BURGLARY
Merely because he believed that the well-known all was over between
Molly Dale and himself, Racey did not relinquish his plans for the
future.
He rode to Marysville as he had intended. That is, he rode to the
vicinity of Marysville. For, arriving at a hill five miles outside of
town in the broad of an afternoon, he stopped in a hollow under the
cedars and waited for night. Daylight was decidedly not appropriate
for the act he contemplated.
"I wonder," he muttered, as he lay with his back braced against a tree
and stared at the bulge in his slicker, "I wonder if I ought to use
all them sticks at once. I never heard that miner man say how much of
an argument a safe needed. I s'pose I better use 'em all."
Luke Tweezy was a bachelor. His office was in his four-room house, and
he did not employ a housekeeper. Further than this, Racey Dawson
knew nothing of the lawyer's establishment. But he believed that his
knowledge was sufficient to serve his purpose.
About midnight Racey Dawson removed himself, his horse, and his
dynamite from the hollow on the hill to where a lone pine grew almost
directly in the rear of and two hundred yards from the residence of
Luke Tweezy. He had selected the tall and lonely pine as the best
place to leave his horse because, should he be forced to run for
it, he would have against the stars a plain landmark to run for.
He thoroughly expected to be forced to run. Six sticks of dynamite
letting go together would arouse a cemetery. And Marysville was a
lively village.
Racey, taking no chances on the Lainey horse stampeding at the
explosion, rope-tied the animal to the trunk of the pine. After which
he removed his spurs, carefully unwrapped the dynamite and stuck three
sticks in each hip-pocket. The caps, in their little box, he put in
the breast-pocket of his shirt. With the coil of fuse in one hand and
the bran sack given him by Lainey in the other he walked toward the
house of Tweezy.
The house was of course dark. Nor were there any lights in the
irregular line of houses stretching up and down this side of the
street. The neighbours had apparently all gone to bed. Through an
opening between two houses Racey saw a brightly lighted window in a
house an eighth of a mile away. That would be Judge Allison's house.
The Judge, then, was awake. Two hundred and twenty yards was not a
long distance even for a portly man like Judge Allison to cover at
speed. And Racey had known Judge Allison to move briskly on occasion.
Racey, moving steadily ahead, slid past someone's barn and opened up
a view of the dance hall. It had previously been concealed from his
sight by the high posts and rails of three corrals. The dance hall was
going full blast. At least all the windows were bright with light. He
was too far away to hear the fiddles.
The dance hall! He might have known it would still be operating at
midnight. But it was almost twice as far from the Tweezy house to the
dance hall as it was from the Judge's house to Tweezy's. That was
something. Indeed it was a great deal. But he would have to work
fast. All the neighbours would come bouncing out at the crash of the
explosion.
Racey paused to flatten an ear at the kitchen door. He heard nothing,
and tiptoed along the wall to the window of the room next the kitchen.
The ground plan of the house was almost an exact square. There was a
room in each angle. The office, which Racey knew contained the safe,
was diagonally across from the kitchen.
Racey, halting at the window of the room next the kitchen, was
somewhat surprised to find it open. He stuck in his head and saw a
faint glow beyond the half-closed door of the office. The glow seemed
to be brighter near the floor. Racey listened intently. He heard a
faint grumble and now and then a squeak.
He crouched beneath the window and removed his boots. Then he crawled
over the sill and hunkered down on the uncarpeted floor. The floor
boards did not creak. Still crouching, his arms extended in front of
him, he made his way silently across the room, skirting safely in the
process two chairs and a table, and stood upright behind the crack of
the door.
Looking through the crack he perceived that the glow he had seen from
the window emanated from a tin can pierced with several holes. The
dim, uncertain light revealed the figure of a tall and hatless man
kneeling beside the safe. The man's back was toward the lighted tin
can. One of the tall man's hands was slowly turning the knob of the
combination. The side of the man's head was pressed against the front
of the safe near the combination. Racey could not see the man's face.
Across the window of the room two blankets had been hung. The door
into the other front room was open. Then suddenly the doorway was no
longer a black void. A man stood there--a fat man with a stomach that
hung out over the waistband of his trousers. There was something very
familiar about the figure of that fat man.
The fat man leaned against the doorjamb and pushed back his wide black
hat. The light in the tin can illumined his countenance dimly. But
Racey's eyes were becoming accustomed to the half darkness. He was
able to recognize Jacob Pooley--Fat Jakey Pooley, the register of the
district, whose home was in Piegan City.
"You ain't as fast as you used to be," observed Fat Jakey in a soft
whisper.
"Shut up!" hissed the kneeling man, and turned his face for an instant
toward Fat Jakey, so that the light shone upon his features.
It was Jack Harpe.
"What's biting your ear?" Fat Jakey asked, good-naturedly.
"I've told you more'n once to let what's past alone," grumbled Jack
Harpe.
"Hell, there's nobody around."
"Nemmine whether they is or not. You get out of the habit."
"Rats," sneered Fat Jakey.
"What was that?" Jack Harpe's figure tautened in a flash.
"Rats," repeated Fat Jakey.
"I thought I heard something," persisted Jack Harpe.
"You heard rats," chuckled Fat Jakey. "You're nervous, that's what's
the matter, or else you ain't able to open the safe."
"I can open the safe all right," growled Jack Harpe, bending again to
his work.
"I wonder what he did hear," Racey said to himself. "I thought I heard
something, too."
Whatever it was he did not hear it again.
"There she is," said Jack Harpe, suddenly, and threw open the safe
door.
It was at this precise juncture that a voice from the darkness behind
Fat Jakey said, "Hands up!"
Oh, it was then that events began to move with celerity. Fat Jakey
Pooley ducked and leaped. Jack Harpe kicked the tin can, the candle
fell out and rolled guttering in a quarter circle only to be
extinguished by one of Fat Jakey's flying feet.
There was a slithering sound as the blankets across the window were
ripped down, followed by a scraping and a heaving and a grunting as
two large people endeavoured to make their egress through the same
window at the same time.
"So that window was open alla time," thought Racey as he prudently
waited for the owner of the voice in the other room to discover
himself. But this the voice's owner did not immediately do. Racey
could not understand why he did not shoot while the two men were
struggling through the window. Lord knows he had plenty of time and
opportunity.
Even after Jack Harpe and Fat Jakey had reached the outer air and
presumably gone elsewhere swiftly, there was no sound from the other
room. Racey, his gun ready, waited.
At first his impulse had been incontinently to flee the premises as
Jack and Jake had done. But a saving second thought held him where
he was. It was more than possible that the mysterious fourth man had
designs on the contents of the safe. In which event--
Racey stood pat.
He heard no sound for at least a minute after Jack and Jake had left,
then he heard a soft swish, and a few stars which had been visible
through the upper half of the window were blotted out. The blankets
were being readjusted.
A match was struck and a figure stooped for the candle that had been
dashed out by the foot of Fat Jakey Pooley. A table shielded the
figure from Racey. Then the figure straightened and set the flaring
match to the candle end. And the face that bent above the light was
the face of one he knew.
"Molly!" he whispered, and slipped from his ambush.
At which Molly dropped candle and match and squeaked in affright. But
her scare did not prevent her from drawing a sixshooter. He heard the
click of the hammer, and whispered desperately, "Molly! Molly! It's
me! Racey!"
He struck a match and retrieved the candle and lit it quickly. By its
light he saw her staring at him uncertainly. Her eyes were bright with
conflicting emotions. Her sixshooter still pointed in his general
direction.
"Put yore gun away," he advised her. "We've got no time to lose. Hold
the candle for me! Put it in the can first!"
Automatically she obeyed the several commands.
He knelt before the open safe and, beginning at the top shelf, he
stuffed into his bran sack every piece of paper the safe contained.
Besides papers there were two sixshooters and a bowie. These he did
not take.
When the safe was clean of papers Racey tied the mouth of the bran
sack, took Molly by the hand, and blew out the candle.
"C'mon," he said, shortly. "We'll be leavin' here now."
Towing her behind him he led her to the window of the rear room.
Holding his hat by the brim he shoved it out through the window. No
blow or shot followed the action. He clapped the hat on his head, and
looked out cautiously. He satisfied himself that the coast was clear
and flung a leg over the sill.
When he had helped out Molly he gave her the sack to hold and pulled
on his boots.
"Where's yore hoss?" he whispered.
"I tied him at the corner of the nearest corral," was the answer.
"C'mon," said he and took her again by the hand.
They had not gone ten steps when she stumbled and fell against him.
"Whatsa matter?"
"Nothing," was the almost breathless reply. "I'm--I'm all right. I
just stepped on a sharp stone."
"Yore shoes!" he murmured, contritely. "I never thought. Why didn't
you say something? Here."
So saying he scooped her up in his arms, settled her in place with due
regard for the box of caps in his breast-pocket, and plowed on through
the night. Her arms went round his neck and her head went down on his
shoulder. She sighed a gentle little sigh. For a sigh like that Racey
would cheerfully have shot a sheriff's posse to pieces.
"I left my shoes in my saddle pocket," she said, apologetically. "I--I
thought it would be safer."
There was a sudden yell somewhere on Main Street. It sounded as if it
came from uncomfortably close to the Tweezy house. Then a sixshooter
cracked once, twice, and again. At the third shot Racey was running as
tight as he could set foot to the ground.
Encumbered as he was with a double armful of girl and a fairly heavy
sackful of papers he yet made good time to the corner of the nearest
corral. The increasing riot in Main Street undoubtedly was a most
potent spur.
"Which way's the hoss?" he gasped when the dark rail of the corral
fretted the sky before them.
"You're heading straight," she replied, calmly. "Thirty feet more and
you'll run into him. Better set me down."
He did--literally. He turned his foot on a tin can and went down
ker-flop. Forced to guard his box of caps with one hand he could not
save Molly Dale a smashing fall.
"Ah-ugh!" guggled Molly, squirming on the ground, for she had struck
the pit of her stomach on a round rock the size of a football and the
wind was knocked out of her.
Racey scrambled to his feet, and knowing that if Molly was able to
wriggle and groan she could not be badly hurt, picked up the sack and
scouted up Molly's horse. He found it without difficulty, and tied the
sack with the saddle strings in front of the horn. He loosed the horse
and led it to where Molly still lay on the ground. The poor girl was
sitting up, clutching her stomach and rocking back and forth and
fighting for her breath with gasps and crows.
But there was not time to wait till she should regain the full use of
her lungs--not in the face of the shouts and yells in Main Street.
Lord, the whole town was up. Lights were flashing in every house.
Racey stooped, seized Molly under the armpits, and heaved her bodily
into the saddle.
"Hang onto the horn," he ordered, "and for Gosh sake don't make so
much noise!"
Molly obeyed as best she could. He mounted behind her, and of course
had to fight the horse, which harboured no intention of carrying
double if it could help itself. Racey, however, was a rider, and he
jerked Molly's quirt from where it hung on the horn. Not more than
sixty seconds were wasted before they were travelling toward the lone
pine as tight as the horse could jump.
At the pine Racey slipped to the ground and ran to untie his horse.
"Can you hang on all right at a trot if I lead yore hoss?" he queried,
sharply, his fingers busy with the knot of the rope.
"I cue-can and gug-guide him, too," she stuttered, picking up her
reins and making a successful effort to sit up straight. "Lul-look! At
Tut-Tweezy's huh-house!"
He looked. There were certainly three lanterns bobbing about in the
open behind the house of Luke Tweezy. He knew too well what those
lights meant. The Marysville citizens were hunting for a hot trail.
He swung up with a rush.
"Stick right alongside me," he told her. "We'll trot at first till
we get behind the li'l hill out yonder. After that we can hit the
landscape lively."
She spoke no word till they had rounded the little hill and were
galloping south. Then she said in her normal voice, "This isn't the
way home."
"I know it ain't. We've got to lose whoever follows us before we skip
for home."
"Of course," she told him, humbly. "I might have known. You always
think of the right thing, Racey."
All of which was balm to a hitherto tortured soul.
"That's all right," he said, modestly.
"And how strong you are--carrying me and that heavy sack all that
distance." Both admiration and appreciation were in her tone. Any
man would have been made happy thereby. Racey was overjoyed. And the
daughter of Eve at his side knew that he was overjoyed and was made
glad herself. She did not realize that Eve invariably employed the
same method with our grandfather Adam.
He reached across and patted her arm.
"Yo're all right," he told her. "When we get out of this yo're going
to marry me."
Her free hand turned under his and clasped his fingers. S6 they rode
for a space hand-in-hand. And Racey's heart was full. And so was hers.
If they forgot for the moment what dread possibilities the future held
who can blame them?