“Can’t you both go over there, get yourselves ten days like I did, make a key for the cell, and go out at night and get the box? You could plant the money and lock yourselves up again. Then when your time is up you can go away and come back for the coin when the thing cools off.”
They looked at me and laughed. An hour later Sanc said to Johnnie:
“Say, there might be something in that, after all. We would have a perfect alibi.”
The bizarre appealed to Sanc.
After some discussion they decided to “look into it.”
CHAPTER X
An apprentice to a mob of yeggs has to do the rough, unskilled work just as if he were learning a trade from any craftsman. I was sent out to get dynamite, caps, and fuse at a railroad construction camp, and returned with them safely. My next job was to go out and buy a number of twist drills. Johnnie hired a horse, bought a couple of blankets and a pair of overalls, and set off to look over the general store. The dynamite and drills were to be left near the store so they would be available in case they decided to “crush” into the jail and beat the box while serving their time.
He returned in a week, very enthusiastic. The box looked good. There were guns and ammunition in the store. The jail was empty. There was a blacksmith shop where other necessary tools could be had, the town was dead at night. He had fitted keys to the padlocks on both the jail cells (all this would have been my work if I had not been known in the town), and had planted his “dan,” caps, and fuse safely near the jail. He had picked out another spot near the jail where the money was to be planted.
Their plan was to buy tickets to the town nearest the one where I was arrested, on the same passenger train, then to get out and on the baggage, where the hostile constable would find them. I was given enough money to supply my wants till the business was over. They secreted the jail keys carefully in their shoes. The cautious Johnnie had also planted in the empty jail files and blank keys to be used in case they lost those they were carrying.
“The only danger is,” said Sanc, “that some other bums may be picked up and thrown into this jail with us.”