32

ROBBERY

You never could have said that Jake wasn't brave. In his way, he was as brave as could be. But his way wasn't the way that was needed just then. Boston would have taken water from a Chinaman, any day, when it came to fighting. Here, when the danger wasn't a gun pointed at him, but was just imaginary and what might happen, he was a regular hero. His color was fine, and he was cheerful, and he worked away, humming. This was just the thing that he needed to make a real man of him, you might say.

Pug was sort of tense, but very steady. He meant well, and he wouldn't run. You could tell that. Only this sort of danger just numbed his brain a little.

The worst was big Jake—he was paralyzed. Every minute he was thinking he heard noises. When he heard them, he turned as white as a sheet. His eyes was wandering all the time, and he couldn't keep still. First he was at the front window, and he came sneaking back to say: “There is somebody watching us from across the street.”

Pug was staggered for fair, and I felt mighty sick. Boston just said: “How can they be watching us? You simply saw a light on the glass of a window. Go back and see if I'm not right.”

When Jake went hurrying away, Boston said: “Papa is a little nervous tonight…for two pins, he would chuck the whole deal. He is seeing himself in stripes about now.”

Boston laughed, but you can bet Pug and I didn't so much as smile. Not us!

In another minute, back came Jake, whiter than ever. He was just shaking with the strain, and he said: “You may have been right about the window, Boston, but I saw two shadows sneak around the corner, and I know that they were men. That dirty Jeff has double-crossed us, and there's about twenty men hanging around this bank, laughing up their sleeves, ready to nab us when they hear us blow the safe. Boys, they're laughing at us. And I say that it's time to throw up this job.”

Boston, as cool as ever, gave Pug and me a look. He smiled a little and said: “You boys run along, if you want. I'll keep your shares…till you call for them, if you want.”

“Is she about ready?” asked Jake.

“Yes.”

“Will it make much noise?”

“Yes. Quite a bit.”

“But they'll hear us, boys…and we're goners…they'll block up the end of the tunnel…they've got it blocked already…or they'll cave it in on the top of our heads. You can be pretty sure of that. There are some smart men in this town. And they're watching me. They know that I haven't rented a house next to this here bank just for nothing.”

“Get back, all of you, and lie down!” ordered Boston.

We did it. There was a sound like a big gun fired under a blanket, and then a crash. When we looked through the swirl of mist, there was the door of the safe lying on the floor, blowed clean off from its big hinges. That nitroglycerin had turned the trick.

“Quick!” said Jake. “Now grab the stuff and run…I'll…I'll go first and clear the way for the rest of you….”

Well, what do you think that Boston did? He just sat down there and he rolled a cigarette as calm as you please. He looked over at where the three of us stood trembling, and he said: “A fine lot of yeggs you fellows are.”

Jake cried: “Boston has double-crossed us! Well, you'll be a dead man before….”

In his crazy head, he was sure that this idea was the right one, and in another minute he would have done for poor Boston sure. Even then Boston was cool. He said: “Jake, steady down. You know what they have on me, if they catch me. And you know what they have on Pug. It's twenty years for Pug…and for me,”—he give a funny, horrible quick jerk of his body and stretched his lips wide and tight—“Salt Creek! Keep your nerves up, Jake, because this party is only beginning. What can we get at to grab now?”

You see, he was right, because the inside of that safe was all lined with little faces of drawers, each one of them locked, and each one of them fitted in very neat. Still, there was a way to get at them, and Boston tackled them with a small chisel and a three-pound hammer. He would start one of them a little, and then he would take a can opener and fetch that drawer out. The minute he had it out, he would pass it behind him, and the other two would go through the contents as quick as a wink. You would hear them say—“Negotiable stuff!” or “Nothing at all!”—as Boston fetched out drawer after drawer.

Boston didn't seem to be interested in what they said or in what was in the drawers. He was happy in wrecking that safe and in beating the steel and in getting those drawers out so that somebody else could read all of the secrets that was in them. That was his peculiar way of getting pleasure out of life. I suppose that there were hardly twelve times in his whole life when he was really all contented, and those times were always when he was wrecking a safe, somewhere or other.

Right in one minute I could see why Jake and Pug had put up with him so long. I could see why they would have put up with him a lot longer, still. He was worth it and a lot more.

Now there was a noise at the door, and Jake jumped about ten feet and dragged out a gun. Then he crawled up on the door, with Pug behind him. I heard a whisper—and then that door opened!

It wasn't an enemy. If it had been, he would have died very pronto. It was only Jeff—and he stuck in his head and said: “You guys are taking all night. Get a move on you, will you? I'm breakin' my heart out here…and I think that some of the boys are beginning to move.”

“Was there much noise?” asked Jake, all trembling.

“Like a house falling,” said Jeff. “And I can hear every lick of that hammer, as plain as day!”

“We'll make our start now,” Jake said, just turning green. “We've got something. It's better than nothing.”

“So long, boys!” said Boston. “You can have what you got, and I won't put in my claim for it. Not for a minute. I'll be contented with what I get after you're gone.”

Well, they couldn't stand the idea of running off and leaving Boston behind them to gather up the primest part of the loot. They hung around, and he went on opening drawer after drawer until Jake was like a crazy man.

They were getting into the cream of the stuff now, and more greenbacks were coming out than you could imagine. Still there seemed to be more to come. Jake would curse and moan and beg Boston to come away, then he would make a bubbling noise in his throat and gloat over something that Boston had just handed back to him.

That Boston was clear grit to the bottom of him—and, when he had opened the last drawer, he spread it out himself. There were four sheafs of bills with five thousand dollars printed on the wrapper of each bundle. You wouldn't think that there was really that much money in all the world.

Pug had been keeping pretty close tab. He had that sort of a head on his shoulders, going pegging along all of the time and making pretty good headway. He said: “We got about fifty-two thousand dollars in cash. And we got about that much more in stuff that we'll have to give a fifty percent commission on if we want to get rid of it. Boys, the four of us ought to clean up about twenty thousand iron men apiece!

Can you think of that?

You remember the widow back there in Gunther? The one, I mean, that Aunt Claudia used to bust herself to get to the notice of? Well, it was said that she had twenty-five thousand dollars in the bank, but mostly folks thought that it couldn't be so much, it was such a terrible pile of money. And here were four rapscallions that was to get that much apiece! It didn't seem very much like justice, as maybe you'll admit.

Boston said over his shoulder: “Jeff gets his share, I suppose?”

“Why, ain't he been promised?” said Jake

“He's been promised enough,” said Boston. “I don't want to beat him out of nothing. Only…twenty thousand…for what he's done…it's a good deal.”

“Too much,” said Pug.

“I think that you're right, Boston,” said Jake. “But now let's get out of here…I think that I hear….”

We didn't want to hear what he thought. We dropped down into the tunnel.

Once outside the bank, Jake seemed to clear up and lose a good deal of his scare. He grabbed me by the shoulders and said: “Now, Pug…Boston, what about the kid?”

I heard Pug growl.'Aw, leave the kid be. He hasn't done any harm.”

Boston didn't say a word, but I thought I saw the shadows of a gesture that he made.

“I dunno,” said Jake. “I hate to take him along, because, if a pinch comes, he'll be a terrible nuisance. I sure wouldn't leave him behind if I thought that there was any danger that….”

“Ain't there plenty of room for him in the buggy behind that Tippety horse?” asked Pug.

I could have blessed him for thinking of that.

“That's so,” said Jake. “I guess that he would fit in there pretty good. Who's to drive the horse?”

“Jeff.”

“Where's he now?”

“He'll be out at the end of the tunnel in the house.”

It seemed a heavy job to be sitting there in that lonely house, waiting for the robbers to come back.

“You offer Jeff a flat ten thousand dollars,” said Boston to Jake. “That's enough for him and too much for him.”

We hurried on down the tunnel toward the house.