An apprentice to a mob of yeggs has to do the rough, unskilled work just
as if he were learning a trade from any craftsman. I was sent out to get
dynamite, caps, and fuse at a railroad construction camp, and returned
with them safely. My next job was to go out and buy a number of twist
drills. Johnnie hired a horse, bought a couple of blankets and a pair
of overalls, and set off to look over the general store. The dynamite
and drills were to be left near the store so they would be available in
case they decided to “crush” into the jail and beat the box while
serving their time.
He returned in a week, very enthusiastic. The box looked good. There
were guns and ammunition in the store. The jail was empty. There was a
blacksmith shop where other necessary tools could be had, the town was
dead at night. He had fitted keys to the padlocks on both the jail cells
(all this would have been my work if I had not been known in the town),
and had planted his “dan,” caps, and fuse safely near the jail. He had
picked out another spot near the jail where the money was to be planted.
Their plan was to buy tickets to the town nearest the one where I was
arrested, on the same passenger train, then to get out and on the
baggage, where the hostile constable would find them. I was given enough
money to supply my wants till the business was over. They secreted the
jail keys carefully in their shoes. The cautious Johnnie had also
planted in the empty jail files and blank keys to be used in case they
lost those they were carrying.
“The only danger is,” said Sanc, “that some other bums may be picked up
and thrown into this jail with us.”
“In that case,” Johnnie replied, “we’ll have to do our ten days and
crush right back in again and stay there till we can get the jail all to
ourselves.”
“Kid,” said Sanc, as they were leaving, “watch the papers. If it goes
all right we’ll be back in about two weeks. If it goes wrong, and you
never can tell, you will know from the papers what happened. Then send
somebody up to the ‘stir’ to see George and he will tell you what to
do.”
Ten days later the burglary was reported in the papers. Four thousand
dollars had been taken from the general store and the man hunt was on.
The burglars had worked quietly. The theft was not discovered till
opening-up time the next morning. The thieves were evidently experts,
and left behind them the most complete set of safe-breaking tools seen
in years, etc., etc. They had escaped by taking a hand car from the
section house. It was found wrecked several miles down the railroad
track.
Johnnie and Sanc had strengthened their alibi and strangled any
suspicion that might fall on them by taking the “John O’Brien”—the bums’
term for hand car, so called because every other section boss in those
days was named O’Brien—and starting it down the railroad. There was a
slight grade and it traveled several miles before jumping the track into
the ditch, where it was found wrecked, “abandoned by the burglars.”
The hunt started from there. Blanket stiffs looking for work were
brought in, questioned, locked up for a day or two, and let go. The
trains were searched up and down the line. Bums were brought in, got
their ten days, but the burglars escaped and in a week the hue and cry
was over. It was almost three weeks before the burglars showed up at
Ogden. They were nervous and irritable, complaining that the jail had
got uncomfortably filled up the last few days they were there. They got
lousy from the blanket stiffs. The constable was sore about the burglary
and wouldn’t square them for a ride into Salt Lake as he had done for
me, and they had to pay their fare out of the town. Their money was
almost gone, and there, in that little burg, was four thousand dollars
that couldn’t be touched for at least a month, and somebody was liable
to “steal” it on them. I got nervous, too.
We decided to go up to Pocatello and kill the month around Salt Chunk
Mary’s, where we would be safe and welcome, and where they could borrow
enough money to live on until the time came to go after the four
thousand. After a night’s ride we were welcomed by Mary, who spread the
customary feed of beans and salt pork before us. She inquired anxiously
about “Foot-and-a-half George.” She seemed to know every bum on the road
of any consequence.
Johnnie put in his time down in the jungle drinking with the bums. Sanc
and I either watched the fine six-foot Indians that stalked about the
town looking scornfully at their white inferiors, or the tinhorn
gamblers who skinned the railroad men on pay days and each other
afterward.
Pay day was coming on and the town took on a busy aspect. Small-money
gamblers appeared with their women companions. “Brass peddlers,” bums
who sold imitation gold jewelry, principally rings, appeared on the
streets with their ninety-cents-a-dozen gold “hoops” made in Wichita,
Kansas, and “dropped” them to the Indian squaws and railroad laborers
for any price from one dollar up. Other bums had bundles of pants and
shoes planted in the jungle, the proceeds of a boxcar burglary on the
Oregon Short Line. These articles were peddled openly about the
railroad shops and to trainmen in the yards. A band of yeggs on their
way to Great Falls and then to the “Canadian side” stopped off to
thresh out their “soup” in the jungle.
The “Johnson family” became so numerous that a “convention” must be
held. In any well-ordered convention all persons of suspicious or
doubtful intentions are thrown out at the start. When a bums’
“convention” is to be held, the jungle is first cleared of all outsiders
such as “gay cats,” “dingbats,” “whangs,” “bindle stiffs,” “jungle
buzzards,” and “scissors bills.” Conventions are not so popular in these
droughty days. Formerly kegs of beer were rolled into the jungle and
the “punks,” young bums, were sent for “mickies,” bottles of alcohol.
“Mulligans” of chicken or beef were put to cooking on big fires. There
was a general boiling up of clothes and there was shaving and sometimes
haircutting.
The yeggs threshed out their “soup” and prepared for the road. The
“brass peddlers” compared notes and devised new stunts for “dropping”
their wares. Traveling beggars, crippled in every conceivable manner,
discussed the best “spots” for profitable begging. Beggars of this type
are always welcomed at a “convention” or any other place where thieves
or bums congregate.
This may seem strange, but it’s a fact. The underworld beggars are the
most reliable and trustworthy, the most self-sacrificing and the
quickest to help of any class of people outside the pale of society.
Crippled, wounded thieves, fugitives and escaping prisoners, if they
know what they are about, always turn to the beggars for aid and are
never refused. They are sheltered in the beggar’s humble “flop,” his
small “plunge” (money he begs) is divided with them, and he carries
messages any distance to their friends and relatives. The beggar minds
his own business, settles his own feuds, and I cannot recall ever seeing
one of them in court testifying against anybody for anything.
This convention at Pocatello ended in a most unusual way. Nobody was
killed, none of them fell in the fire. There was no fighting. When their
“pennies” were all “slopped up,” and the food eaten, the bums folded
their tents and stole silently away to their different activities.
Sanc and Johnnie borrowed money from Mary and we went back to Ogden,
where they prepared for their journey, horseback, after our coin.
“Are you both going?” I asked.
“Yes,” they answered without looking at each other. I wondered if each
mistrusted the other, and if I would ever see either of them again, or
any of the money.
My fear of never seeing Sanc or Johnnie was groundless and a wrong to
them. They returned within a week to the cheap lodging house where we
quartered at Ogden. The four thousand was split in three equal parts. I
was sent out with about seventy-five dollars in silver coin to lay off
for paper or gold. They looked at me curiously as I stowed away my bit.
“Top dough for you, isn’t it, kid?” said Sanc.
“Yes, two hundred was the most I ever had. I didn’t expect to get
one-third of this money. I doubt if I earned it. I took no chances. You
two did all the work.”
“We talked that over,” he replied, “and decided you were entitled to an
even cut. It was your caper, you located it. You had the nerve to
propose what we first thought was a bughouse caper. We are clean so far
as the coppers are concerned. If we ever do any time for this we’ll have
to plead guilty to it. The constable of that town would be our best
witness if we got picked up on it. He would never admit that we could
screw (key) out of his jail, beat that box, plant the coin, throw the
jail screws in the creek, and go back and lock ourselves up. He might
admit that it could happen to some other jail, but he will swear it
couldn’t be done to his, see?
“But here’s the main reason we gave you an even cut of the coin. From
the way you stepped in Smiler’s case, and the way you took your jolt in
the cooler at the ‘big house’ we know you are ‘right.’ If anything had
gone wrong with this caper and we had to take a pinch, we figured you
would have been a big help on the outside. That’s why you are declared
‘in and in’ with the works.
“And now that we can lay off for a while, where will we go?” turning to
Johnnie.
“First,” said Johnnie, “we’ll go back to Pocatello and pay Mary. She
told me she was going to Salt Lake soon to visit George at the ‘big
house.’ I want to send a few dollars to some people there. The kid here
wants to pay the hundred to Shorty that went to Judge Powers and the ten
George gave him. You’ll probably want to send something, too. We can
give it all to Mary and she’ll deliver it. While we’re there I’ll have
her buy me a pair of ‘smoke wagons.’ No telling how soon I’ll be broke,
and if I have a couple of guns I won’t be helpless. Then I’m going home
for the winter, if nothing happens. When I got this last jolt I wrote
and told my people I was going to Alaska for two years and they
wouldn’t hear from me till I got back.
“I go home now and then when I have a decent piece of money. My old
people are both living, and I’ve got seven brothers and sisters. I bring
them all something nice for presents, not that they need anything, but
just to rub it into them. I am the youngest and always had to take the
leavings. The first lock I ever busted was on the pantry in the kitchen
of my old New Hampshire home, so far away.
“Where are you going, kid?”
“I’d like to stay with you people, but if you are going to split out,
I’ll go to San Francisco for a while.”
“You can go with me,” cut in Sanc. “I’m going to San Francisco for the
winter. No New Hampshire winter for me.”
I think the two of them were looking forward to a few months of quiet,
peace, and maybe dissipation. My thoughts were running ahead to future
burglaries. No thought of going home, even when Johnnie was telling of
his home life. When I was hiding in the empty house covered with
Smiler’s blood, I wanted to go home, because I was in a tough hole. Now
I was safe, independent, the life fascinated me. No thought of home now.
“What shall I do with the balance of the dynamite and drills?” I asked.
“Somebody might step on the bundle and blow the house down. It’s planted
out in the back.”
“I’m going to meet George here in the spring when he gets out,” said
Sanc. “It would save us the trouble of stealing more if we could plant
it.” He was thoughtful for a minute.
“Kid, in the morning you go up to the bank and rent a safety box for a
year—it’s about four dollars. Arrange with them to let any one into it
that brings a key. Tell them there will be nothing of value there, just
papers, and that you may want to send some one else after them and to
let any one open it who comes with the key—better get two keys. After
you get the box arranged for, come down, get the ‘dan’ and ‘stems’
(drills), and put them safely away in the box. When you get the receipt
for the box rent tear it up, throw the pieces away, and bring me the
keys. I’ll plant them here in this joint somewhere where I can find
them when I return.”
Johnnie laughed. “Sanc, are you going to plant that stuff in the ‘jug’?”
“Certainly, the bank will take good care of it and it won’t deteriorate.
I’m not going to carry the box key around on my watch chain and put the
receipt carefully away in my pocket. If I get snared by the bulls they
won’t know I’ve got a safety box unless I snitch on myself, and if I
were going to stay in this town my money would be in that box, too.”
When the bank opened next morning I rented the box and was given two
keys and a password, and was told that anybody bringing a key and the
password would have access to the box. “Even if it’s a Chinaman,” said
the attendant.
The receipt was destroyed, and the stuff, in a neat parcel, put in the
box. Sanc took the keys, planted them somewhere about the premises, and
buried the password in his fertile mind.
“Go down to the depot, kid, and get three tickets to Pocatello. We’ll
all stay uptown till the train is ready to pull out. No good hanging
around that depot, it’s lousy with bulls.”
Johnnie was a typical knight of the road. He believed that beds were for
sick people in hospitals, that room rent was wild extravagance, and
paying fare on the railroad nothing but ostentatious spending. He
protested.
“Sanc, you’re not going to start paying fare?”
“Yes, I am, and I’ll buy you a ticket to California if you’ll come. Just
look at the pleasure you would have beating your way from there back to
your home town in New Hampshire.”
“That’s the funny part of it,” said Johnnie. “My home town is twenty
miles off the railroad and I always have to pay fare on the stage going
in and out.”
Back at Pocatello we paid Mary the borrowed money, and spent some in her
place for interest. She gladly undertook to deliver the money we wanted
to go to our friends at the prison, and we gave it to her, capable woman
that she was, feeling as sure they would get it as if we were doing it
ourselves.
Mary bought or sold anything crooked. Johnnie paid her for a couple of
guns and gave her an address in Chicago to express them to. He could
have bought them cheaper there, but in the matter of buying guns he was
careful. Mary was square, and no matter what happened, she would not
talk.
“Be sure and get thirty-eight caliber, Mary,” he cautioned. “I won’t
have any off calibers or strange make of guns. I want the kind that
everybody else has. I don’t want to shoot anybody, but if I do they
won’t dig a forty-one caliber slug out of him and find a forty-one
caliber gun on me.”
We parted at Pocatello, agreeing to “weigh in” (meet) at Ogden in the
spring; Johnnie starting home, where he never arrived, and we to the
Coast.