The Strange Schemes of Randolph Mason by Melville Davisson Post

I had to lie to him," said William Harris. "There was no other way out of it. I knew it was the only means by which I could get him out of the country. If he stayed here they would nab him and put him in the penitentiary in spite of the very devil himself. It is all very well to talk about even-eyed justice and all that rot, but a young man in that kind of a position would have about as much show as a snowball in Vesuvius. The best thing to do was to put him over the pond, and the next thing was to come here. I did both, now what is to be done?"

"It is evident," said Randolph Mason, "that the young man is the victim of one of our numerous gangs of train robbers, and it is quite as evident that it is utterly impossible to recover the stolen money. The thing to be done is to shift the loss."