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 ——”