bandit? boarded.a train, but were prevented from obtaining any valuables through the heroism of an attendant. The tram was bound from Kansas City to Hatneld, Arkansas. The bandits presumably boarded the train at Kansas, and when it was travelling at top speed broke into the express car, where a quantity of jewellery was ,™ked.,, in^ a safe« An attendant (Merrill Burgett) was in the car when the bandits started to break down the door. He opened the safe, took out the valuables, which he hid in the ventilators, and then barricaded him-

self 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 j two robbers dropped behind seats and opened fire with their revolvers on .Burgett, who returned their shots till 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, but finding no valuables turned again to Burgett, who was recovering consciousness, and tortured him in a horrible manner to make him say where the jewellery was hidden. The plucky attendant refused, however, to tell the. hiding place, 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.