CHAPTER V
HOW I FACED DEATH, HOW MY HUSBAND WAS SHOT, AND SOME NARROW ESCAPES OF MY COMPANIONS
From the moment when he commits his first crime the professional criminal never knows what it is to enjoy real peace of mind. His crimes hang over him like the sword of Damocles, and, unless he reforms, he can never be free from the fear of some day being found out and sent away to prison for a long term.
And arrest is not the only thing he has to fear—he is continually face to face with the danger of serious injury or death. Whatever the crime he undertakes, he must run the most desperate risks—he has to stake not only his liberty, but life itself on the narrowest of margins.
The powerful explosive he is using to blow open a safe may go off prematurely, as it did one night when George Mason and I were robbing a bank in Illinois, and leave the robber half dead.
Perhaps an indignant mob may decide to take justice into its own hands by lynching the criminal. This is what happened to one of my comrades in Kentucky. They had the noose around his neck and were all ready to string him up when I arrived in the nick of time to save his life.
Perhaps he will be caught in the act at one of his crimes and shot down like a dog, as my husband, Ned Lyons, was in Connecticut one night. That was the narrowest escape my husband ever had—I saw it with my own eyes, and, if I live to be a hundred, I shall never forget the agony of it all.
At the time of this thrilling adventure the police wanted us so badly for our share in several famous robberies that Ned and I did not dare to undertake any operations in the large cities which usually formed our most profitable fields. So, being in need of ready money, we had decided to take a little trip through some of the smaller towns of New England. The amount of cash to be had from the banks, stores and postoffices in these places was not large, but, on the other hand, it was not hard to get and we thought we ought to be able to spend two or three weeks quite profitably in the nearby towns of Connecticut and Massachusetts.
As my health that summer was not very good and Ned did not want me to take any very active part in the robberies, we invited George Mason to go along with us.
From the start we seemed to be ill-fated. Ned and George succeeded in getting into a bank in Fitchburg, Mass., but were frightened away by a watchman before they had time to open the safe. From the postoffice in a little village just outside Fitchburg we secured only eight or ten dollars to pay us for our trouble. Quite discouraged and desperately in need of money we went on to Palmer, Mass.
There I scouted around and discovered that the most likely place for us to rob was G. L. Hitchcock's drug store, which was also the village postoffice. A storm came up to hide the full moon, and this enabled us to make the attempt that very night. It was not the easiest job in the world, for Mr. Hitchcock and his family lived directly above the store and the least noise was sure to rouse them.