“Go ahead,” I said, “until you are stopped with the air signal.”
He pulled the train out without a word, and when he got the air signal he stopped.
Here Mooney left White in the car with the clerk and got down on the ground in order to keep watch for any one who might be coming. I learned afterwards precisely what happened in that car. The clerk made some objections and Mooney spoke to him from the darkness before the open door:
“Friend,” he said, “you are steppin’ on a trigger.”
It was the end of every form of hesitation.
The man pointed out the mail sacks at once. White cut the straps and dumped the contents on the floor. He found a lot of securely sealed packages which he knew from experience contained money. Tearing open the corners of a few of them he discovered that they were bank notes. He spoke to Mooney who now came up to the door of the car.
White was amazed; he realized that they had found the long-looked-for big haul.
They selected one of the light mail sacks and put the packages into it. Mooney then came forward to the engine. White sent the mail clerk back down the track. Mooney now took charge of the engineer.
He made him pull down the track for perhaps half a mile, then he stopped and put him off. He ran the engine, himself, for perhaps a mile farther, then stopped again. White and I got out of the train and Mooney gave the engine just enough steam at the throttle so that it would move off slowly and stop a mile or so farther on, then he swung down on the ground and joined us. He did not open the throttle of the engine for he knew that on the twisting road through the mountain the train might go off the track on the sharp curves.
It was his policy never to do unnecessary damage. He did not wish to wreck the train or cause the possible wreck of any other train traveling in the night.