Mason had grown very solemn. He was not listening at all to Gibbs, and, after a moment or two, he looked up and said earnestly:
"Dan, what you said a while back is dead right. I'm a damn fool. Look at me now--I've done twenty years, and in all my time I've had less than two thousand bucks."
Gibbs was about to speak, but Mason was too serious to let himself be interrupted.
"I was thinking it all over to-night, and I decided--know what I decided?"
Gibbs shook his head.
"I decided," Mason went on, "to square it without waiting for the big touch." Gibbs was not impressed; the good thieves were always considering reformation. "I know I can't get anything to do--I'm too old, and besides--well, you know." Mason let the situation speak for itself. "I'm about all in, but I was thinking, Dan, this here place you've got in the country, can't you--" Mason hesitated a little--"can't you let me work around there? Just my board and a few clothes?" Mason leaned forward eagerly.
"You know, Joe," said Gibbs, seeing that Mason was serious, "that as long as I've got a place you can have a home with me. I'm going to take Kate out there and live. I've got the place almost paid for."
Mason leaned back, tried to speak, paused, swallowed, and moistened his lips.
"I worried about Slim to-night," he managed to say presently. It was hard for him to give utterance to thoughts that he considered sentimental. "My treating him so, you see--that I decided; I want to try it. That's why I wouldn't go with him; he didn't understand, but maybe I can explain. As I was thinking to-night, my head went off again--that stir simple, you know."
He raised his hand to his head and Gibbs was concerned.
"You'd better take a little drink, Joe," he said.
After Gibbs had brought the whisky, they sat there and discussed the future until the early summer dawn was red.
V
Dillon, Archie, Mandell and Squeak had left the city that morning.
Dillon was gloomy and morose because Mason had refused to join him. He had been disappointed, too, in Curly, but not so much surprised, for Curly was so strange and mysterious that nothing he might do could surprise his friends. Cedarville was far away, in Illinois, and long before daylight the four men had started on their journey in a freight-train. Dillon's plan was to rob the bank that night. He had chosen Saturday night because a Sunday would probably intervene before discovery, and thus give them time to escape. But the journey was beset by difficulties; the train spent long hours in switching, in cutting out and putting in cars, and at such times the four men had been compelled to get off and hide, lest the trainmen detect them. Besides, the train made long inexplicable stops, standing on a siding, with nothing to mar the stillness but the tired exhaust of the engine and the drone of the wide country-side. At noon the empty box-car in which the men had been riding was cut out and left stranded at a village; after that, unable to find another empty car, they rode on a car that was laden with lumber, but this, too, was cut out and left behind. Then they rode in most uncomfortable and dangerous positions on the timber-heads over the couplings. Half-way to Cedarville they met the storm. It had been gathering all the morning, and now it broke suddenly; the rain came down in torrents, and they were drenched to the skin. Mandell, who was intensely afraid of lightning, suffered agonies, and threatened to abandon the mob at the first opportunity. Late in the afternoon, just as the train was pulling into the village of Romeo, the rear brakeman discovered them, called the conductor and the front brakeman, and ordered the men to leave the train.
"Stick and slug!" cried Mandell, made irritable by the storm. But Dillon repressed him.
"Unload!" he commanded. "Don't goat 'em."
Archie, on the other side of the car, had not been seen clearly by the trainmen, but the others had, and though Dillon made them all get off, he could not keep Squeak from stopping long enough to curse the train-men with horrible oaths. Then the train went on and left them.
At evening they went into the woods and built a fire. There were discouragements as to the fire; the wood was wet, but finally they achieved a blaze, and Dillon went into the village after food. When he returned the fire was going well, the men had dried their clothes, and their habitual spirits had returned. In the water of a creek Dillon washed the can he had found, and made tea; they cooked bacon on pointed sticks, broke the bread and cheese, and ate their supper. Then, in the comfort that came of dry clothes and warmth and the first meal they had eaten that day, they sat about, rolled cigarettes, and waited for the night. Then darkness fell, Dillon made them put out the fire, and they tramped across the fields to the railroad.
"We'll wait here for the John O'Brien," said Dillon, when they came to the water-tank. "We must get the jug to-night--that'll give us all day to-morrow for the get-away."
They waited then, and waited, while the summer night deepened to silence; once, the headlight of an engine sent its long light streaming down the track; they made ready; the train came swaying toward them.
"Hell!" exclaimed Mandell, in the disappointment that was common to all of them. "It's a rattler!" And the lighted windows of a passenger-train swept by.
They waited and waited, and no freight-train came. At midnight, when they were all stiff and cold, Dillon ordered them into the village.
They were glad enough to go. In the one business street of the town they found a building in which a light gleamed. They glanced through a window; it was the post-office. Then Dillon changed his plan in that ease with which he could change any plan, and forgot the little bank at Cedarville. He placed Squeak at the rear of the building, Mandell in the front.
"Come on, Dutch," he said.
He took Archie with him because he was not so sure of him as he was of the two other men, though Archie felt that he had been honored above them. He followed Dillon into the deep shadows that lay between the post-office and the building next door. He kept close behind Dillon, and watched with excitement while Dillon's tall form bent before one of the windows. Dillon was groping; presently he stood upright, his back bowed, he strained and grunted and swore, then the screws gave, and Dillon wrenched the little iron bars from the windows.
"Come on," he said.
He was crawling through the window; Archie followed.
Inside, Dillon stood upright, holding Archie behind him, and peered about in the dim light from the oil lamp that burned before a tin reflector on the wall. The safe was in the light. Dillon looked back, made a mental note of the window's location, and put out the lamp. Then he lighted a candle and knelt before the safe.
Archie stood with his revolver in his hand; Dillon laid his on the floor beside him. Then from the pocket of his coat he drew out some soap; a moment more and Archie could see him plastering up the crevices about the door of the safe, leaving but one opening, in the middle of the top of the door. Then out of the soap he fashioned about this opening a crude little cup. Archie watched intently. Dillon worked rapidly, expertly, and yet, as Archie noted, not so rapidly nor so expertly as Curly had worked. Curly was considered one of the most skilful men in the business, but Dillon was older and could tell famous tales of the old days when they had blown gophers--the days when they used to drill the safes and pour in powder. Dillon's age was telling; his fingers were clumsy and knotted with rheumatism, and now and then they trembled.
[Illustration: Archie could see him plastering up the crevices]
"Now the soup," Dillon was saying, quite to himself, and he poured the nitroglycerin from a bottle into the little cup he had made of soap.
"And the string," said Archie, anxious to display his knowledge.
"Cheese it!" Dillon commanded.
He was fixing a fulminating cap to the end of a fuse, and he inserted this into the cup. Then he plastered it all over with soap, picked up his revolver, lighted the slow fuse from the candle, and, rising quickly, he stepped back, drawing Archie with him. They stood in a corner of the room watching the creeping spark; a moment more and there was the thud of an explosion, and Dillon was springing toward the safe; he seized the handle, opened the heavy door, and was down with his candle peering into its dark interior. He went through it rapidly, drew out the stamps and the currency and the coin. Another moment and they were outside. Mandell and Squeak were where Dillon had left them.
"All right," Dillon said. "Lam!"
VI
A week later, returning by a roundabout way, Dillon and his companions came back to town. That night Dillon, Archie, Squeak, Mandell and Mason were arrested. When Archie was taken up to the detectives' office and found himself facing Kouka, his heart sank.
"Couldn't take a little friendly advice, could you?" said Kouka, thrusting forward his black face.
Archie was dumb.
"Where'd you get that gat?" Kouka demanded.
Still Archie was dumb.
"You might as well tell," Kouka said. "Your pals have split on you."
Archie had heard of that ruse; he did not think any of them would confess, and he was certain they had not done so when Kouka referred to his revolver, for no one but Jackson knew where he had got the weapon.
After an hour Kouka gave it up, temporarily at least, and sent Archie back to the prison.
The next morning all five men were taken to the office of the detectives. Besides Kouka, Quinn and Inspector McFee, there were two others, one of whom the prisoners instantly recognized as Detective Carney. Dillon and Mason had long known Carney, and respected him; he was the only detective in the city whom they did respect, for this silent, undemonstrative man, with the weather-beaten face, white hair and shrewd blue eyes, had a profound knowledge of all classes of thieves and their ways. Indeed, this knowledge, which made Carney the most efficient detective in the city, militated against him with his superiors; he knew too much for their comfort. As for Kouka and the other detectives, they were jealous of him, though he never interfered in their work nor offered suggestion or criticism; but they all felt instinctively that he contemned them. When Dillon saw Carney his heart sank; Mason's, on the contrary, rose. Carney gave no sign of recognition; it was plain that he was a mere spectator. But when Dillon saw the other man he whispered to Mason out of the corner of his mouth:
"It's all off."
This man was a tall, well-built fellow, with iron-gray hair, a ruddy face and a small black mustache above full red lips; he was dressed in gray, and he bore himself as something above the other officers present because he was an United States inspector. His name was Fallen. He glanced at the five men, and smiled and nodded complacently.