The next morning at ten o’clock I followed the payroll aboard the jerkwater train that carried it to the waiting miners. At twelve o’clock I sat on the sidewalk across from the mine office and gloomily watched the paymaster portioning it out to the joyful miners. In the afternoon I rode back to the main line with my mind made up to let the thing go and look elsewhere for something not so tough.
There was a Chinese laundry in the town and I had often thought of going into it for a smoke to kill off the dull hours, and now, both dull and despondent, I made my way to it and into the confidence of the boss Chinaman, who made me welcome. He was hospitable and kindly as all Chinese are who have not become sour and suspicious under the impositions of their white brothers.
A moderate quantity of opium will not inflame or distort the imagination. I do not say it is an aid to clear thinking, but it is a fact that I left the laundry with what I thought, and still think, was nothing less than an inspiration.
The next day I went over the town thoroughly and looked at every “box” in it. There was not one that I couldn’t beat. My “inspiration” told me that if I could put the depot safe out of business a few days before the payroll arrived again, the agent would be forced to lock it in one of the other safes in the town and I might get a chance at it. After traveling the great distance and spending so much time and money, I hated to quit without making a try for this money.
I jumped fifty miles farther east, where I got dynamite and drills, stealing them at a mine, and returned to wait another month before I could do anything more. A week before the payroll was due, I went into the depot one night with a sledge hammer, knocked the combination knob off the “box,” battered the spindle in, and smashed the handle on the door. Adding another touch to the “burglary,” I left a couple of crowbars behind, broke open the till, smashed things generally, and threw cigarette and cigar snipes and pipe scrapings on the floor. When the station man opened up the next morning, his office looked as if it had been raided by a tribe of yeggs that had tried to wreck it when they failed to open the “box.” There was a tremendous hue and cry, and a fruitless man hunt. An inspector of police came, looked at the safe, and declared the job was done by a band of thieves that had been ravaging depots and post offices farther east. The battered safe was shipped to Toronto to be opened and repaired by its makers.
I waited with much anxiety and not a little curiosity to see what would be done with the leather pouch when it arrived at the end of the month.
Two days after the safe and express office were wrecked, a “redcoat,” as the Mounted Police are called, was killed by a drunken Indian. Every idle able-bodied man in town joined the man hunt that lasted ten days, and my “burglary” was forgotten in the new excitement. I kept a careful watch on the depot agent, and saw he was taking the day’s small receipts home with him every night. I looked over his house and prepared to enter it in case he did the same with the payroll instead of leaving it in one of the safes. My most careful check on his residence showed he had no children, no dog, no old people in it. He and his wife were all I would have to contend with.
On the evening the money was due I went over the whole thing carefully and satisfied myself that nothing had been left undone in the way of precaution and protection. Not a glance of suspicion had turned in my direction so far, and I was sure that if I got my hands on the money I could plant it, stand pat, and weather the storm.
At last the train pulled in. A mail sack was thrown out to a small boy, who ran off to the post office with it. The leather pouch was put into the agent’s hands and a few of the “regulars” at the depot followed him to his office. As usual he at once put out the lights, locked the place up, and walked across the street to the post office, surrounded by the depot loungers. The small mail was distributed in five minutes, and he turned toward home with the payroll under his arm, a neighbor on each side of him, and I half a block behind.
His neighbors left him at his front gate, and his wife met him at the front door. I was relieved when the business resolved itself into a house burglary, for forcing safes with explosives is an uphill job for one man and is seldom attempted. The house was new, well built, and small—three rooms downstairs and two above. It was in a large lot with a few small trees and some plants around it. I took up my watch at once, and from the vacant lot adjoining I saw them sit down to dinner. After a half hour at the table, they got up and I could hear them shutting doors, putting windows down, and fastening them. For a minute the house was dark, then a light appeared upstairs, which meant they were going to bed. Another half hour and the upstairs light was doused. I walked away. I had “put them to bed” and could do nothing more till after midnight.