Part 36 (1/2)

”Opinion indorsed!” said the other convict.

For a few moments there was complete silence on the summit of Devilbrow.

Somewhere, on an upland farm in the distance, a cow mooed. Then a rooster challenged all comers.

”That's the word, old top!” agreed the tall man. ”It expresses my feelings,” He clapped his hands against his legs and cried in his tenor, imitating the singsong of the rooster, ”We're here because we're he-e-ere!”

Then he and his fellow sat down on a ledge outcropping that overtopped and commanded the position of the other men. The convicts surveyed Vaniman and Wagg with a complacent air of triumph. ”Are you willing to take things as they stand, or do you feel that you can't go ahead till your curiosity has been scratched?” inquired the short man.

”Curiosity!” stormed the ex-cas.h.i.+er. ”Do you dare to call the feeling I have in me curiosity?” He thumped his fist against his breast.

”And how about my feelings, with escaped convicts racing and chasing all over this country?” shouted the guard. ”What has happened to that prison since I've been off my job?”

”One at a time!” The dumpy man put up his hand to shut off the stream of questions that were pouring from Wagg. ”The young fellow has his innings first. He has more good reasons for rearing and tearing. It's easy enough to get out of a state prison when you have a trick that can be worked once.” He winked at Wagg. Then he directed his remarks strictly at Vaniman.

”I'm going to talk free and open. We're all in the same boat. We're a couple of pots, and both of you are kettles, all black. Now, listen! I'm Bill.” He stuck his finger against his breast and then tagged with it his pal at his side. ”He's Tom. Bill and Tom have been humble and hard-working yeggmen, never tackling anything bigger than country stores and farmers' flivvers. Once on a time they were in a barn, tucked away waiting for night, and they heard a man running a double s.h.i.+ft of talk--beating down the farmer on the price of cattle and blowing off about gold coin h.o.a.rded by the bushel in a rube bank.”

Stickney's unruly mouth! Vaniman understood. ”So, says Bill to Tom: 'Why not go up like everything else is going up these days?' Says Tom to Bill: 'I'm on.' We took our time about it, getting the lay of the land.

We went down to the big burg to buy drills and soup and pick up points on how to crack a real nut. Equipment up to that time had been a gla.s.s cutter and a jimmy for back windows and padlocks.”

He was humorously drawling his confession. He stopped talking and lighted a cigarette. Impatience that was agony urged Vaniman, but he controlled himself. Wagg did not venture to say anything. His thoughts were keeping him busy; he was mentally galloping, trying to catch up with the new situation.

”And let me tell you that when Bill and Tom got back up here, they had colder feet than the weather accounted for. General headquarters, that camp!” He jerked thumb gesture toward the log cabin. ”It had been our hang-out in times past when we operated in this section. Handy place!

Finally got up courage enough to go to the job. Fine night for it!

Deserted village. Peeked into Town Hall and saw the general round-up.

Light in the bank. Bill was boosted up by Tom and got a peek over the curtain. One fellow inside adding figures--much taken up. Bank-vault door wide open. Front door unlocked. Crawled in. Kept crawling. Crawled into bank room. Grille door wide open. Bill up and hit fellow with rubber n.o.b-knocker--it snuffs, but is not dangerous. Tom is handy by with the chloroform--always carried it for our second-story work.”

The young man began to stride to and fro, striving by using his legs to keep from using his tongue.

The narrator snapped the ash off his cigarette. ”Bill and Tom looked at each other. Did they expect such easy picking? They did not. The stuff had been fairly handed to 'em. They dragged the stuff out--all the sacks of it. Transportation all planned on. Couple of handsleds such as we had seen leaning up against the houses in the village. Slipped the fellow into the vault with his hands tied and shut the door with a trig so that he couldn't kick it open right away. Idea was that anybody stepping in later would think he had gone home; we intended to put out the light; nothing desperate about us; we wouldn't shoot the bolts. Bill said to Tom that there'd be a hunt for the fellow when he failed to show up at home, wherever he lived, and he'd sure be pulled out of the vault in good season. Thoughtful, you see! Not b.l.o.o.d.y villains. Simply wanted time for our getaway. Slow pulling up this hill with handsleds! But we slit a bag to make sure of what we would be pulling. And we kept on slitting bags. And--” the short man shook his head and sighed. ”You say it, Tom. I'm trying to be sociable in this talk with these gents--showing a full and free spirit in coming across with the facts.

But I don't trust myself!”

”Nor I!” declared Tom. ”We'd better not spoil a pleasant party.”

”Well, Bill wrote his sentiments, as they occurred to him at the time.

Then we heard somebody hollering at the front door that we had left open. We ran and jumped behind the door of the bank office. The fellow who galloped in ran a few times in circles and then he galloped out. He might have noticed a rhinoceros if the rhino had risen up and bit him.

But he paid no attention to Bill and Tom behind the door. And Bill and Tom walked out. And we managed to get clear of the village just as that Town Hall crowd broke loose.

”Says Bill to Tom, when they were on their way: 'It's plain that banks are bunk, like everything else these days. Let's stick to our humble line where we know what we're doing.' But, having been studying bank robbing, we had got ourselves nerved up to take desperate chances--and we bulled the regular game in Levant. Coa.r.s.e work, because we were off our stride. All due to the bank. The bank stands liable for damages.

We're up here collecting. Cas.h.i.+er, consider what regular and desperate cracksmen would have done to you! Considering our carefulness where you were concerned, and the trouble we have been put to in getting out and chasing you, what say?”

Again Vaniman got a strong grip on his emotions. He was a fugitive; these cheeky rascals had his fate in their hands; he was not in a position to reply to their effrontery as his wild desire urged. He did not dare to open his mouth just then with any sort of reply; he did not trust himself even to look their way.

”Think it over,” advised the short man, composedly. ”But please take note that there are now four of us in on the split, and that quartering it makes easy figuring.”

Mr. Wagg was not composed. This threat to disrupt his fifty-fifty plan brought him out of something that was like stupor. ”You belong back in state prison, and I'll see to it that you're put there.”

The man who called himself Bill was not ruffled. He waved his arm to indicate the spread of the landscape. ”Doesn't being up here above the world lift you out of the rut of petty revenge? Can't you see things in a broader way? I can. I feel like praising you for that job you put up to get our valuable friend out where he can help all four of us. For many a day, after I saw that you had this friend out in the yard and were interested in him, I tended less to making harness pads and more to watching you through the shop window. I was interested in the gent, too.

Tom and I had made up our minds to be as patient as possible for seven years--and then be rusticating up in these hills, right on hand to help him in the ch.o.r.e of digging it out of whatever hole it's hidden in.