Kansas City had nothing of interest for me now, and I left it, never to return. A cheap excursion ticket took me back west to the town of Los Angeles, where I finished the winter, fraternizing with the bums and yeggs from the road, polishing up old acquaintances, and gathering gossip from the four quarters of the underworld.
CHAPTER XX
Spring came. For me that meant moving, and while I was trying to decide where to go I made by chance the acquaintance of a coal miner who had worked in a small mine in one of the middle-west provinces of Canada. In the course of our talks I learned by asking a few casual questions that the mine worked between thirty and forty men; that it was on a short branch road off the Canadian Pacific; that the pay-off was in cash, on or about the first of every month, and that the money was shipped by express from the city of Winnipeg, Manitoba. The fact that the payroll had to be held one night at the point where it was transferred to the branch road into the mine interested me. I knew the place, and that there was little or no police protection. There were four or five thousand dollars that had to lie somewhere in a small town overnight, practically unprotected. The two thousand miles I would have to travel meant nothing. If the thing couldn’t be handled, I would still be in the midst of fertile fields where I could make a living without taking tough chances against wised-up city police and the busy stool pigeon.
Bidding farewell to the bums and yeggs at “Mother Moustache’s” wine dump in “Sonora Town,” where they all hung out and did their drinking, I discarded my gray suit for a pair of overalls, a rough coat, a blue shirt, and a cap, and took to the road for a three-week jump. Through California, across Oregon, and into Spokane, Washington, where I found my bartender friend and recovered my “instruments,” which had been lying unused in the safe. The gun I left with him, as it was cumbersome and useless to me on the road. I could get one when I got nearer my destination.
On through Butte, Great Falls, and to the Canadian line I traveled; on north to Calgary again, but this time I turned eastward and soon arrived at the town where the mine payroll had to be transferred.
I had managed my money carefully during the winter and still had enough to carry me for a few months by economizing. The first thing I did was to take a look at the “box” in the depot, which was the express office as well. I had confidently expected to find a safe of cheap or obsolete make, such as was generally in use then in the smaller towns.
One look at this “box” made me regret that I had ever met the talkative coal miner. It was of the latest make and belonged in a bank instead of an express office in a town of two thousand people. It was as near burglar-proof as any safe could be, and in addition to this it was “chested,” which, in terms of burglary, means it had a steel chest inside—a safe within a safe. I was dismayed. I saw at a glance that it was too much for me. It was the kind of safe that discourages the “heavy man” (safe breaker). He looks it over and says to his mob: “Yes, I can beat her all right,” and explains to them in detail just how it can be done. “But,” he finishes, “it would take three or four shots to get into the guts of her and, you know, the first shot wakes the natives up. If they don’t hear another they don’t know what woke them, and go back to sleep; but when they do hear the second shot they get up to find out what it’s about. Then comes the last one, and they’re on top of you with shotguns and pitchforks. You’ve got to stand them off and dash out. Where? Why, nowhere. There’s no getaway here, and I don’t want the coin bad enough to go against it.”
I knew if they put the payroll in that “box” it would be as safe from me as if it was in the bank at Winnipeg. I couldn’t have opened it if I had it in the town blacksmith shop for twenty-four hours. Discouraging as the business looked, I decided to stay in the place and have a look at the money when it arrived.
I got a room at the hotel, hung my coat up on a rack, and went about in my shirt sleeves trying to appear like a miner or ranch hand and attract no attention. Every night at nine o’clock, when the train came in from the east, I was on the depot platform with the town loungers and did as much staring around as any of them. At last the end of the month came, and with it the payroll. This night the station agent, who was telegraph operator, express agent, and everything else about the depot, was a bit more alert, walking around with an air of importance, responsibility. When the train pulled in, he was at the door of the express car, and, sure enough, out came the payroll in a small leather container, about the size of a woman’s hand bag.
When the train departed, the agent, with a firm grip on the leather pouch, returned to his office escorted by the depot loungers. The payroll was locked securely in the inner compartment of the big safe, and then the heavy outer door closed upon it, shutting out any hopes I had of getting my hands on it that night. I went off to bed sad and thoughtful.