JUGGLING WITH DEATH
“Curses on it, George; my key won’t lock it!” groaned Mark Shinburn, as
he turned, twisted, and in every way tried to move the bolt of the key
lock in the door of the big steel vault.
“Don’t give it up, Mark,” I whispered encouragingly, and he manipulated
the key again, until, cold night as it was, the perspiration stood like
tiny bubbles on his face. I could see it with the aid of the candle
which threw a dim light in the banking office.
“No use, George,” he burst out again, presently, throwing himself flat
on the floor; “it won’t work, and the trick can’t be done to-night;
we’ll have to try it another time!”
“But we’ve got one of the money safes,” said I, by way of
encouragement, as I swung open the steel door of a safe in the vault,
disclosing many packages of money, mostly in large bills and not a
small quantity of gold and silver. “Your key worked on this one to a
nicety.”
“Yes, curse it!” Shinburn mumbled; “it seems I got one to fit, but this
one will not,” and he contemptuously tossed a key on the floor at my
feet. “We might get along well enough under these conditions if I could
relock the vault door, but I can’t. The duplicate key will unlock it,
but will not, try as I may, lock it again. As it is, the vault door
can’t be left as we found it, and we’re in a pretty mess.”
“It unlocked it easily enough,” I commented, as I took the key from his
hand, and, thrusting it home in the vault door lock, attempted to turn
the bolt at lock again. In vain--I could not.
“I’m losing my cunning,” went on Shinburn as I was working; “here I’ve
made three keys, and only one will do the trick for which I shaped it.”
I looked at my watch, for a new thought had come to me. I said, “Lock
the money safe, Mark, and let’s get out of this, for the night clerk
who sleeps in the bank will be here in ten minutes.”
“I’ll do it, but what about the d--d vault door? We can’t lock that,
and to leave it open means the certain discovery that some one’s been
tampering with the vault. We’ve come a long way from New York to make a
failure.”
“We can’t leave it any way but unlocked,” I said; “and, as a matter of
fact, knowing the habits of cashiers as I do, I’ll wager that nothing
will be thought of the door being found unlocked. The cashier will
think he has been careless, and you can be certain that he won’t
squeal on himself. In the meantime, we’ll make the keys fit. Don’t
forget the safe key you threw on the floor.”
Shinburn continued to sit on the floor like a child in a pout.
“Come, Mark, come!” I spoke harshly and almost aloud, impatient over
his tardiness and seeming indifference to our danger. “We’re taking a
long chance remaining here like this.”
“Blast the luck!” he growled again, “to think we’ve got to miss
this fine opportunity of getting away with that swag.” Never in all
my experience with Shinburn, this master crook, had I seen him so
confoundedly obstinate and so much disturbed. He was an icicle, as a
rule--nothing stirred him. Tonight he was disgusted clean through.
“There, that safe is locked,” he said at length, as, springing from the
floor, he threw the money safe door to, and turned the key home. Two or
three small fortunes were shut from our view. “And that one,” he added,
“will be open the next time we come, if we do, or I’ve lost all my
cunning.”
“Hold your tongue, Mark,” I said, “and come with me.” How often I had
been obliged to urge discretion upon him, for he was ever running
risks. As we came out of the vault I closed the great steel door,
and once more tried to throw home the bolt. It was useless to try.
Shinburn seemed to look at me sarcastically, as though he would tell me
there was no hope of locking the door if he couldn’t do it. Leaving
everything as we found it, we left the bank by the rear door. Scarcely
had we done so when the night clerk let himself in by the front door.
It was the first work done on the inside of a St. Catharines bank in
Ontario, Canada, the vault of which, we had been informed, held a
treasure worth the miles we had come to possess it.
The prize seemed to be within our reach, when the failure of the
duplicate keys to work brought irritating delay. The cash in one of
the safes might have been carried off that night, but it would have
been flatly unwise, from our viewpoint, to leave behind thousands which
might easily be gotten. To rob one safe would mean discovery of the
fact the next morning, and there would end all possibility of getting
the contents of the other safe. Both, with properly made keys, could be
looted with one visit to the vault.
One of those apparently insignificant oversights on the part of bank
officials was the foundation upon which I constructed the plan to rob
this bank, and I would direct the attention of the banking world to
the incident with all the force I possess. While the method of bank
protection of the present period is vastly different from then, it may
be that there will be a lesson, after all, found in this history.
It was Jim Griffin, a crook with a reputation, who suggested the
robbery. He lived in St. Catharines. A young man who kept company with
an Irish serving-girl dropped a remark in Jim’s hearing. The girl was
in the employ of the cashier of the bank. Naturally she talked of his
affairs, and among other things mentioned the bank keys, which “nearly
every night lay on the mantel-piece in the dining room.” As I have
said, Jim Griffin heard this girl’s sweetheart speak of the incident,
and within two days Jim was in New York, looking for some one to loot
the bank. Through a mutual friend I was introduced to him.
“That seems like a fine chance to get a few wax impressions,” was my
comment.
“Yes,” rejoined Griffin, with a satisfied smile, “I thought the
opportunity too inviting to give it the go-by.”
“Right; if bank cashiers will let servant-girls have opportunities
to talk about bank keys lying about the house, I don’t know why we
shouldn’t profit by it,” I said. “Shall I interest Mark Shinburn in
this?” Griffin assented.
Two days later I was in St. Catharines, and when I had returned to New
York had succeeded in making the acquaintance of the sweetheart of
the cashier’s serving-girl and had with me the wax impressions of the
vault door key and the keys of the two money safes inside. From these
impressions I had Shinburn make duplicates.
Several days after this my associates and I were ready to begin the
job, and in fact I have already told with what difficulties we had
to contend. Our inability to relock the vault door, owing to the
misfitting of the key, should have put an end to our hopes of robbing
the vault, but, as I anticipated, the cashier, finding the vault door
unlocked, believed he had been very careless, and no harm having been
done, as he thought, no report of the fact was made to his superiors.
Thus was our way paved with opportunity for the next attempt.
Early in the evening, about two weeks later, found us again in the bank
and at our work. Two of the keys answered to the turn, but the inside
safe key, which had bothered us before, still was out of fit. I decided
to delay no more, and that explosives must be used on that safe, though
it would require much longer than we’d planned, and there was the added
danger that we would not be able to get through in time to catch the
through train we expected to use as a safe “get-away.” Missing the
train, we would be in the position of not having provided a team. All
that could be done was to hope for the best. A fleet pair of horses and
a light sleigh, with a dash, we hoped, would land us safely at Niagara
Falls, seventeen miles away. The serious end of this proposition would
be the little time we’d have to procure a team.
But we got at the work. The holes were drilled in the safe and the
“energy” applied; and a most satisfactory “blow” was the result. I had
never seen a better job. We unlocked the other money safe, and soon
had the cash and bonds crammed into a large travelling bag provided
for the purpose, all being accomplished as expeditiously as we could.
Even then it was fast nearing the time for the night clerk to put
in an appearance. We did not dare to remain long enough to put the
banking office in shape. Indeed, the vault had to be left open, lest
we be caught red-handed. The rear door of the bank had scarcely closed
behind us ere the clerk went in the front entrance. To be accurate,
we hadn’t gone two blocks when he was hot-footing it to the nearest
police station. Instead of a leisurely “get-away,” we found ourselves
forced up against the race for liberty, in a fierce snow-storm of the
blizzard class. One thing in our favor was the fact that we knew of a
hotel where we might get a team, and there we went. Luckily, what we
wanted was found, and soon we were off for American soil and safety. It
was a situation that required plenty of pluck. The snow was deep, and
travelling was no joke to either man or beast. A ride in a temperature
such as that night had, and in a gale of wind clouded with flour-dust
snow, had nothing to recommend itself to any one; but that was what
we had to face or something worse. The poor dumb brutes were much of
the time in a perspiration, from the lashing we gave them, but it was
either that for them or capture for us, so we were relentless. I verily
believe they never fully recovered from the strain of that night. After
the drive, the like of which I do not wish to experience again, we
arrived at Niagara Falls about three o’clock in the morning. Putting up
the team and paying to have it sent back to St. Catharines, we started
for the old suspension bridge. That was the only way across the river,
the new one not being open for travel, so we had ascertained on our way
to St. Catharines.
A careful reconnoitre of the bridge entrance showed us that an alarm
had been sent abroad, for a guard of police was waiting in the
neighborhood to arrest suspicious characters. Had my original plan
succeeded, we would have had none of this,--we would have been in the
United States before the robbery was discovered. But that fact cut no
figure in the present dilemma. To the American side we must get, and
mighty soon, or we would find ourselves in a Canadian trap. The old
suspension bridge, beyond doubt, was not a safe passage for us. It
occurred to me that it might be worth while to examine the new bridge;
perhaps we could pick our way across it. No one had made the attempt
save a few workmen accustomed to that sort of climbing, as monkeys are
used to gambolling in tree-tops. Verily workers on suspension bridges
and the like, it seemed to me, were never quite at home unless they
were dangling at the end of a wire many feet above water or _terra
firma_.
We approached the entrance cautiously, and, fortunately, were soon
convinced that there wasn’t a police guard in that neighborhood.
Undoubtedly they believed that no sane man would attempt to travel
the new bridge under the most favorable weather conditions, and
certainly not on such a night as we confronted it. But escape we must,
and somehow I determined we would. With this feeling we began an
investigation. The wind was howling, and at intervals filled almost
to suffocation with clouds of powdery snow that fairly beat its
way through our clothing. It had rained the day before, a freezing
temperature following, and every inch of the bridge work was covered
with a veneering of ice, much of it as smooth as glass, rendering
foothold extremely uncertain. The night, or rather the morning, for
it was going on four o’clock, was dark, there being no moon above the
storm. What little light there was to pierce the darkness came from the
snow. As for the bridge, the wind swept it clean, as well it might, for
at times we kept our feet with great difficulty when a powerful gust
came upon us unawares.
It seemed that we were to have less trouble than anticipated, for
we’d traversed something like three hundred feet toward the centre,
with a well-laid flooring for our feet, and were pressing on farther,
cheerfully, before we suddenly had these hopes toppled. I, being in
the lead, came mighty near stepping through an opening down into the
Niagara River. As I contemplate the experience at this late day, a
chill runs through me. I had come to the end of the planking, where
the workmen had ceased their labors, possibly on account of the storm
in the afternoon. Beyond this, as far as I could discern, was a narrow
path of planks laid end to end over the iron girders. The first plank
was not more than a dozen inches in width. Further on, it was purely
a matter of guessing as to what we would encounter. I got on my knees
and felt of the plank. It proved to be what I expected--covered with
ice. The only way we could get over it, with any degree of safety,
would be to crawl on our hands and knees. The next thing in my mind
was, whether or not we could, in the face of the gale, hold to the
planking. More nerve-racking still was the uncertainty of what lay
farther on in the darkness. I wondered if, and hoped that, the workmen
on the American end of the bridge had laid more flooring, perhaps a
great deal more, than we had found on this side. If that were the case,
the skeleton which lay between us and the flooring on the other side
might not be such a menace to our safety as it seemed. All this was
mere conjecture, I said to Mark, and the only way to know what was
before us was to proceed. It were better, I said, to make an attempt
with the possibility of getting across than to remain on this side and
fall into the hands of the police. While it has required considerable
time to tell all this, it really happened in a very few minutes.
Perhaps five minutes after we were face to face with the danger we had
determined what to do.
“It’s like juggling with death,” said Shinburn, coolly, when I asked
him if we would better make the attempt to cross on the planking.
“Yes,” I admitted, “it’s a lottery--one chance in many if we get over
in safety; but in that bag you have there is a quarter of a million
dollars, for which we came to Canada. If we remain on this side of the
river much longer, we’re bound to get mixed up with the law, and the
cash will go whence it came, perhaps, and we’ll have plenty of time to
think it all over in the queen’s prison. Ahead we may meet death, but
that I don’t believe, for I haven’t got that feeling--that premonition
that sometimes tells a fellow what evil is coming to him. We’ve got to
crawl on the planks, that’s the only way I can see to safety. If you
can stand it, why, I can.”
I had in mind an experience in the Alps several years before, while
touring Europe, and it occurred to me that it might be of some use to
follow some of the tactics adopted by my Alpine guide. He carried a
long rope, and when my party came to a particularly perilous pathway,
alongside a gorge thousands of feet deep, he tied the rope to each of
us, so that we appeared like so many knots in it, one a dozen feet,
perhaps, from the other. It was hardly possible that one would fall and
drag all down with him. If one of the party lost his footing, the worst
that could happen to him would be a bad fright from dangling between
the sky and the almost bottomless gorge, it all ending in being dragged
to safety again.
“I believe that we can find some rope, and in some such way help
ourselves out of this predicament,” I said, in making a further
explanation of my plan. “There must be rope about the stables in the
village. Now, what say you to the idea?”
“Anything to get out of this beastly cold,” Mark answered. “To get out
of this I’d go to ----”
“Never mind where, Mark,” I laughed, despite the gravity of our
situation.
“Well, I’m an iceberg and no mistake, George; and I want to go anywhere
to find a place that will thaw things.”
We hustled among several stables in the neighborhood, and soon had two
clothes-lines and three pairs of horse reins. Then back to the bridge
we went, where in a few minutes we’d rigged up a cable that seemed
strong enough to withstand the strain to which we would put it. I said
I’d make the first attempt to cross, so tied one end of the cable to
a bridge stay and the other around my body close under the arms. The
cable was about seventy feet in length, long enough, I reckoned, to
let me get to the other side of the skeleton work. If the cable was
exhausted before I got over, then I would have to return. That was the
alternative. When ready to start, I fastened the treasure satchel to
Mark’s back, and told him to remain at the cable stay, and do the best
he could for me, in case I slipped from the planks and fell through
the skeleton work. If he could pull me to the bridge again, why, all
right; if not, well--I shivered at the prospect of dangling in the air
hundreds of feet above the dark river.
“If I should fall through, Mark,” I said to him, “and you can’t get me
back, just cut the rope. I guess that will end me. Anyway, it will be
better than being suspended in the air and freezing to death.”
“Don’t talk like a fool!” he said, in a sort of shivering voice, I
thought; “if you think it so serious as that, you shouldn’t start.”
“Well, in case anything should happen, Mark, old boy, I’ll say good-by.”
With that I stepped on the plank and, bending to my knees, began my
journey over the slippery planking, with the storm raging about me.
Far below was the roaring river I could hear but not see. Suddenly it
occurred to me that I had not agreed with Mark on a code of signals.
I dared not turn round, so cried out to him, that if I got over all
right, I would pull the cable three times. In that case he was to
fasten the cable about him and return to me a similar indication of his
readiness for the journey. Then I would fasten the cable to a stay at
my end of the bridge, and notify him by the same signal to come over. I
called back another good-by, which he answered. The wind swept through
the thousands of strings of the great skeleton bridge, rendering wild,
weird music, it seemed to me; and at times, as I struggled along the
treacherous planks, I imagined that the wires were of a prodigious
harp, designed to give forth melancholy and discouragement, and that
ten thousand demons were at the strings in a mad struggle to achieve my
undoing. Again, so mournful was the sweep of the wind, that I could, in
my terrible position, fancy my ears laden with the weight of my funeral
song. I wished with all my heart that it would cease, that I might
better work out my exemption from death, but it persisted in beating
on, occasionally threatening to dislodge me by a sudden and more
terrifying evidence of its unlimited energy.
I had been creeping along inch by inch, and it seemed to me that I must
have been on the way an hour, before I had covered a score of feet,
when I paused to catch my breath, which had been almost driven from my
body by a fierce shock of wind. And, too, I was compelled to clutch
at the planking with all the strength left me, that I might not be
hurled below as far as my cable would permit. When the wind relented, I
called out to Mark, but no response came, the sound of my voice, in all
probability, having been drowned ere it got ten feet away. I resumed
the struggle and had traversed a dozen feet more, when a gust struck
me and one hand slipped from the plank. Down I went with a crash that
nearly cracked my head on the ice, and I must have gone below, had not
my right hand come in contact with a girder, fortunately close by, when
I met with the mishap. With this aid I was able to balance myself and
regain my place on the plank. I was trembling with fright, and I knew
that my forehead, notwithstanding the cold, was wet with perspiration.
It was fortunate I was near a girder when this piece of ill-luck came.
The girders, as near as I could guess, were five feet apart. Had I
been midway of two, I dare not think of what would have been my fate.
Without these supports, from time to time, I am certain that I would
have been unable to keep to the path.
Perhaps I’d crawled fifty feet when I came to the end of a plank, and,
feeling further ahead and to the right and to the left, I could put my
hand on no support save an iron girder at my right side. It was about
eight inches wide, and no doubt extended to the edge of the bridge. To
the right I thought I saw another plank, but to reach it I must crawl
along the narrow, ice-covered beam. I had barely saved myself from
disaster on the planking; how I’d fare on the iron, still narrower,
I did not know. Ahead, as I became more accustomed to the darkness,
I made out the next girder, but it was too far away. I must creep to
the plank at my right or go back to Shinburn. Try as I might, I could
find no other solution. My predicament can easily be understood, if
any one doubts this history, by an attempt on hands and knees, in
broad daylight, to crawl fifty feet along a board twelve inches wide,
at an elevation of several hundreds of feet, and coming to the end of
that narrow path, turn squarely, and, still on the hands and knees,
creep along an eight-inch wide ice-covered iron beam. If this journey
will not put the nerves to the test, then I’m no judge of human nature
and endurance. But the full force of my danger can only be realized,
when the course I have outlined has been gone over in such a night as
I have described, with its howling winds and blinding snow clouds. A
person who can accomplish the task without the trouble I felt must be a
practised athlete or a monkey with a ringed tail.
I came mighty near slipping from the girder the moment I put my knee
to it. The wind seemed to come with a sort of broadside force. What
saved me I don’t know. At the end of the girder I found a plank, and
the solution of my troubles, in part. This plank was not so heavy as
the others and had not been so thoroughly frozen to the iron that a
strong gust of wind could not sweep it toward the right side of the
bridge, one end more than the other. In this manner had my straight
passage along the planking been interrupted. I crawled on the plank,
finding it very unsteady, owing to the way it rested on the girders. I
crept along, and thus I bore to the left, where, after going sixteen
feet, I came to the resumption of the straight and narrow path, which I
hoped would lead me to the end of my perilous route; that is, I thought
so, but to my disappointment I was confronted with another stretch
of ice-covered iron to be struggled over. However, it proved to be
only eight feet from plank to plank, and I succeeded in spanning it
without a mishap. But my hands and feet were aching with the cold. If
I had dared, I would have sat astride the plank and slapped my hands
together, but time was so precious and the moments must seem so endless
to Mark, that I would not. So, pressing on, I gained ten more feet, and
felt encouraged. Then I found myself on a terribly slippery and much
narrower piece of planking, which evidently had been used as a filler
in the pathway. In my anxiety to get along, I did not discover it until
I’d taken an insecure hold. Suddenly my hand slipped off, and, sheering
to one side, I toppled over. Catching at the planking with both hands,
I found myself hanging under the planking instead of shooting down
to the cable’s end. Vainly for a minute I tried to fetch my feet up
around the plank. Struggling with all my might, it seemed impossible
under the conditions, as I was almost stiff from the cold and weakened
by the terrible strain upon me. As my feet swung back and forth in an
effort to get a momentum that would assist me, they struck against
the girder I’d crossed just before I fell. Here was a simple solution
of my nerve-taxing plight. I wondered if another man, Mark Shinburn,
for instance, would have been so bewildered as not to think sooner of
using the girder as a means of getting back to the planking. I always
believed, without wishing to appear egotistical, that I possessed at
least the ordinary common sense allotted to man. In this case I seem
to have been very short-sighted. Perhaps--ay, I must believe that
the awful test to which my mind and body had been subjected, and the
fearful roar of the wind and the swirling of the snow, confused me.
I inched my hands along the plank till I got to the girder, and then
I pulled myself to the path again. I will not dwell upon the great
effort I had to put forth, nor go into detail as to my exhausted state
when at last I was comparatively safe again. When I had crawled twelve
feet more on the planking, I came to the solid bridge flooring, and
with a glad feeling scrambled from my knees. Had I dared, I would
have prayed. Pounding the palms of my hands together for a minute,
a warm sensation of a freer circulation gave me renewed life, and
then I signalled back to Mark that he might know I was safe, and that
he’d better get ready to follow me. Unloosing the cable, I soon had
the arrangements for his safety completed, had received his sign of
readiness, and had notified him to proceed. I knew pretty well that he
would have to surmount about every difficulty I had, and perhaps more,
and I hoped he would succeed as well. One thing I was certain of, and
that was, he would be handicapped more than I. I could have brought
the treasure bag with me, but why should I? I might lose my life and
he might be saved. If I took the bag with me and my life were lost, he
would be deprived of his share of the money, for it would have gone
down with me into the river finally. Now that I had accomplished the
perilous task, it was more than probable that he would fare no worse.
I kept my hands on the cable constantly, that I might be ready for any
emergency. Now and then I detected a trembling that told me of his
coming. After perhaps three minutes had passed, I began drawing in
the cable, and from the slack I coiled on the flooring it was easy to
tell that Shinburn was making progress. I wondered whether he’d be as
successful as I, upon arriving at the break in his narrow way. Suddenly
the cable became taut, and my heart went a-thumping until I felt a
choking sensation. Almost immediately the tension was relaxed, and I
knew Mark was still safe, though no doubt he had met with something
unpleasant. I drew in more slack, presently, but with the utmost
caution, fearful that I might, in some manner, impede his progress. I
believed I could tell by the cable when he crawled over the icy iron
sill, as I had done, and then obliquely, back to the straight way
again. I measured the cable as a woman measures cloth, from elbow to
nose, and found, as near as I could tell in that manner, that about
two-thirds of the entire length was at my feet. That my comrade was
getting near to the end of his tortuous journey there was no doubt.
True enough, for, with the wind bearing the sounds my way, I could hear
the crackling of ice on the planks.
“Mark, Mark, lad!” cried I, and waited intently for a response.
It came in a sort of gasp, as though the speaker were almost
exhausted,--“‘Right, George, ‘right!”
That the poor fellow was about done for I felt certain.
“Courage, Mark; it’s almost over, lad,” I shouted, hoping that my words
would reach him, despite the wrong direction of the wind. The many
anxious moments were torture to me, but they were soon to end. Five
minutes later I saw him emerge from the darkness and the storm, and,
forgetful of my own danger, I reached far out, and, catching hold of
him, was his guide to safety. He could not have lasted many minutes
more. He trembled as though stricken with ague. I beat his body with my
hands and dragged him about until he must have thought I was inhuman,
but I felt that I must make his blood flow faster. Presently he grew
stronger and was able to speak in a whisper:--
“Jail for mine, George, if the other chance is the sort of wire-walking
I’ve just done.”
“To the winds with what we’ve passed through, Mark,” I cried joyously;
“for what’s it all to us now that we’re safe? Come, lad, it will be of
the easiest sort to get over the remainder of the bridge now;” and,
unstrapping the treasure satchel, I relieved him of this burden, and
pushing my arm through his, supported him toward the American side.
Soon we came to the gate, on the other side of which was a watchman’s
shanty. Climbing the gate, I bade him wait while I investigated the
premises to see whether any one was inside. The watchman was there, but
fast asleep, and snoring so that I could hear him above the rushing of
the wind. There was no danger from him--that was certain.
While Mark lingered near the bridge with the treasure, I went after
a livery team, with which to drive to the home of a Mr. Webster,
according to the story I would tell the driver. Our dear Mr. Webster
would live somewhere in the country, perhaps ten miles from Niagara
Falls. I found the team without difficulty, and, driving after Mark, we
were soon on our journey. As I have intimated, we told the driver that
it was too rough weather for us to make the long trip to our friend’s
place; and as it was best to make as direct a course as possible, in
order to facilitate the business that had taken us to that part of the
country, he’d better put about in the direction of Tonawanda. Afterward
I learned that this ruse saved us from arrest, and we were glad of the
forethought.
On the suburbs of Tonawanda I discharged the team, and we walked to the
Buffalo side of the village, where we engaged another team. As before,
we started for some fictitious friend’s house in the country, but after
getting a mile or so out of the village, headed for Buffalo. Arriving
there, we discharged that team and went to the house of a friend, where
we fairly revelled in a hot breakfast; which by the way we very much
needed.
About eleven o’clock in the morning we induced our host to make a
little investigation of the police situation for us. He returned after
an hour with the none too encouraging news that two men who were
believed to be the St. Catharines looters had been traced to Buffalo.
Much against my judgment, about two o’clock in the afternoon, with a
small bag of cash, the other having been left, with most of the loot,
with our friend, Shinburn and I set out for the Erie Railway depot to
get a New York train. We had been on the street only a few minutes when
I began to reason with him, and to point out the danger of exposing
ourselves in so public a place as the Buffalo depot.
“Mark,” I said, “when the superintendent of a railway issues orders as
to the running time of trains, he never fails to say to his employees,
‘When you’re in doubt as to the right of way, be sure to take the
course you know is safe.’ Now, it’s dollars to doughnuts that the
depot is being well watched. I suggest that we about face and drive to
another town, much smaller than this, and get a train there.”
Well, we did so, and shortly after dark were in Angola. Putting our
team in the stable, we went to the hotel, which was near the depot,
put our cash bag carelessly under the counter, and went in to supper.
On coming out a few minutes later, I saw that our baggage had been
disturbed, as though some one had been examining it. Not far away stood
two men in a deep conversation. They frequently, though slyly, cast
their eyes in our direction. We calmly smoked our cigars and waited
developments. In the meantime I felt for my pistol, to have it handy,
not knowing what sort of a fight there might be any minute. Of a truth,
we weren’t going to surrender at the first cry of wolf. One of the men
presently walked up to me and said, in a most affable manner, “That’s
a fine team you have in the stable.”
“Yes,” I answered, in a hard, cold tone, and as repelling as I could
make it. My iceberg reply seemed to shut off any further conversation
from that quarter, my inquisitor retiring in much confusion and no
doubt mystified. He certainly had met with little success on his first
fishing excursion.
I had arranged for a friend to come over by rail from Buffalo that
night to take the team back, and a few minutes before the train was due
I stepped to the clerk’s desk and told him of it. In doing so I saw
one of the men whom I believed to be detectives walk toward me. His
partner, a moment before, had left the room. Shinburn was sitting a few
feet away, keeping an eye on the treasure bag. The detective hadn’t
reached the desk when I’d told the clerk what I wanted to. However,
it was a ripe moment in which I might add confusion to the trail, so,
waiting until he got close enough to me, I said, at the same time
handing the clerk the business card of a well-known Chicago house,
“Give us commercial rates, if you please.” Getting the bill, I paid it
and turned away. The detective’s partner came in the room just then,
and, drawing him aside, took a telegram from his pocket. Both examined
it critically. I would have given a good-sized greenback to know what
they were reading. I hadn’t a bit of doubt that Mark and I were the
interesting subjects of it.
Presently it was time for the train, and with Mark carrying the bag
we went to the depot, the detectives following close on our heels.
They began to worry me not a little. When I bought two tickets for
Cleveland, the sleuth who had shadowed me to the desk was again at my
side and heard what I called for and saw what was given me. If I had
any doubt as to the identity of the men, it was all removed by this
time. A moment later the detectives had wired to some point,--Chicago,
I believed, and possibly Cleveland. Probably the former had been asked
to wire as to whether the big business house I had mentioned employed
drummers answering our descriptions, and police of the latter had,
undoubtedly, been asked to watch for our arrival there. Beyond a doubt
the country was well aroused over the St. Catharines burglary.
Now, for a fact, the game was getting to be exceedingly fast, and
really I didn’t know what to do, and Shinburn had left it all to me.
It seemed that the best thing was to put on a bold front and trust to
Fate. I hoped I had made no blunder.
True to his agreement, our Buffalo friend came in on the train, but we
paid no attention to him, keeping our eyes better engaged in watching
the doings of the detectives. They selected a seat in the car where we
were, but at the opposite end. It was evident that they had determined
to become better acquainted with us. On the train I was in a calmer
mood and better able to think, with the result that I’d settled upon
a plan to prevent the enemy ever setting eyes on us again after the
arrival in Cleveland. Alighting from the car with all the dignity at
our command, we walked up to a hackman, and waited until it was certain
that the detectives were near enough to hear what would be said.
“Here, driver, put us at the Metropolitan Hotel, as soon as you can get
there,” I commanded loudly, and followed this up by springing in the
hack, Shinburn following. In an instant we were gone from the view of
the sleuths, who of course made haste to follow us in another carriage.
Thank the stars, we were too quick for them. Safe from immediate
danger, we bought another bag, and, transferring the cash to it, left
nothing in the old one except a few pieces of soiled linen. Then
Shinburn was driven to the house of a friend in Euclid Avenue, where
I left him with the treasure. We agreed to meet in about half an hour
near the Cleveland, Pittsburg, and Rochester Railway depot. I went to
the Metropolitan Hotel with the old bag, expecting I’d have to dodge
the detectives. It seemed to me that I must go there in order to throw
the hack driver off our game. However, it turned out as I hoped. The
detectives had been there, but, failing to find us, at once realized we
had played a game on them. Off they had gone to search other hotels.
I engaged a room, and after taking my bag there and waiting a few
minutes, I came down and told the clerk that I’d be back directly if
any one called for me. It was about six A.M.
“I’m going to a drug store not far away,” I said; “so be sure and tell
my friend, if he calls, that I’ll return soon.”
In a few minutes I was with Mark, and we were walking the C. P. and R.
railroad ties until the second station was reached, where we awaited a
train for Pittsburg. From there we had an uninterrupted journey to New
York City.
Of course my Police Headquarters friends soon got wind of our presence
in town, and the usual “squaring” had to be made. I ascertained through
them that the brace of sleuths who worried us at Angola and Cleveland
were from Chicago, and that we would have been arrested had it not been
for my commercial traveller dodge at the hotel. As I thought, they had
wired to Chicago and Cleveland. Word came from the former place that
no such drummers as described were in the employ of that house. This
information was wired to the detectives at Cleveland, but too late to
do us any harm. They found the hackman after a while and an interview
with him told them a plain story. I understood that they felt about
as ruffled as detectives must feel when big game has easily slipped
through their fingers. They waited a long time for me to return from
the drug store. Precious little but a collar was found in the satchel
in my room. I laughed as I heard this story, and remarked that the boys
were entitled to it and our discarded linen.
“Mark,” I said, a few days later, having recalled the experiences we
had had that night on the suspension bridge, “what made the cable get
taut suddenly when you were about halfway on your plank-crawl?”
“Oh, not much of anything,” he carelessly replied; “I just slipped a
bit off the plank, but managed to hold on with my hands.”
“Was the plank narrower than the others and rounded up with ice?” I
questioned, curious to know if he had encountered the treacherous place
I had, with the same result.
“You’ve described it to a dot,” replied Mark; “but it happened that I
could reach a girder with my feet, and that, with a little bracing, got
me to the top again. I thought I was going to give you a job of hauling
in the cable with a bait attached that had blamed little life in it.”
“Fancy you dangling at the end of that cable of leather and rope with
a few hundreds of thousands strapped to your back,” I said, with a
sorry attempt at a joke. Shinburn smiled, but he was thinking of his
experience, I doubt not. Subsequently I made a daylight trip to the
suspension bridge. How we succeeded in getting over the skeleton
section that eventful night has ever been a mystery to me. I marvel
that I survived to tell of it.