He rode into the mine, dismounted, took the loot to a cross-cut that ran off the long drift and dropped it into a sump hole that was full of water, sliding in on top rock debris. Then he unsaddled the buckskin, tied him, and hurried along the drift and crawled his way through the small tunnel back to jail. There he threw himself on the bunk, and, chuckling, fell into a virtuous sleep.
He was wakened at daybreak by Sergeant Black who said cheerfully, "You're in luck, Bulldog."
"Honored, I should say, if you allude to our association."
The Sergeant groped silently through this, then, evidently missing the sarcasm, added, "The midnight was held up last night at the trestle, and if you'd been outside I guess you'd been pipped as the angel."
"Thanks for your foresight, friend—that is, if you knew it was coming off. Tell me how your friend worked it."
Sergeant Black told what Carney already knew so well, and when he had finished the latter said: "Even if I hadn't this good alibi nobody would say I had anything to do with it, for I distrust man so thoroughly that I never have a companion in any little joke I put over."
"I couldn't do anything in the dark," the Sergeant resumed, in an apologetic way, "so I'm going out to trail the robbers now."
He looked at Carney shiftingly, scratched an ear with a forefinger, and then said: "The express company has wired a reward of a thousand dollars for the robbers, and another thousand for the recovery of the money."
"Go to it, Sergeant," Carney laughed; "get that capital, then go east to Lake Erie and start a bean farm."
Black grinned tolerantly. "If you'll join up, Bulldog, we could run them two down."