The Coconino weekly sun., 1894-09-20

ness leave with you. I'll give you
 the combination, and after the rob
 bers have got tired and gone home you
 can open the safe and let me out"
 All rightP says Gates, I'll let you
 out fast enough provided I can re-
 member the combination, but you know my memory isn't what you might call trst-class, and l might forget the combination, and never be able to open the safe. Or course, you wouldn't mind little thing like that, for you'd be snug and comfortable, though per haps a little bit hungry after awhile.
 Well, the conductor kept on chafiing Jim about his new invention, but the two were good friends, though it was afterwaad thought by people who didn't know all the facts that Gates was partly to blame for what hap pened. Jim gave Gates the combina- tion of the safe, and the very next day after the thing was put up in the bag gage car the train was held up just this side of Athensville.
 "rhe robbers climbed into the bag gage car and when they couldn't find Jim they brought out the conductor and told him to open the safe. The conductor swore that nobody knew the combination except Jim, and he wasn't aboard the train that night, but had laid over at Jones' Misery, owing to not feeling very well. The robbers, seeing as Jim was not to be found, believed what the conductor said, and they went to work to pick the lock of the safe. Of course they couldn't do it. Then they tried their center bits, but they couldn't make any impression on the safe. The bits would just slide around and scratch the surface here and there, but they had hardly made dent in the steel. By this time the robbers had got pret ty mad, and they slid the safe out into the open and tired what they could do with dynamite. They must have put lot of stuff under the safe, for when it went off the safe sailed more than thirty feet in the air and came down so solid that she made big hole in the ground. But when they came to examine her she wasn't hurt bit. Not joint nor bolt was started, and except for little black ening of the outside she was as good as new.
 "'This hyar is low.down outrage says the robber captain. The man that made that safe deserves hanging, If ever a man did, for the thing is ,rAt,,cr fr 4s II and will throw hundreds of men out of employment, I hate a man what hasn't any feeling for his fellow men.
 Well, the rest of the robbers they stood around the safe and cussed till they were tired, but they admitted that they couldn't open it, and after awhile they told the conductor that he might take his safe back again, and start his train down the road. Accord ingly, we got the safe in the baggage car again, and after the train was mile or two down the road, the con- ductor ne opens her, and there was Jim, as gay as jaybird, and laughing himself sick over the failure of the robbers.
 '"There wasn't any doubt that Jim's scheme had worked well, and the ex- press company gave him fifty dollars as testimonial of their gratitude for having prevented the robbers from seizing two hundred thousand dollars worth of gold dust. Bimeby a new idea occurred to Jim. You see at that time there wasn't any telegraph on this line, and there being only single track, and that pretty rough one, accidents were frequent. One day when there was a drove of cattle on the line, and Jim, looking out of the car, saw that there was certain to be smash-up, he just opens his safe and gets into it to wait for better times That train went off the track, and the baggage car broke loose and went down an embankment, turning over half dozen times and going clean to kindling wood. When we began to clear things up and missed Jim we all supposed that he had been smashed, but when the conductor opened the safe to see if things were all right, there was Jim, as smiling as a basket of chips, and inquired in a careless way if there was anything the matter with the train. After that Jim regularly climbed into his safe whenever he heard the danger signal, and he never once got the least scratch or bruise.
 Jim was careful man and never neglected any precaution that would make the valuables in his charge as safe as possible. This was why he made it rule to change the combina- tion of the safe every month. About the Sd day of August remember the month because I always suffer from the liver complaint in August and I was off duty at the time and reading in the smoking car, being too sick to work as brakeman-when we came near running into a wagon that was crossing the track When Jim heard the brakes blown down he crawled into his safe and shut the door, expect ing there would be an accident. It so that the wagon got clear of