The following Sunday night we got into the town, but found there was a social gathering in the church, next door to the courthouse. That delayed us till twelve o’clock. At one o’clock we went into the stables across the street, and saddled two gentle horses, leaving them in their stalls. The town was dark, dead, and we went into the courthouse and to a rear room where the safe stood.
The master coolly removed his coat, throwing it on top of the safe. On the coat he laid a big “cannon.” I opened the small parcel containing the “dan” and “stems” (drills). From the blacksmith shop we had taken a carpenter’s hand brace and a pinch bar. With this primitive outfit George attacked the box in a most workmanlike manner. I went outside, but there was nobody in sight, and the only sound was the pawing of a horse in the stable across the street. At two o’clock George came out to look around himself. He was ready to “shoot her.” The make of the box required that the door be blown entirely out of place and the explosion seemed tremendous in the dead, quiet night with nerves on edge. But the town slumbered on.
George waited outside, but there was no alarm, and he went back, returning in five minutes with a small but heavy bag of gold pieces that clinked sweetly when he dropped it into his coat pocket.
“You carry this head of cabbage, Kid,” passing me a pack of greenbacks about the size of a brick.
Dawn was graying the east as we went into the stable and bridled the horses. George went out first, pulling his reluctant horse by the bridle rein pulled over his head. In the door his horse stopped, and George, standing outside on the inclined platform, tugged with both hands while I slapped the horse on his rump. Suddenly George dropped the bridle rein and his hand went to the waistband of his trousers for a gun.
A voice shouted, “Here, you damned horse thief,” and a shotgun belched murderously, then again. George got both barrels. He was almost blown off his feet. He toppled over sidewise and his body rolled slowly down the incline to the ground.
The man with the shotgun knew his bloody business. I plainly heard the sinister click of the breech-lock as he snapped it shut after reloading. Neither of the horses was gun-shy; they stood still. The gunshot echoes died away. A whiff of powder smoke drifted above and across George’s body. The silence was awful. I could feel the shooter outside standing at “ready” with his murderous gun. I was trapped; my pistol was useless against such odds. Somewhere in the stable a horse, heaving heavily to his feet, shook the floor and roused me from my trance of fear and shock. I remembered having seen a door in the side of the barn opposite where the man with the gun was. I ran to it and out into a lot. Across the street was the courthouse and the general store. There was a cellar beneath the store. I had looked into it while George was working on the “box.” Its old-fashioned inclined doors were open and it was piled full of farm implements, empty boxes, crates, kegs of nails, etc.
Half panicky, I dashed across the street and into the cellar, where I hid amongst the junk at the end farthest from the door. In a half hour the town was on fire with excitement. The store was opened and I heard loud voices and the tramp of many feet above me. There was a clattering of horses’ hoofs in the street, and I knew the hue and cry was on. I burrowed deeper into boxes and bales, prepared for a long wait.
When daylight came I saw a pair of stairs leading up to a trapdoor in the store floor. There was much coming and going all day, and the steady hum of voices. I strained my ears, but couldn’t make head or tail of the talk. I put in a long, hard day, and when night came and the store was closed I was famished for food and water. All day I had been debating in my mind whether I should sneak out at dark and try to hike away, or hold down the cellar for another twenty-four hours. I had just decided to go out and chance it when I heard the cellar doors banged down from the outside, then the click of a padlock. I was locked in.
About midnight I went up the steps and found the trapdoor unfastened. The store was dark, but I soon found the cheese and crackers and carefully “weeded” out a good portion of each. There was a bucket of water in the back of the store, and I filled an empty bottle from it, after drinking all I could.