# The Box (Norton)

Extracted from Popular magazine, November 1920, pp. 140-156. [#David and Goliath]
The Box
By Roy Norton
Author of “David and Goliath,” “The Man Who Talked Too Much,” Etc.
For a couple of bard-bitten miners, handy at gun-play and such, David and Goliath seem to continue strangely in need of a guardian, But then it is one of the things that makes us love them
“THE Mission” in San Francisco is immortal. It has withstood fire and earthquake, “Boss” Buckley, police reforms, and more or less all hard-fought battles with the various city improvement associations. True, its old-time warrens and thieves’ rests have largely disappeared, and its cloak of respectability has become one of more substantial woof and leading to the certain promise that some day it may become a complete and honest suit of clothes.
But—Market Street is still a dividing line, and many strange characters can be found on the “Mission side.” The fraternity that pits its wits against law, order, and the safe possession of property can still draw maps of every alley, byway, or warren on the Mission side; and—such memories are frequently useful for the illicit.
Much of the Mission is highly respectable, inhabited by persons of humble means, honest folk who work hard for a living; but are not millionaires. It has hotels that are frequented by hard-working and respectable visitors from upcountry, downcountry, or the mining sections. And in one of these hotels were for a few days quartered a certain pair of mining partners widely known as David and Goliath—whimsically known as such, because of their difference in stature and methods in enterprise. They were merely resting, making purchases and seeing a few sights before returning to the high hills and cañons of the Big Divide where they not only had mining prospects of their own, but were in charge of certain properties of Miss Martha Sloan, and her brother, both of whom were for the time being in distant Honolulu. :
The partners did not know the Mission. However sophisticated they might be in their own familiar country, they tramped through this section of a city as innocently as a pair of children, as guileless and simple as a pair of babes in the wood. They would not have been lonesome out in the mountains or deserts with no one to converse with closer than a hundred miles; but here, surrounded, and milled about by hundreds of thousands who brushed against them, they were lonely. The sole friends they had made were among men of the water-front and harbor police, due to an accident on their arrival, and these men welcomed them, were interested in hearing them talk—when they could be induced—of that strange hinterland, of deserts and wide spaces. And Goliath and David, in return, were as entranced as schoolboys by tales of city adventure.
“Reckon we ought to be hittin’ the trail for home, hadn’t we, Dave?” said Goliath, one morning, as he stood shaving himself in front of the battered mirror in the obscure but respectable hotel down in the Mission.
“Reckon we had,” David agreed; “but—— By cripes! Ain’t we been havin’ a good time on this trip? Mighty lucky we got acquainted with all them boys down in the police station.”
“Be hanged if we’ve done much else but loaf around there for a whole week!” Goliath exclaimed with a broad grin. “Don’t seem to go anywhere else at all. Ain’t got to know anybody else at all.”
“Except three or four fellers that boards here in these diggings,” David said. “One or two of ’em seem all right. That night watchman feller, Carruthers, seems a pretty good chap.”
“He’s another feller that’s got a job I wouldn’t hanker after. Night watchin’ a bank wouldn’t suit me at all, what with all the desperate burglars and such there is in a place like this. Must be a mighty big responsibility, eh?”
“Wouldn’t like it, any way,” said David, preparing to take his turn in front of the mirror. “Sleepin’ all day and bein’ out all night ain’t natural. Night shift in a mine is bad enough but—— Humph!”
As usual they were the first to enter the dingy little dining room; for their life habit of early rising could not be overcome, and, as usual, they found Carruthers, the night watchman there, he being the only other regular attendant at the small table in the obscure corner that they had modestly selected for their own. On this morning he looked up at them with unusual interest.
“Hello,” he said. “Glad you came down before I hiked it off to my nice little bed. Wanted to see you particularly about somethin’. You men go off into the mountains somewhere above Auburn, don’t you?”
“That’s just where we’re goin’ to-morrow mornin’,” said David, with a sigh of half reluctance. “We’ve loafed too long as it is. Why?”
“Auburn’s quite a good-sized little city and a nice place to live in, ain’t it?” Carruthers inquired casually. “Lots of neighbors, I reckon.”
“Oh, we don’t live there,” Goliath corrected him. “We’re off on the Divide behind, most of the time. And as for neighbors—nearest one is about ten miles, and he’s a chink.”
Carruthers finished his breakfast, eying the partners thoughtfully, meanwhile, and walking with them out to the room that by courtesy only was called “Writing and Smoking Saloon.” He advanced to a big railway map that decorated the dingy wall, and said, “Just whereabouts is it you go? Show me on the map. I’m always curious.”
The partners explained, rubbing hard fingers over the glazed surface of the map, rather pleased than otherwise that the night watchman should have such interest. He seemed to regard their destination as an incredibly out-of-the-world place after he learned that they had to travel by stage for a long distance after leaving the railway, and then pursue the remainder of their journey on foot.
“Great Scott!” he exclaimed. “How on earth do you get your supplies up there?”
“That’s easy,” David declared, grinning at Carruthers’ ignorance. “Old timber road. Rough going, now, because a bit overgrown; but good enough so we can hire a teamin’ outfit to bring stuff in, about once a year. In fact, that’s one thing we’ve been stayin’ here for—to buy a lot of stuff we’re takin’ back with us. We’re goin’ to put up a little stamp mill of our own—one of these new-fangled gas engines runs her.”
Carruthers made a few more desultory inquiries, yawned, and said he must get to bed because he had to get up and out that afternoon, and left them. The partners made their final purchases, paid their last visit to their friends at the police station, and bade them good-by. When they returned to the hotel it was late in the afternoon, and to their surprise they found Carruthers awaiting them.
“Talk about luck,” he greeted them, “I got a chance to put something your way, to-day. That is, if you’d like to make twenty-five iron men for practically nothing.”
“Every twenty-five helps just now,” David replied. ‘What is it?”
“Bank business,” said Carruthers importantly, as if anything connected with his job as night watchman at a bank must be of immense gravity and mystery. “Come up to my room and I’ll tell you.” On the way up the stairs he changed his mind and suggested that, inasmuch as probably the chambermaid might be cleaning his premises, they could go to the partner’s rooms, which they did. “I work for the Steamship National Bank, you know,” he said impressively. “And she’s one of the richest and biggest and oldest and soundest in the world. You know that, don’t you?”
The partners admitted that they had heard of it all their lives.
“Good!” said Carruthers, and went on, still more impressively. “Then you'll understand that they never hire any one to do anything for them unless they know absolutely, that they’re honest. Well, I had to draw my pay to-day, and I overheard the head of the safety deposit ordering one of the clerks to find out the best way to have a box of stuff shipped up-State, and he was growlin’ about the silly things that depositors expect a banker to do for them. Then, all of a sudden, it struck me that was along where you boys were goin’; so I just butts in and asked him if I could help.
“It seems an old cuss that has had a box of stuff stored in the safety-deposit cellars for about five years, wants it shipped up to somewhere near where you two men go, and then left in some responsible, honest person’s care until he calls for it, or sends for it, and he’s ready to pay the shippin’ charges and give the fellers that look after it twenty-five bucks for their trouble. I kind of pulled the long bow when I told the boss I’d known you two men for years; but I told him I’d swear that you were honest, and that you’d see that box through, and watch over it. I know you two fellers won’t throw me down. So there’s your chance. Just like findin’ twenty-five dollars in gold in the road, eh?”
The partners were very grateful. They assured him that they would take charge of the box and protect it as if it were their own.
“Well,” said Carruthers as he bade them good night. “See you in the morning. Don’t know what size this box is; but will find out. Maybe you'll have to come to the bank and get it yourselves. Any way—let you know, to-morrow morning.”
But, very much to their gratification, when Carruthers met them in the morning he grinned and said, “I saved you fellers a lot of bother, all right. Lucky; but the boss of the safety deposit left it to me to send that box off this morning, by an early truck. I cussed a little bit, because if I’d known where you were shipping your other stuff from I could have sent it there and saved a double haul. Had a notion to rout you out, and then thought to myself, ‘No, I ought to keep my eye on this till I get their receipt.’ So it’s out in the hall there. She’s heavy. Reckon this man Gardner, who owns it, must have it full of scrap iron. Funny what stuff some people set values on, ain’t it?”
The partners repaired to the hallway where stood a big packing case, and David gasped with surprise when he saw the stenciled letters on the outside: ‘From Acme Mining Machinery Company, San Francisco. Handle with care.’
“Funny!” he exclaimed. “That’s the place where we bought our stuff from.”
“That so?” said Carruthers, and then brightening up with an idea, laughed, and said, “Say, it’s a piece of luck, that this box came from them some time, ain’t it? All you got to do now is to send it down and ship it along with your other lot, instead of by express.”
“But—but do you think it’s safe? Going by freight, that way?” David asked.
“Safe? For that distance? Of course it’s safe!” Carruthers reassured him. “It'll be there almost as soon as you are, won’t it? And you're going to wait to get the whole lot and take it up into the mountains with you, ain’t you? Only you ought to tend to it right away, because your other stuff might be shipped across the bay before this gets there.”
David hastened away, succeeded in finding a lazy driver of a job wagon and returned with him. Together the partners and driver loaded the case into the vehicle, after which they signed a receipt which Carruthers tendered them, and David personally accompanied the box to its point of shipment.
“Better write to the bank and tell them where you have put this box in storage,” said Carruthers, on parting with them, and then, with a second thought, “No, don’t do that. Write to me here at the hotel. My takin’ the letter up to the bank and handin’ it in will be another little feather in my hat and prove I’m lookin’ after the bank’s interests. Besides, it gives me an excuse to talk to the head guys. Well, so long! I’m off to hit my downy bed.”
They had not expected to see any of their police acquaintances again; but, when they came to the ferry slip, saw not only Morgan, the chief plain-clothes man, but several others they recognized. They would have remained to talk a few minutes with their new friends, but found them all strangely intent and preoccupied.
“Sorry I can’t have a chin with you boys,” said Morgan mysteriously, and in a heavy-villain air of secrecy, “but the fact is we’re keeping an eye on every one that boards a ferry to-day. We’re hoping to pick up one or two chaps that are wanted mighty badly.”
They trudged aboard the boat with their suit cases, and lounged over the rail. Then, debarking, boarded the train, and pulled out of the clanging confusion of the railway station.
The partners’ sense of responsibility increased after they reached Auburn. They were sorry that they had taken Carruthers’ advice, rather than ship the box over which they were custodians as baggage, so that it might be kept under observation. When the freight for which they waited did not arrive on time, they were apprehensive, not so much for their own belongings as for the case which had been intrusted to their care. When the freight did not come for another twenty-four hours they were mightily disstressed, and practically camped in the railway station, and pestered the agent until he snapped, in exasperation, “For the love of Mike, don’t keep rapping on my window to ask if there’s another freight train coming along! I’ve told you a dozen times that your stuff comes on a local freight, and not a through one. A local freight is one that has a car that’s switched out of the train on to our sidetrack. Most likely it’ll be a box car, but if it ain’t a box car, it’ll be flat. And as soon as it gets here, you can bet your boots I’ll see that your stuff’s got off. Get me? Now leave me alone!”
Before they could decide how to act in such a case as this they were diverted by the sound of a whistle, and rushed out to the platform.
“A freight train, by gosh! It’s a freight!” Goliath exclaimed.
And then, to their added disappointment, the locomotive did not even stop, but tore past, dragging its string of cars that sounded a derisive, “Click-click! Click-click!” into the partners’ ears.
“Bet that damn box is on its way to the wrong place, right now!” David wrathfully exclaimed; but Goliath was beyond speech and seated himself on a truck and dropped forward and rested his chin in the palms of both hands, with both elbows on knees, and gave way to despair.
But the partners’ dejection was counterbalanced by their delight when not only their own belongings, but the white elephant of a box, finally arrived, placidly, safely, unobtrusively, just as millions of other shipments had arrived, and, like all their predecessors, were duly turned over to the owners’ care. It seemed ridiculous that all they had to do, after all that vast worry, was to sign their names admitting that they had received the goods in good order, despite the fact that originally they had shipped it with the dread “O. R.,” meaning “owner’s risk.” They did not feel safe, comfortable, and at rest, until that particular box was transported by long and trying stages to their cabin high up in the mountains.
They consulted as to the safest and most secure place for its keeping, and concluded that, if the lower bunk of the tier in which they slept were but four inches higher, it could be slipped beneath and well concealed. That necessitated two days carpenter work. They were very busy with their own affairs, but conscientiously tore out a part of the cabin floor, the stanchions, the bunks, and did their work well, before they could feel peace of mind.
At last they got that precious box beneath, and, for final security, decided to board it in. That required more work, for they had to crawl beneath the lower bunk and fit timbers, and drive nails, by candlelight. It was when the last spike was driven and, perspiring, cramped, and stiff, they stood upright in the cabin, that Goliath threw a hammer viciously on the floor and declared, “If ever again I go into the bankin’ business I hope I drop plumb dead before I sign the papers!”
Spring advanced. Their two responsibilities, which consisted of the care of the Sloan property down on the American river, and the care of the box, were eased by the receipt of a letter from Martha Sloan in which she announced that she could not return before summer, and a scrawled note from Carruthers, that at least had the merit of brevity, and read:
No need to write concerning the matter. Man will pay twenty-five dollars more, if you have to keep it another year.
The partners read this communication and grinned at each other.
“T don’t care, now, if he doesn’t show up for ten years,” said David.
“Yep!” said Goliath.
And so, in time, the partner’s sense of security increased, and, engrossed in opening up their property, they almost forgot the box.
One momentous day they had a letter from Morgan which announced that he and two others of “The Force” were to have a week off, some time later, and proposed to wander that way, find the partners’ cabin, and see if all the fish that hadn’t been caught up there could be hooked. David and Goliath wrote laborious and urgent invitations, each of which ended with, “The cabin’s yours, yours truly.” And so, when summer was on, three men—“plain-clothes men”—tenderfeet from San Francisco, burdened with fishing rods, boxes of cigars, a few bottles of liquids they had collected, a very few personal necessities in the way of combs, brushes, and so forth, arrived one dusky evening at the partner’s cabin.
But now the positions were altered, for while the partners were entirely at home, the plain-clothes men from San Francisco were like a triplet of boys turned loose in a strange environment. But all of them did their very best, the partners to give the others a good time, and—the others to have it. Yet the partners were secretly distressed, and when they had an opportunity to talk alone for a bare three minutes looked blankly at each other, and Goliath said, “For the Lord’s sake! Dave, where can we sleep this bunch? I reckon there ain’t one of ’em that ever slept on a floor, rolled in his blankets, in all his born days.”
“Wish they’d have given us a few days notice, so’s we could have rigged up some bunks,” David answered. “Tell you what we'll do. You and me and one of the boys can sleep on the floor to-night, so two of ’em at least can get some rest, and to-morrow we'll knock somethin’ together.”
A good-natured, laughing wrangle took place over this arrangement, which the members of the force declined, and it was adjusted by cutting jacks from a rather worn pack of cards. Morgan, who had drawn the floor, admitted the next morning that it wasn’t exactly a soft bed, and hilariously insisted that, if the partners were determined to build sapling bunks and cover them with pine boughs, he was perfectly willing to boss the job and see that the others did their work well.
“Easiest way to do the trick,” he remarked, “would be to pull out that lower bunk, swing it end for end, and broaden her out so four could roll in there. Eh?”
The partners agreed, and then suddenly exchanged glances.
“Dave, do you think we ought to—about that box—you know what Carruthers——”
“Carruthers? Carruthers?” exclaimed Morgan, abruptly sitting up from where he had been lounging on the doorstep.
“Pshaw! Might as well tell ’em, Goliath,” said David. ‘We ain’t got nothin’ to fear from these fellers. They’re officers of the law. They know how to keep their mouths shut about banking business. They know that banks is mighty particular.” And then he turned to the listening guests and explained, “Fact is, we got a box under that lower bunk that don’t belong to us, but was put in our keepin’ by the Steamship National Bank down in Frisco. We get twenty-five dollars for keepin’ her till they send for it. And,” he concluded importantly, “of course you know that bank business is always kept secret, and won’t say nothin’.”
“Of course not! Of course not!” Morgan agreed. “But—Carruthers? Who is Carruthers? What’s Carruthers got to do with it?”
“Him? Oh, he’s a feller we got acquainted with while we was stoppin’ at the Observatory Hotel in Frisco. Nice feller, Fact is, he’s the chap that put us in the way of makin’ this twenty-five dollars for doin’ nothin’. He’s night watchman up at the Steamship National, Carruthers is. Got a mighty responsible position, I reckon.”
“It certainly is,” Morgan admitted, and then getting to his feet. “Well, let’s get at it and take down the bunk and shift that box so we can do this job of carpentering.”
But a strange fact, which the partners failed to observe, was that much of the infectious hilarity, and boyish freedom of the men on vacation appeared to have given way to a strictly businesslike industry as they assisted in dismantling the lower bunk and pulling it apart. Morgan asked questions, when the box was exposed, as to why it had been boarded in. Once one of the officers started to ask a question, but was silenced by a swift and secret gesture from the chief detective.
“Now! Drag it out!” said Morgan and bent forward expectantly. In fact, his eyes opened widely, his lips half parted, and his whole attitude was one of curiosity and eagerness. Not until he saw that it required the full efforts of two strong men to move the box to the center of the room did his pose change, and then jt swiftly altered to one approaching excitement and exultation.
“By gee whiz!” he exclaimed. “Got it, or I’m a goat!”
The partners, mystified, stared at him with round eyes. Morgan’s two companions seemed to share his excitement. They made way when Morgan hastily walked across to the box, bent forward and scrutinized it closely, read the stenciled markings, and even tested its weight with his own hands.
“Who put those marks on the box?” he demanded, eying the partners.
“That’s just the way she came to us from the bank,” David explained. “And—sort of funny, wasn’t it? But you see we'd bought our little stamp outfit and engine from the Acme people, so them marks came in right handy. But—I sure hope we didn’t do nothin’ wrong when—when we shipped it by freight, did we? Carruthers told us it’d be all right.”
“So Carruthers suggested shipping it by freight along with the rest of your outfit, did he?” dryly questioned Morgan. “I suppose he told you it would be just as safe as if it went by express, and maybe that it would save expense, didn’t he?”
“By gosh! That’s just exactly what he said,” David answered. “But—hang it all!—he was right, wasn’t he? Maybe we hadn’t ought to have let it out from under our noses, but—the answer is, it’s here, and I'll take my oath it looks just the same as it did when we got it! Not a nail loose in even the iron binding strips. She’s just as she was when we got her, as far as I can make out.”
For a long time Morgan scrutinized David’s perturbed face, and Goliath’s somber one, appeared to be convinced of their sincerity, and then said, “Boys, the only way to find out, is to open that box and see if what was in it is undisturbed, or whether—it’s filled with nothing more than bricks and paving blocks!”
Both Goliath and David started as if in agony.
“My God!” muttered David huskily. “That would be awful! And after Carruthers and the bank trustin’ us to take care of it, and—— We could never make ’em believe that we weren’t the thieves!”
Morgan, the shrewd old man hunter, whose life had been passed in studying characters, actions, and manifestations of men, read these two as if they were but open books.
“No use to worry, yet,” he said, much as if he were addressing a pair of terrified boys. “You can leave it to me. I’m going to open this box. The bank won’t hold you responsible—for that. I’m now the head of the detective force of San Francisco, so you needn’t hesitate over that part of it.”
And before the partners could have objected, had they so desired, he picked up a hammer that had been lying on the floor, slipped the claws beneath the heavy iron binding straps and lifted one up.
“Um-m-mh! Top is fastened down with heavy screws. Might have expected that. Get me a big screw driver.”
David ran out to the tiny engine house and returned with one? Morgan calmly removed one after another until the center boards of the top were all loose and then tried to lift them.
“Double battens beneath,” he “Might have expected that, too. Got to remove the whole top.”
There was a tense stillness in the cabin, broken only by the sounds of the screw driver as he twisted and turned, or the shuffling of feet as the men standing about him shifted and moved. They all bent forward and stared as he lifted the entire top of the packing case, and then all were again restrained when they saw exposed the top of a heavily and substantially built trunk. Moreover, it, too, had been bestowed with the utmost caution, for it was securely fastened by hardwood cleats and screws to the outer case.
“Here, Bill, you take a turn at this job. It’s hard work, and I’m getting tired,” said Morgan to one of his men.
Again they all stood and watched as screw after screw was laboriously removed.
“Turn her upside down so the trunk can fall out,” Morgan ordered, and stepped aside while they all obeyed. “Right that trunk,” he said, and, when they had done so, bent over and inspected it. The locks were doubled and new and strong; but the gray-haired man wasted no time.
“Nothing to do but bust ’em,” he said, and the partners, somewhat horrified, but submissive to his authority, saw him lift the hammer and bring it heavily down on one after another of the four hasps holding padlocks, until all yielded. He threw the hammer aside and lifted the lid, exposing nothing more than layers of folded newspapers which he tore away hastily as if to discover anything beneath. And there, neatly, solidly packed, layer on layer, were flat packets of currency, and squat canvas bags. Morgan picked up a bundle of bills and read aloud the figures printed on the paper binding, “Five thousand dollars.” He glanced at his audience and added, “That’s the bank’s own count. Now for the others.”
One after another, quite as if these precious packets were valueless, he picked them from the trunk and tossed them on the floor, until all the currency was removed.
“A hundred and five thousand dollars!” gasped one of the detectives, as if staggered by the sum of wealth.
David and Goliath, the partners, who had brought this burden to its resting place and kept it beneath a bunk in the belief that it was but a collection of junk, stood speechless and bewildered.
“Five thousand dollars in gold!” said Morgan, lifting and dropping back into its place a heavy bag. Then he counted the other bags, with groping fingers that segregated them, one after the other. “Sixteen of ’em! Sixteen bags of gold! Eighty thousand dollars. Think of it, men! A hundred and eighty-five thousand dollars.”
He stooped over and lifted bag after bag to the floor until he disclosed several layers of old blankets and a flattened piece of carpet.
“Clever crooks, the men who packed this stuff! They had a lot of space to fill, so that the loot wouldn’t rattle in the trunk, and there’s not even so much as a suit of old clothes to give ’em away. Not a thing to incriminate ’em. But—we’ve got the goods!”
“But—but—what does it mean?” stammered David, the smaller of the partners, bending forward and scowling beneath his red eyebrows and red hair at the fortune that lay exposed.
Morgan glanced at his confreres, gravely smiled, and carefully restored the wealth to the trunk and banged down the lid before he answered. He turned, sat upon it, and then looked up at the partners.
“It means,” he said thoughtfully, “that we’ve accidentally stumbled on something we've been looking for a long time. It also means that if we didn’t know you two to be honest men, you’d be in a pretty bad fix—right now! You’ve been used as a tool by one of the cleverest crooks that ever blew a safe and——” He stopped, grinned, rubbed his chin, and ended, “I think we’ll get him yet!”
He stood up, looked at the treasure chest, and then said to his confreres, “Boys, I’m afraid our vacation’s over before it more than started. We can’t lose any time in getting this stuff back to its owners. That is the first thing to do. If Field and ’Liath will arrange for some way to get this trunk hauled out to Auburn, we will start back with it, to-day.”
“But—but——” David objected, “you might tell us what it’s all about. You say this chap Carruthers has used us as if we were a pair of boobs. Tell us how?’
Morgan stared at him for a moment, and then said, “All right, I will. Suppose we go outside and sit on the bench.”
They moved out through the door and sat down, and Morgan lighted a pipe before he satisfied their curiosity.
“First,” he said, “you two men came up to Frisco, stopped in the Observatory Hotel, and there met a man calling himself Carruthers, who told every one he met that he was a night watchman in the Steamship National Bank. That was clever, because it was to explain why he never went out in daylight, and was apt to be out at night. You see, Carruthers had to cover his tracks. I call him Carruthers, but that isn’t his real name.”
He stopped for a time, seemed to recall all that he had learned regarding the man, and then went on:
“His real name is O’Leary. Up to the time when he was about twenty years old he was a machinist, and he worked for the Pall Safe & Lock Company, and got to be an expert. Then he was taken into their confidential department. They used to send him out to open safes and vaults and strong boxes, whose mechanism had gone wrong, or when combinations were lost. The men who do those jobs are always skilled and specially trained; and entirely trustworthy men, Maybe it was the temptation, or—Heaven knows what!—but, anyhow, the company made a mighty big mistake in educating and then trusting O’Leary. He went wrong. One night, he cracked a safe in a country bank, and if his pals hadn’t squealed, would never have been suspected. He did about three years for that job, and then, when he came out, turned loose.
“There’s no doubt he was in on a dozen other jobs; but he got nipped for but one, and did five years more. Somehow, his wits got sharpened by experience, and, although he has been in court a half dozen times since, and it’s practically certain that he mixed up in another score of big hauls, nobody could ever get the goods on him. The man is a fox.
“Two or three of the jobs involved murder, and it’s dollars to pennies that O’Leary wouldn’t hesitate at murder, if it came to a pinch. But, as I said, he always got away through lack of evidence. Smart? Although he was watched always by the best men in the country, he got clean away and was in San Francisco two months before we got warning that he was known to have come there, and then we couldn’t find him, and thought he had merely come through and passed on. We'd forgotten him when the big thing blew up. Then we remembered him too late.”
“We did that, all right!” growled one of the other detectives.
“Had us for fair!” the other interjected, and Morgan nodded acquiescence.
He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and turned toward the partners.
“You see, one morning, about ten o’clock, we got a telephone scream from the Pine Oridental Bank to send men up there—quickly—and to say nothing. So the man that was then chief—the chief before me that was—called for me and a couple of others, and up we went. The P.-O. had been cracked as if it was an egg. All its fancy vaults and safes and everything, had been gone through as if they were of paper. What showed the marks of experts was that, although the bank had been robbed of a hundred and eighty-five thousand dollars, nothing whatever was taken but worn currency and gold.
The gold was the mistake! Gold is heavy as we all know. The burglars hadn’t been able to resist it, clever as they were, and had gotten away with nearly three hundred weight of gold. That proved to us that several men were on the job, because no one man could have carried it very far. Moreover, two watchmen, who had been sandbagged, then bound and gagged, agreed that there were more than two men on the job. One of them recovered consciousness enough to be certain that, although nothing but the outer vault was blown, there was one man in the gang who was so expert that he turned all the locks-of the inner safes in about as much time as it would take a hungry man to eat a meal.”
The chief stopped, shook his head, and grinned, as if rather pleased by the adroitness of the thieves.
“Never saw anything like it!” he exclaimed admiringly. “Not a thing had been overlooked. Not a mark in the dust, not a finger print. Nothing! Nothing whatever to give a clew, or a lead. Might have been done by ghosts wearing kid gloves and felt slippers. Front doors opened with skeleton keys. Watchmen nabbed silently. Main vault blown without attracting attention from the roundsman. All we could get was that the bank had been robbed of a fortune, and—the weak point—greed again!—the burglars had gotten away with three hundred weight of gold.
“Old Hearnes, who was then chief, called up every man he had and—believe me!—nobody with a heavy bag went out on any of the ferries, or on any train down the line toward San José, for thirty days, without some of our men being sure of what he carried. Well, all we could do was to find out where any sudden flourish of gold had been changed. And there wasn’t any. Most always thieves are out to spend what they’ve stolen; but in this case it wasn’t so. Nobody showed up around the tenderloin, or in any of the gambling joints, or at the races, who attracted any attention. Nobody had any more money to blow than usual,
“In fact, for about three months, everybody we suspected seemed to be busted. Hearnes went wild. He threatened to fire every man in plain clothes and to dampen the others in uniforms. Things were hot. The whole blamed force was out trying to grab an idea of who had robbed the bank, and the worst of it was that the bank wouldn’t let it become public that it had been cracked. Financial things were shaky.”
Morgan laughed as if highly amused by the bank’s predicament.
“Naturally, spotting was all we could do,” Morgan went on. “And more than any man in San Francisco, Carruthers, as you call him, was watched. But here is the astonishing thing about that crook; nothing—absolutely nothing!—can be got on him. Two days after that bank robbery he got a job in the United Iron Works, at his trade, and has been there ever since.
“But he didn’t change hotels, so we got a man in there one day and went through all his stuff, without finding a thing. We had his mail watched; but he received one letter only in three months, and that was merely a reply to one he’d written to a Seattle firm asking for a job. He joined a trades union, took out a card in the public library, spends most of his evenings indoors reading, and on Sundays goes to church. He’s always been a teetotaler as far as we can find out, doesn’t smoke, never mixes up with women of any sort, good, bad, or indifferent.
“He opened up a little savings-bank account, and deposits part of his week’s wages there like clockwork. In fact, he acted as if he had cut out the crooked stuff entirely, and become an A-1, decent, hard-working citizen. The only friends he seems to have, or to have made, are men who are undoubtedly respectable in all ways.
“One of our shadows was within hearing one day when an old yeggman, who’d been in Sing Sing with him, held him up on the street, and O’Leary cusses his old pal out, tells him he’s reformed, says he’s learned it pays best to be honest, and that he’s going to keep on as he is until he’s saved money enough to open a machine shop of his own. He ends up by telling the yegg that if he ever speaks to him again, on the street or anywhere else, the yegg will get his block knocked off.”
Morgan suddenly brought his fist down with a bang of annoyance on the bench.
“Think of his cleverness! See how smart he is! If somehow I hadn’t been suspicious of all such reformations in such men, I’d have called the watch off months ago, and made up my mind that he had turned on the level. In fact, I had thought so at times, and kept track cf him only because I thought maybe that some of his old pals might meet him, and that out of some of ’em we could pick up a new lead on the big bank robbery.
“There must have been four men, or possibly five, in on the job. One of them was probably the expressman who was so conveniently waiting to haul the chest from where it was turned over to you to the freight depot; and perhaps another is, or was, a porter in the hotel where you two men stopped. Carruthers furnishes the brains for the combination. He and his gang had spotted the bank, and by studying it and the methods of the watchmen, had decided how to crack it. The only thing that bothered them was how to get away with such a lot of loot. Just while he was worrying over this problem, you two miners came along, and Carruthers’ attention is attracted by you because—well—because you're a pair that nobody could avoid noticing.
“I did the first time I saw you—and—I’ve watched men, and studied ’em all my life. Again, you two fellows don’t talk much, but, because you’re honest and haven’t done anything to be ashamed of, you aren’t exactly—ummh!—secretive. A man like Carruthers could know you inside out and learn all about you the minute he got your confidence. I’ll bet ten dollars to one you told him where you mined, what kind of a place it was, how to get here, and that you were shipping up some mining machinery that you had bought from the Acme people! Now, didn’t you?”
“By heck! We did!” exclaimed David wrathfully.
“I thought so,” Morgan remarked, with a quiet grin. ‘Well, Carruthers saw his chance and nailed it. He knew that the hardest job of all, far harder than getting his hands on the loot, would be to dispose of it in some way until things blew over; to land it in some place where it could be recovered when it was safe for him to get away. It was to be a tremendous haul, because—make no mistake!—a single job paying a hundred and eighty-five thousand isn’t common by any means. The common, or garden crook, blunders by stealing new bank notes that he tries to change. He can’t resist the sight and feel of new money. In all that lot in there, you'll not find a single batch of new bills. Banks don’t usually keep track of the numbers on old ones. They can be changed anywhere and can’t be traced.
“But just the same, the quantity that Carruthers planned to take would have been almost impossible to hide or get away with. It would be easy in New York, but San Francisco is on a peninsula, and is hard to escape from, if the police decide to watch every man who leaves the town by ferry, steamer, or trains that run from one point. You two miners offered Carruthers a way out. You were shipping mining machinery, by freight, from the Acme Company. If he could get one of their packing cases, or another, and imitate the stencil, then get the stuff to his rooms, pack it, and land it in with your lot, not a soul on earth could suspect that a fortune was actually being smuggled out of town.
“He saw another opportunity to make the haul a big one because he could ship gold, which is so heavy that under ordinary circumstances he would never have dreamed of touching it. Moreover, just because mining machinery is heavy stuff, the heavier his box, the less danger of attracting attention from those who handled it. And, what is more, he picked as innocent tools the very men that he knew were on good terms with the police force and whose stuff would never be very closely examined if, at the last moment, they chose to carry the heavy box across the apron of a ferryboat.”
The partners looked as if their souls were troubled; but Morgan gave them no chance to talk.
“I think the first thing we’ll do will be to get this money back. I'll take Bill with me on that job, and think it’s best to leave Pete here with you two until we come back; because—boys, you’re up against at least three or four, and possibly, five men who, if it came to a show-down, wouldn’t have any more hesitancy in wiping you out than they would in killing a couple of lambs. If it happened that they showed up here and you weren’t on guard, I can’t tell what might follow. Carruthers’ way would be to send you some sort of order, probably signed by him for the bank, to turn the box over to bearer, and so forth.
“But we can’t tell what sort of a thug he’d send for it, or what would happen, if it was turned over to that man, and he took it away and then examined it to make sure and found out that the dough was gone. So I’m going to leave Pete here to camp on the box filled with stones, and nailed and screwed up just as it was when we found it, until we get back. By that time, if I’m fit to hold my job, Ill have something else doped out by which, with any luck, we ought to nab the whole bunch.”
David took a few steps until he could look into the interior of the cabin, where a nickel-plated alarm clock hung on the wall and said, “Well, I can’t quite get the whole thing through my head yet! But this I do know, that either Goliath or me, by hiking fast, can borrow a mountain buckboard and a pair of mules from a feller over across the forks and be back here with ’em this afternoon.”
Morgan was visibly pleased.
“If you can borrow them, and do the driving yourself, it will help to keep any outsider from knowing about it. Remember that I’m depending on that very point—that no one shall know anything. One of you had better go at once.”
Goliath accepted this mission, and within fifteen minutes had disappeared. Morgan began discussing the best way to carry the treasure, and this time it was David who offered a suggestion.
“I can put new hasps on the trunk and stow it back. Why not put all the currency into your suit cases, which you can carry, and let me make a box for the gold that I’ll ship by express, claiming that its some machinery that has got to go back for repairs?” he asked, and Morgan agreed that this was a most excellent plan. They fell to work, and by the time Goliath returned with the buckboard were ready to load the treasure thereon.
“Don’t forget for a moment,” Morgan adjured, “that you are dealing with cool, desperate, and murderous men. Pete knows the danger. And as for Bill and me, we shall probably be back here in about three days—just as soon as I can get my plans laid. Well, so-long!”
Goliath and Pete put in the day restoring the box and trunk within to their original appearance, and rebuilding the bunk above them. When David returned late at night, and on foot, after having delivered the borrowed buckboard, the cabin wore its habitual look.
“Got ’em away slick as a whistle,” he informed Goliath and the remaining detective, Pete. “But that Morgan is certainly one cautious man! He and Bill got out at the edge of the town and hoofed it in from there after warnin’ me that if they saw me again we weren’t to let on that we knew each other at all. Said he didn’t think it likely that any of the gang might be on watch at the station, but that he wasn’t takin’ any chances.”
If there had been any watch kept over the shipment, there was nothing to indicate it for the next three days, during which time the partners resumed their regular work, following Pete’s advice, and the detective himself seemed to keep watch over the cabin in his own way. On the third night, long after the trio had concluded that Morgan was not coming, they were disturbed by the appearance of a livery-stable proprietor from Auburn who had found much difficulty in finding his way through the obscure road, and who, yelled: outside, “Hey, you fellers in there!” When David opened the door he was puzzled~by the man’s next words:
“Brought your three miners up from the railway. The fellers you hired, you know.”
Before David could reply and explain that there must have been some mistake, a roughly dressed man dropped to the ground and came forward. His voice sounded familiar, and David recognized it as that belonging to Morgan.
“Oh, glad you got here,” said David, readily enough.
“Come on, fellers. This is the place,” Morgan called to the others, and two other men jumped out of the spring wagon and pulled therefrom rolls of blankets and bundles that would have done credit to any perigrinating miner coming to a new job. David had recovered from his surprise, and was sufficiently astute to play his part.
“You boys will have to sleep on the cabin floor to-night, so you can dump your stuff inside,” he said.
It was not until the teamster had turned his tired horses and disappeared on his homeward journey that any explanation was given.
“Well,” said Morgan, with a grin of satisfaction, “the Pine Oridental Bank has got its money back, and maybe they weren’t glad! And now for the rest of it. I called off everybody keeping track of Carruthers. Never can be sure that he hasn’t been wise to the fact that he was being spotted all the time. What I want to do is to give him a free hand. I’m handing him the rope to hang himself.”
He chuckled as if amused by the blank looks of the partners, and the questioning stare in Pete’s eyes. Bill and the other detective grinned cheerfully.
“I sort of took pains to spread the news around, through that fool livery-stable driver, that you were opening work a little heavier up here. In a mining country such news travels fast. Within a week every one around this section will be talking about this mine, and you two men, and hinting that you’ve struck something big. So to-morrow, all my bunch, including myself, are going to learn how to mine, and—we’re actually going to work. No bluff about it! We're going to do our best so that if anybody floats in to look us over, he can see us hard at it. Get me? We’re going to put up a big bluff, because, to-morrow, you’re going to write a letter to Carruthers. Here’s the idea you are to put in your own language and get mailed.”
He took from his pocket a typewritten paper that he handed to the partners who thoughtfully read it:
Dear Mr. Carruthers: Your bank has never sent for the box you gave us to take care of. We don’t like to keep it any longer, because we've opened up our ledge and are going to put on a gang of men to work. Somebody might get on the job that would get curious about the box and break it open to see what’s in it. You'd better get some one else to keep it for you. We didn’t know whether to write you or the bank about it, but thought maybe you would write and tell us. Of course, if this doesn’t reach you so we can get an answer in a few days, we shall know you have moved from the Observatory Hotel, and that all we can do is to write the bank and tell them we think we have earned that twenty-five dollars they promised to pay us for keeping it, and ask them to tell us what to do with it or send somebody to get it. Of course, there’s nothing in it that’s worth anything to any one but the owner, it’s up to him. Maybe the bank will tell you about that part of it. If there’s nothing in it that anybody could steal, we can stick it anywhere until it’s sent for.
“Carruthers,” said Morgan, “will call for that box or send for it, within a few days. It he calls for it himself, he will first make certain that he’s not being led into a trap. If he doesn’t, all we’ve got to do is never, under any circumstances, to lose sight of that box full of stone, because, sooner or later, it will lead to some of his gang.”
The letter, phrased less perfectly and entirely clothed in David’s language was mailed on the following day, while four San Francisco detectives, superintended by Goliath, learned the art of building a cabin that would appear as a mess and bunk house. On the third night it was occupied by four tired men who spread their blankets on fir boughs and expectantly waited. And on the fourth day there came a letter, delivered into a rural delivery box three miles away, that read:
Yours received. Sorry that you can’t care for the matter a while longer. Shall call or send word within ten days. Do not write regarding it to any one but me. Important, as will explain later. Inclosed find money order for twenty-five dollars. You will get that much more when I call or send. Wishing you the best of luck, I am, yours truly,
John Carruthers.
“It’s ten chances to one that he will study this place well before he calls or sends any one for the box,” David remarked; “so, if you want to really nab him; it’s best for all of you to really mine. Besides—we don’t kick none on having a good, husky gang of men for nothing in wages.”
For a whole week they waited and worked. Morgan declared that it was doing him much good physically. By common agreement, the subject of their real work was never openly discussed, and their conversation could have given no eavesdropper any intimation that any of them were other than they appeared, hard-working miners, The sagacity of this rule was proven when, while they were at supper in the dusk of the eighth evening, a man, who had approached noiselessly, stepped into the doorway and said, “Good evening, men.”
“Good evening,” they responded in ragged chorus.
“I’d like to speak to ’Liath or Field,” the visitor said, without moving inward, and David got to his feet and moved toward the door to suddenly exclaim, “Hello! Why it’s Carruthers! Goliath, here’s our old Frisco friend. Come in, Carruthers!”
Carruthers acted as if reassured by his reception; but was still too cautious to take any chances. He gave a significant gesture to David, and stepped outside, whither David followed.
“All those fellows in there your men?” he muttered.
“All of ’em workin’ here,” David assured him, at which Carruthers seemed somewhat relieved.
“I’ve got a team and a driver up the road there a piece. He wasn’t quite sure about the road, so I told him to wait there till I came down to see if I could find out if this one went anywhere, and was the right one,” Carruthers lied glibly. “No, we can’t stop to eat. We brought along a lunch with us that we finished when it didn’t look as if we were getting anywhere. I want to get that box to Auburn to-night so we can turn it over to its owner. He’s down there in a hotel. But with that gang of yours hangin’ around, maybe—well, banks like to have things done quietly. I told you that, lots of times, and——”
David stood before him, the picture of unblinking innocence and trust, the epitome of guilelessness. He turned and glanced toward the cabin from which the sounds of conversation wafted, all relative to ledges and leads, and just then Goliath came sauntering forth as if to greet an old acquaintance and joined them with, “Hello! How are you? Come in and eat.”
David did not heed his partner’s interruption, but said, “Best thing for you to do, Carruthers, since you won’t stop and take a snack, is to go back and bring your team down here. The men most always go over to the bunk house as soon as they’ve grubbed, and sit around on a bench outside. Your box is in our cabin under my bunk. I can make some sort of excuse to them fellers so they won’t think nothin’ about it, if they was to see you load it in the wagon. They won’t even remember it, most likely, by to-morrow mornin’. Sure you can’t stop overnight with us?”
“Sure!” said Carruthers. “Got to get a move on. It’s pretty dark now, and will be darker yet before we get out to the main road. I'll go get my team.”
He turned to go, appeared to remember that he had paid but scant attention to Goliath, stopped long enough to say a few words to him, said, “See you in about an hour,” and walked away into the little opening in the forest where the road ran. The greenery swallowed him, as the partners watched. The conversation of the supposed miners in the cabin had come to an abrupt stop. David and Goliath went in and detailed the conversation with absurd exactitude. Morgan asked a question or two, but his men preserved a deferential silence.
“Good! Well done, Field,” he said, when David had concluded. “Here’s what we must do. Bill, you are to slip around and hide yourself half a mile up the road. When that wagon passes you, you're not to lose sight of it and the box, but to follow. Pete, you and Tim are to come with me and play cards in the bunk house. Dave, you and Goliath are to stay here and help them load that box full of stones.
“Then you are to urge these crooks to stay overnight, and when they go, are to bid ’em good-by as if nothing had happened to make you suspicious. After they go you are to walk inside, sit down and do any fool thing you can think of for a half hour. Light the lamp and leave the door open so that if any one is left behind to watch you, they can see you doing it. After that pretend to go to bed, turn out the light, and follow up that road as fast as your legs will carry you, because we may need you before morning. Come heeled! Now, out we go!”
Not more than a half hour later, in the dusk that had now deepened into a starlit gloom, with the promise of moonlight behind the eastern peaks, a mountain buckboard rattled into the clearing and came to a stop in front of the cabin door. From it leaped Carruthers and a man the partners had never before seen. These latter glanced in the direction of the bunk house and saw therein nothing more threatening than three men, roughly clad, and in shirt sleeves, playing cards.
The partners greeted Carruthers and his companion, reiterated their invitations to stop overnight, and then, when the proffered hospitality was declined, dismantled the bunk and exposed the heavy packing case. Carruthers quietly and carefully examined it, in the meantime keeping up a stream of inconsequential remarks. David saw him turn toward his accomplice and grin and give a quick nod, as if in assurance that all was well, and that the box had not been tampered with. They carried it out and hoisted it to the conveyance, and then, again, the partners urged the pair to remain overnight, assuring them that haste was useless and the road through the forest difficult.
“We can find the way, all right,” Carruthers asserted. “And, besides, it’ll soon be bright as day, with moonlight.”
“Ever been up this way before?” David politely asked the driver.
“Far as the main road,” the man said easily.
“Well, you can’t miss that,” David remarked. “It’s three miles from here, but there’s no crossings and you'll have it all to yourself. Same as if you owned it, and all the stumps in the middle.”
The man laughed as if appreciating the joke. Carruthers glanced across to the mess house where the card players were still visible, promised to call on the partners and spend a day or two with them after he had finished his work, inquired about the fishing and shooting in that locality, referred to the additional twenty-five dollars he had paid them, and turned to wave them good night as the buckboard moved away. The partners scrupulously obeyed Morgan’s instructions, by undressing with the lamp lighted, extinguishing it, and then reclothing themselves in the darkness. The detectives did likewise.
The partners slipped out of their cabin first, and exercising full knowledge of woodlore kept under cover until they reached the road. To their surprise they heard the sounds of a man rapidly walking ahead of them, and paused to hold a consultation. They did not deem it possible that it could be Morgan or any of his men, and their suspicion was confirmed when, a short time later, the man hunter and his subordinates came slipping quietly through the gloom.
“Um-m-mh! It’s good news,” said Morgan. “Also it’s well that we covered up the way we did; for unquestionably Carruthers left one of his men behind to watch for anything doubtful. We must hurry now and try to overtake that chap without his knowing that we are on his trail. Dave, you are the smallest and quickest and stillest of the lot of us. Suppose you go ahead and we will keep far enough in the rear so that we can’t be in danger of giving an alarm.”
David slipped down the shadows of the road almost at a run and then, convinced that he must have gained to a dangerous point, took off his boots and, defying stumps or ruts, ran noiselessly. He came upon his quarry and in a moment more might have blundered into him, had not the man stopped and whistled a few bars of a popular song, after which he stood and listened. The proof that it was a signal came when, from a few hundred yards in front, the same tune was repeated. The man moved forward with David almost on his heels, and near enough to overhear him greet the others. David, slipping still nearer him, made out the outlines of the wagon into which the man climbed, saying as he did so, “Everything’s all right. The whole outfit down there has hit the hay. I watched ’em turn in.”
“It’s a mighty good thing for them that they didn’t show too blamed much curiosity,” Carruthers growled. “I didn’t want to wipe ’em all out, if it could possibly be helped. They’re such a simple lot of boobs.”
The wagon moved forward, slowly, with the horses sometimes stumbling over the stumps, and the driver wishing that the moon would rise; but David crouched beside the road and waited until his friends arrived. Unlike the criminals, these had no more fervent wish than that darkness might continue to hide their movements, as well as to render the progress of the wagon slow. They picked up the missing member of their party and began a silent and dogged pursuit, barely keeping within hearing of the bumping wagon wheels.
They were hot, and feeling the strain of their work, when the wagon turned into the main road, and they knew that their heavy work had but begun; for immediately, the horses ahead of them were urged to a trot and they were compelled to run to keep within hearing. They began to divest themselves of their clothing and throw it behind bushes at the sides of the road. They were at last running like athletes clad in nothing more than trousers and shirts, and with bellowing chests and arms held to their sides. They strung out, according to their endurance, with David and Morgan in the lead, Goliath third, and Tim, the latest arrival from San Francisco, dropping slowly behind, but doggedly striving to carry on in this trying night marathon.
“Lord! Hope they’re not going to do this all night,” Morgan was panting, when David suddenly reached a hand over to his arm and restrained him.
“Stop!” he whispered. “Stop! They’re slowing down, and that may mean they are going to turn off the main road.”
His surmise proved correct. It seemed as if the driver was not quite certain of his position, for they heard two men get down and search for something by the roadside.
“Here it is. I’ve got it,” they heard a voice call, and the wagon again moved forward for a hundred paces, and then a man led the horses carefully into what proved to be an old road almost completely overgrown with brush, and with nothing but the absence of trees to show that it had ever been cut through the forest. The wagon bumped and scratched and tore its way along, the brush rasping along the bottom of its bed and crashing under the wheels. The three criminals were all on foot, and one of the pursuers heard Carruthers vent a succession of oaths as a brush flew back and struck his face.
For nearly a mile this continued, and then the pursuers saw ahead of them a lantern, and heard a shout. Carruthers and his men responded, the wagon struggled forward for another lap, and then suddenly moved into an old clearing and stopped. The followers, slipping cautiously forward, saw that it had reached an old, half-ruined cabin, probably abandoned by some placer miner, for a decade or more. Light shone from the open door and through the broken windows.
“Got it, did you?” inquired one of the men there, and Carruthers replied, “Surest thing you know. Easy! You see it was just as I told you fellows, down there in Frisco; that it pays never to be in too big a hurry. And half of you growled and cussed like a lot of idiots because you hadn’t any patience. We had to wear the bulls out until they quit spotting me and keeping an eye on any of you boys.”
One of the other men laughed and said, “That’s right! They kept a mighty interested watch on me all the time I was workin’ up there in Portland, but never got anything on me. How about you, Cal? You was the biggest kicker of the lot.”
“If you think it’s any fun tendin’ bar in a lousy Nevada minin’ camp for forty bucks a month, when you know you’ve got a wad all waitin’ for you, you’re off your nut. That’s why I wanted to get it over with,” growled a surly voice.
Carruthers was apparently the leader of the gang, for he climbed into the wagon and said, “Here, Cal, you and the others help me get this stuff inside. And Mike, you may as well take the horses out and give ’em some feed and water. The rest will do ’em good, because they’ve got a long, hard day of it, to-morrow, and we ought to start not later than four in the morning. How far off is that car you’ve got cached, Cal?”
“About thirty-five miles from here, I reckon,” came the reply. “Glad I don’t have to stick with Mike and the nags.”
“They’re plenty good enough for me,” declared the man who was unhitching the horses. “I can take my time, and I reckon most likely I'll not sell out until I’m well over into eastern Oregon. But what I do is none of your damned business, once you get your share into that automobile, is it?”
“Ah, shut up!” Carruthers added an oath, and they continued their work. He appeared to command their obedience, although sullen growlings indicated that it was not through affection, but sheer fear.
The watchers saw the heavy box carried inside the cabin, and Goliath, whose position commanded a view of the interior, saw it deposited on the floor. A littered table, some cooking utensils and supplies indicated that one or perhaps more of the men had occupied the cabin for several days, and Goliath shrewdly surmised that one man at least, probably the teamster, had been there long enough to familiarize himself with the way of the partners’ camp, and had probably watched it more or less for some time to assure himself that the new men were actually mining.
The wisdom of Morgan’s forethought became plainly certain; his injunctions against reference to the box of loot, his explicit demand that none of them ever speak aloud of their plans or refer to the robbery, to San Francisco, or anything other than mining. Doubtless, time and again, every word they uttered had been overheard and weighed by listening ears of some one of these men, until he became convinced that they were harmless, and unsuspecting.
The surly teamster trudged into the cabin where there were now six men, all watchful and waiting eagerly as if at last their long period of restraint had reached its climax. Carruthers alone seemed cool and unhurried.
“Clear off that table,” he ordered curtly, and then, as one of the men moved as if to recklessly brush its littered tin plates to the floor, “No, not that way, you fool! Do you want to leave all this truck behind in such a mess that if any one blundered into this shack he’d become suspicious that it had been left after a murder? I tell you to put that stuff away just as if whoever had lived here was coming back!”
He even compelled the men, with a sort of malignant obstinacy, to clean the cabin up and sweep the floor before he made any move from the box on which he had been calmly seated with folded arms, and observing eyes.
“Now,” he said at last, “we'll open and cut this stuff up as agreed. One-third for me and the other two-thirds to be split equally between you five. That’s right, ain’t it? For if anybody’s got any kick, now’s the time to make it. We're all here.”
He looked challengingly around, and then when none raised an objection, reached over and took a hammer from the table and began ripping the metal binding off the box. Obedient to Morgan’s whispered orders the detectives and the mining partners had taken positions around the cabin and were peering through the chinks where time had melted away the mud in places, thus giving view to all within.
Both David and Goliath would have thought this a favorable time to rush the job to a finish; but Morgan’s instructions had been positive that no move must be made until he gave the signal, because he wished to gain as much incriminating evidence as possible from the conversation that must inevitably ensue. The veteran’s thoroughness permitted nothing less than a gain of all possible knowledge before coming to the final clinch. The men within crowded closely around Carruthers, bent forward, peering, rapacious. The men without listened and watched, restraining their very breathing as if fearful that even the sound of exhalation might reach the obtuse and engrossed ears of some of the criminals whom they had run to earth.
Under Carruthers’ hands the bindings were ripped away. Some of his men grumbled when he took a screw driver from his pocket and assailed the first screw with quiet, deliberate movements.
“Bust her open! What’s the use in wastin’ time?” one voice exploded.
Carruthers looked up and stared at the man, in the meantime holding his hand, and asked, with sneering emphasis, “Who’s doing this? You or me?” And then with exaggerated deliberation and care continued his task. As if through sheer determination to impose his will upon his followers, he removed every screw across one end of the case, then down each side, and across the opposite end, when he might as well have lifted the boards and thrown them aside. He took meticulous care with each screw, working slowly and in silence, and the watchers outside saw interchanged glances that approached rebellion. Plainly Carruthers’ bullying domination was reaching its end, and none but those waiting outside appreciated the possible dénouement when the contents of the treasure case were exposed.
The tensity of the men within increased when, the trunk removed, their leader calmly unlocked the padlocks and lifted the loosened lid, exposed the wrappings beneath. For the first time he hesitated, bent forward, and scowled at the tops of the blankets, apparently recalling that he had packed the stolen treasure with nothing but layers of currency covered by a newspaper. He caught his breath, held it, and the watchers could discern in that well-lighted room the hardening of his face, the setting of his jaws, and his increasing hesitancy, as he glanced sideways at those who surrounded him, desperate men all, none of whom would hesitate to kill him in the passion of swift disappointment.
And then they saw an extraordinary manifestation of coolness and nerve; for he abruptly looked upward, scowled, thrust his elbows back against the nearest men, and said, “What the hell is the rush? Can’t you give me room to work? I’m smothered here in this hot room. It’s as if the whole cursed bunch of you was afraid I’d grab the stuff and make a bolt for the door. Get back. Give me room! Here, if you’re afraid I’m goin’ to grab the stuff, one of you can fish it out.”
He stood up, pretending childish anger and obstinacy, and backed away, but the watchers saw that he chose the doorway for his direction. Their nerves tensed, and they gathered themselves for conflict; but the voice of the driver, Mike, brought Carruthers to a halt. To those without it sounded menacing in its coolness, as if its owner had become distrustful.
“No,” he said, “go ahead and finish the job. No use in gettin’ peeved over nothin’, is there?”
Carruthers stood, plainly exposed, and all his followers stared at him, as if they, too, had become suddenly imbued with suspicion and anger. He did not move, even when Mike gestured him to proceed, and then slipped backward and quietly closed the door. Suddenly Carruthers turned at bay and, seeing that he was in a position where nothing but his brain could save his life, raised one fist and smote it into a palm.
“Somebody has opened this box since I packed it,” he cried. “It wasn’t me! I swear it. There were—there were—nothing but newspapers on top of the bills!”
One of the men, unable to longer restrain himself, reached forward and jerked the blankets aside. He lifted one of the packages up, tore from it a wrapping of old denim, and exposed a heavy stone. As if doubting touch and vision he lifted and unwrapped a second, threw it to the cabin floor, along which it plunged and rolled heavily, and then there was a moment when no one spoke and all glared at Carruthers. He recognized the danger of his position and rallied himself to meet it. He knew that he was in the hands of any but lenient, forgiving, or trusting men, and faced them.
“Boys,” he said, “I'll swear I packed it in that box. All of it. Nearly two hundred thousand! Don’t fly off the handle. It’s not my fault. I never kept even a single green one for myself. Would I have taken a chance on coming here, if I'd got away with it?”
Even in the passion of disappointment, his men appeared to ponder this, and the pause gave him hope. It was broken by the voice of Mike.
“Cut that stuff out!” he said icily. “You didn’t come because you wanted to. You came because you knew that I was on you like a tiger! Because you knew that if you didn’t come, I’d slit your throat if I had to swing for it. What you hoped for was a chance to make a sneak and leave us to hold the bag, damn you! You tried to get me fired from my job as night porter at the Observatory Hotel, so’s you could git away, didn’t you?”
“I never did!”
“You lie! What we want to know is just this—where’s the stuff? Where’d you hide it? Me and the other boys know you never packed it in this box at all. You've tried to double cross us. The only chance you got is to lead us to it. Ain’t that so, fellers?”
A chorus of curses and growls assured him that he was fully supported. For a time, they stood glaring at their deposed leader, and under the menace of their eyes he floundered, hesitated, stammered, and tried to speak. He was like a terrified lamb surrounded by a pack of hungry wolves. He wet his lips; and put his hands to his throat as if encouraging voice, and then, helpless and dumb, fastened his eyes on the worthless treasure case.
“Goin’ to spit it out, or ain’t you?” demanded his persecutor. “No? You ain’t?”
There was another wait in which Carruthers tried to formulate some excuse, some sentence that might stay proceedings. Almost imperceptibly they closed in on him, a relentless and insistent band, waiting for his explanation, and ready to exterminate him, if he failed to convince them of his thieves’ rectitude. And while those within and without waited for his explanation, there was an angry shout, coupled with a curse, and a shot that exploded with all the immense noise of a bomb in the tiny space, and Carruthers lurched forward against the table and stared at the man Mike who, in blind fury, had fired from his hip with the expert quickness of the trained gunman.
Carruthers’ eyes flashed into an expiring glow, and a determined anger. Before those around could grasp his intent, his own hand flicked downward toward his pocket, his coat bulged outward, and there was a second explosion. Mike, who had been facing him with fixed eyes, swayed for an instant, in a tense silence, as if power of muscular control were lost, dropped back toward the floor, came into contact with the bereft treasure chest, sagged thereon and gently laid his head upon his arms over the bare table as if overcome by sleep.
Carruthers, with either curiosity or triumph in his dying eyes, watched him until he came to rest and then suddenly released his own hold on the edge of the rough table. threw both hands upward, and pitched backward to the cabin floor. No one observed that the door had suddenly opened. The two shots had come so closely together that roar and echoes intermingled. The stillness subsequent was pervading. It was broken by a calm voice from the doorway, “Put up your hands, men!”
Startled, surprised, and somewhat dazed by their own unexpected tragedy, the desperadoes whirled and saw the white-headed Morgan quietly confronting them with a heavy automatic pistol held unwaveringly toward them. The man called Tim, who was somewhat behind and sheltered by another, ripped out a curse and a gun. Instantly from the window by him came a shot that shattered his hand and the gun fell to the floor. David, who looked through a broken pane and in whose hand was a heavy frontier pistol from whose muzzle curled upward a tiny wreath of smoke, merely smiled.
“Anybody else want to try it?” he inquired in his pleasant drawl.
The town of Auburn still remembers the strange passengers who boarded the morning train, four of whom were handcuffed together, and is still discussing the coroner’s inquest over the bodies of two notorious bandits and burglars who had slain each other almost simultaneously. But what the town probably does not know is that, when some weeks later in San Francisco, four criminals were sentenced to San Quentin, the two principal witnesses of the inquest, David and Goliath, were themselves given a surprise.
“Dave, you and Goliath will have to come with me to wind this thing up. We’ll take a taxicab and get it over with,” said Morgan, and, thinking that there must be some other legal matter unfulfilled, the partners dutifully submitted.
The taxi stopped in front of an imposing stone building, and David, peering upward at the door which they were entering, saw for the first tine the Pine-Oridental Bank. Both he and Goliath were rather overawed by the grandeur of its interior, by its long rows of bright and ornate brass cages, its little army of clerks who looked up curiously and began interchanging whispers, and also by the fact that Morgan conducted them through a door marked “President,” where they were immediately ushered through another marked “Private.” A white-haired man arose from behind a table, smiled and spoke to the chief detective and was introduced.
“So,” he said “You are the partners known as David and Goliath The appellation seems to fit. Please take seats.” And to Morgan, “Yes, we got news of the conviction in five minutes after the sentence was passed. Our lawyer phoned. Your official declaration is that Field and ’Liath here are entitled to the rewards offered, so I’ve drawn a joint check for the entire amount, which includes not only the reward offered by out bank, but by the International Bankers’ Protective Association, which they’ve wired me to pay. It’s a tidy sum!”
Neither David nor Goliath had ever dreamed of receiving reward of any kind for anything on earth but hard work; so they sat dumbly and blinked at the slip of paper the banker handed them which called for twenty-five thousand dollars. Morgan and the banker smiled at their manifest astonishment. David was the first to recover.
“This all for us? Where does Morgan get off?” he queried.
“As officers of the law, they cannot accept——” began the president, and was interrupted by David with—— “Oh, I see! That bein’ so, I reckon me and my pardner’d rather have it all in cash—say in hundred-dollar bills with a few fives, ones, and a little silver. Ain’t that so, Goliath?”
For a moment the giant stared at him, as if striving to fathom his intent, and then his face suddenly warmed into a fine grin as he rumbled, “Sure! Sure! So’s we can cut it six ways and make the right change. I reckon there ain’t no law agin’ a square deal, and if there is—well, Davy, me and you'll have to bust it. That’s all!”
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1942, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 81 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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