They went over this one by one, Handsome waiting with patience until the last one was over, and then the march was taken up again.
They passed now through the rear of a large yard, and before them loomed a brick building, which Nick figured must be a courthouse; and after a moment they made a half circuit around, and came to a stop between two buildings of brick, one of them being that one already mentioned.
The night was dark now, for the moon had gone down, and there were no street lamps in that village evidently; or, if there were, they were not burned on nights when there was supposed to be a moon.
But there was light enough for Nick to discover that they were close to the main street of the village; he could see the store windows on the opposite side; and it suddenly came to him that the building that was next to them—the second one—was a bank, and that they were about to rob it.
He knew now what was expected of him; and again he determined to see the thing through to the end.
It was not to prevent one robbery that he was engaged; but to prevent many. It was not to apprehend the participants in a minor job like this one promised to be, but to capture the head that directed many such robberies, and so stop them altogether.
And still no word—not even a whisper—was spoken between the men. They worked on in utter silence, as if their plans had been thoroughly conned until they were learned absolutely by heart.
Nor did they pause in the yard next to the bank. There was scarcely a halt there; but they passed to the rear of the building, and followed one another over the high fence that was there, to the rear of the bank building.
Keeping themselves well in the shadows, they crept forward silently to a rear door of the building, and here Handsome paused for a moment, and put down a canvas bag that he had been carrying all the way; and now he whispered in Nick's ear:
"There are the tools, Dago. Let's see what kind of a cracksman you are."