At last the night came that I had decided was to be my last in the town. I had done everything possible in the way of precaution and protection. The stormy night favored me and the box gave up its contents after a few sturdy blows from a short-handled sledgehammer. The train arrived on time, and when it pulled out I got aboard without a ticket. That was part of my plan. I didn’t want to be seen at the ticket office, where I knew inquiries would be made the next day.
The safe contained nothing of value to me but a roll of paper money. I had no chance to count or examine it while waiting for the train, but before the conductor got to me I fished out a worn twenty-dollar bill from which I paid my fare, about fifteen dollars, to Vancouver. I had no intention of going into that city now, but paid my fare there to mislead any one making inquiries from the trainmen. I planned to leave the train at a junction and take another across the border. Well satisfied with myself, I was reviewing the night’s work when the train slowed down between stations, about twenty miles from where I got aboard.
After a long wait, the conductor appeared with the information that the train was blocked by an avalanche of snow and rock. “Make yourselves comfortable,” he said, “we won’t get out of here before noon to-morrow.”
My carefully laid plans crumbled. I wished myself back in the town. I thought of the bill I had given the conductor. I could see the constables with their heads together in the morning “deducing” and “inferring” with the result that they would deduce and infer that their burglar had left on the night train. I could see them arriving at our stalled train some time in the forenoon and buttonholing the conductor. I could see him pointing his finger at me.
It was suicide to leave the train. Not a hut or habitation within miles and a terrific storm raging. I went over every possibility and finished with a helpless, half-trapped feeling. I went into another coach, and, finding an empty seat, cut a slit in the cushion and planted the roll of money, keeping only the change from the twenty-dollar bill. There was nothing else I could do to protect myself. I tried to sleep in a seat, but couldn’t, so I sat around, apprehensive and nervous, till morning. The storm abated at daylight and an hour later a work train pulled in behind us, prepared to dig us out. I got ready for a shock.
Sure enough, in a few minutes, two constables from the town I had left came slowly down the aisle behind the conductor. When he came to my seat, he stopped and nodded his head toward me. One officer stood by me, but said nothing. The other said something aside to the conductor, who took a roll of bills from his pocket, peeled off the top one and handed it to him. He turned the bill over, looked at it carefully, and then at a piece of paper he had in his hand. After more talk with the conductor that I couldn’t hear, he turned and faced me with a gun in his hand.
“Put the irons on him, Mr. Stevens,” he said to the officer beside me. “He is our man.”
I protested against being handcuffed, pushed “Mr. Stevens” away, and demanded an explanation.
“You’re arrested in the queen’s name,” said the officer in charge, “and anything you say will be used against you. You had better submit quietly. If you want force you can have it.” He waved his big, serviceable-looking gun in my direction.
I submitted. They took me forward to a baggage car, removed my shoes and nearly all my clothes, and went through them slowly and thoroughly, but found nothing incriminating. When the train was dug clear it pulled out, carrying my roll of bills with it in the seat cushion, and I congratulated myself on getting rid of it. I was taken back to the town I left so suspiciously the night before, and thrown into the jail wondering what they had on me. They hadn’t asked me any questions; that looked bad. They seemed too well satisfied with the thing.