What the Outlaws do on their second Visit: with the awful Hours I pass through, and how I find myself at the End.
The first thing I heard was a loud laugh, and then:
“How are you, Jud?” said Pike. “Back again, you see. Hope yer feeling all right.”
I saw I might as well make the best of it, though you may be sure I was half scared to death.
“Yes, I’m feeling pretty well,” I said. “I was able to be about the last time you were here, maybe you remember.”
Pike scowled at me. “Yes, that’s so, you was,” he said. “You stood us off in pretty good shape that time–you and the snow. We were fools not to find out that you were all alone. But we app’inted an investigating committee this time, and we’re onto your game. Just excuse me, but I’ll have to ask 204 you to wear a little of Taggart’s jewelry while we tend to some important business.”
He pulled out a pair of handcuffs and slipped one of them around my wrist and shut it up so tight that it pressed into the flesh. Then he led me in front of the counter, slipped the other cuff through a brace under the front edge of the counter, and then clasped it around my other wrist, leaving the short chain which connected the cuffs behind the brace, so that I was a prisoner. He pushed up a chair and said:
“Set down and make yourself comfortable, Jud. I’ll see if I can’t find a handful of buttons for you, and you can put ’em on the counter and play checkers with your nose.”
The men laughed at this, and Pike went on:
“We met your pardner out here, the dark-complected feller. He was a-riding off our pinto that we left here by mistake last winter, with our saddle and things, and a-leading your two broncs, so we just stopped him and gathered ’em in, and I reckon they’re all our’n now, most of ’em, anyhow. And in consideration of our only shooting him around the edges careful like, he give us some valuable information, 205 such as just where you was a-sleeping, Jud, and where we’d find the blacksmith tools, and so forth. That’s the way to get along with an Injun and have everything all easy-going–shoot ’im, very careful, around the edges.”
Again they all laughed, and then went out the back door, which, I noticed, had a small hole cut in it over the bolt big enough to let in a man’s hand. There were five of them, counting Pike. The windows were boarded up and it was dark in the store, but as the door opened I saw that it was quite light outside and that it was snowing.
PIKE HANDCUFFING ME IN THE DRUG STORE, MARCH NINETEENTH
As I sat there in the dark unable to move and with the handcuffs cutting into my wrists you may believe I was miserable enough. I expected nothing short of being killed by the gang before they left. I saw what a fool I had been to trust the scoundrelly Indian even as much as I had. It was a little satisfaction, however, to know that he had failed to get off with his stolen property even if it had fallen into the hands of a worse set of thieves. I soon heard them at work on the safe in the bank. Of course I thought of my fuse, but it 206 was a dozen feet away, the other side of the counter, and I could see not a shadow of hope of getting at it.
I think I sat there as much as two hours, listening to the noise in the next building, when Pike came in and said:
“You’ll be glad to hear, Jud, that we’re getting along beautiful on that safe. We’re a-going to blow the stuffing out of it the next thing you know. Reckon if you ain’t particular we’ll just borrow a sleigh we see out here and a set of Sours’s harness for a couple of our horses when we go away, ’cause we think the specie may be a little heavy. Besides, we’re calculating there may be some other stuff around town worth taking off–Winchesters and such agricultural and stock-raising implements,” and he laughed. He seemed to be in very good humor.
He went back, and for another long while I heard nothing but steady drilling on the safe and a little of their talk, though I could not catch much of that. Sometimes, too, I could hear Kaiser barking. He was locked in the hotel, and I thought he knew I was in trouble and wanted to get out and help me. 207
After what seemed hours Pike came in again.
“We blow ’er open now very shortly,” he said. “A reg’ler little Fourth o’ July celebration of our own, hey, Jud?” Then he laughed and went on: “We need that money and you bet it’s going to come handy.” He looked at me, came closer with the lantern, and said:
“Jud, what d’ye say to coming in with us and having your share like a man? You’re a good one, if you are young, and we can find plenty of work for you, and always you get your share.”
“No,” I said, “I don’t care to.”
He looked at me sharply a moment and then went on:
“Just as you please, of course. But me and the boys was talking it over and we calculated it was the best way to dispose of you, a pile the best for you and some better for us.”
I had kept looking straight into his eyes, under his big eyebrows. “No,” I said, “I won’t do it.”
“Oh, take your choice,” he answered, “take 208 your choice. Just as you think best, of course. Only you know the old saying about how dead men don’t tell any tales. And if you come in with us you get your share, just the same as if you’d done your part of the work.”
I said nothing. He waited a minute, then went out and shut the door. I sprang up and pulled and wrenched at the brace with all my strength. The handcuffs cut into my wrists, but I did not feel it. The brace stayed as firm as ever. I sat down weak and trembling with my last hope gone. A minute later there was a loud explosion in the bank, which shook the building I was in. Next came a cheer from the men. Then voices, and I heard Pike shout:
“It’s all afire here–bring a pail of water, Joe!”
The well windlass creaked and I heard a man start in from the back. Next I heard Pike say, “We’ll soon fix that fire,” then came an explosion and a crash, like an earthquake, and the wall came down upon me, and the counter came over and I was half under it. I heard the cries of the men, and, wriggling 209 about, I got out from under the counter and found my hands free from the brace, and the snowflakes coming in my face through where half the side of the building had been blown away.